MCD BIO 144
Molecular Biology of Cellular Processes and Experimental Applications of Theory
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: Life Sciences 3, 4, 23L. Not open for credit to students with credit for Chemistry 153B. Development of thorough understanding of fundamentals of modern molecular biology both from perspective of known molecular mechanisms for regulating fundamental processes in cells and from theoretical applied perspective for using molecular biology as laboratory tool. Special emphasis on molecular mechanisms that relate to chromatin and histone modifications, DNA replication and repair, transposition, microRNAs, meiosis, and splicing. Application of molecular biology as tool to understand embryonic development, reprogramming, cancer, and stem cells. Development of sophisticated understanding of DNA, RNA, and protein as well as capability of designing experiments to address fundamental questions in biology and interpreting experimental data. Letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Be prepared for this class. Genuinely your TA is your best friend in this class as well as making friends and studying together. Professor Nagano unfortunately did not help much in this course and at the end of the quarter unfairly curved only the A- students and nobody else. The lectures were just cahoot quizzes, His online lectures you were assumed to watch them and learn from them? like multiple 45-1 hour online lectured weekly in which you cant understand him half the time even when using the transcribing tool. The quizzes aren't too bad but the material tested on for the midterms and final exam many times contained material that was never directly taught from the course and was supposed to be second hand knowledge from what you "deduced" from the material from the lecture videos. To be honest overall from this course I wouldn't want to take professor Nakano again but if you do, befriend your TA and make sure to bug them and the professor about material you might not understand. Also exams contain many mistakes purposely and are meant to confuse students.
Winter 2023 - Be prepared for this class. Genuinely your TA is your best friend in this class as well as making friends and studying together. Professor Nagano unfortunately did not help much in this course and at the end of the quarter unfairly curved only the A- students and nobody else. The lectures were just cahoot quizzes, His online lectures you were assumed to watch them and learn from them? like multiple 45-1 hour online lectured weekly in which you cant understand him half the time even when using the transcribing tool. The quizzes aren't too bad but the material tested on for the midterms and final exam many times contained material that was never directly taught from the course and was supposed to be second hand knowledge from what you "deduced" from the material from the lecture videos. To be honest overall from this course I wouldn't want to take professor Nakano again but if you do, befriend your TA and make sure to bug them and the professor about material you might not understand. Also exams contain many mistakes purposely and are meant to confuse students.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - This is one of the hardest mcdb classes you need to take. Prof Rigeur wasn't that great tbh. She would read off the notes in her slides and she wouldn't upload her notes at all, so the slides were pretty much useless. Nikki was my TA and she was pretty terrible, vey disorganized. The weekly quizzes were okay, not too terrible. The class was mostly just a mess after the midterm exam. The midterm was hard to understand and we were in a timecrunch to finish it within the time limit. So, the TAs and prof rigeur had the brilliant idea to make the final open for 3 days. EXCEPT THE FINAL TOOK ALL 3 DAYS to complete. it was long, questions were worded terribly, and overall just unnecessarily long. It was so long that they didn't end up grading it properly and I think they gave everyone an A on it (not complaining abt that, but why make us do something if you won't even grade it????). The weekly homeworks sucked, and Nikki was such an uneccesarily harsh grader for all the small things. Prof rigeur did give some generous extra credit, like adding 4-5% to your midterm grade as long as you fill out a survey. That was pretty much the only nice thing about this class. Overall, this class sucks. You need to take it though for the major, so you might as well suck it up and prepare to get punched in the gut for 10 weeks straight if you are taking this class with rigeur.
Spring 2023 - This is one of the hardest mcdb classes you need to take. Prof Rigeur wasn't that great tbh. She would read off the notes in her slides and she wouldn't upload her notes at all, so the slides were pretty much useless. Nikki was my TA and she was pretty terrible, vey disorganized. The weekly quizzes were okay, not too terrible. The class was mostly just a mess after the midterm exam. The midterm was hard to understand and we were in a timecrunch to finish it within the time limit. So, the TAs and prof rigeur had the brilliant idea to make the final open for 3 days. EXCEPT THE FINAL TOOK ALL 3 DAYS to complete. it was long, questions were worded terribly, and overall just unnecessarily long. It was so long that they didn't end up grading it properly and I think they gave everyone an A on it (not complaining abt that, but why make us do something if you won't even grade it????). The weekly homeworks sucked, and Nikki was such an uneccesarily harsh grader for all the small things. Prof rigeur did give some generous extra credit, like adding 4-5% to your midterm grade as long as you fill out a survey. That was pretty much the only nice thing about this class. Overall, this class sucks. You need to take it though for the major, so you might as well suck it up and prepare to get punched in the gut for 10 weeks straight if you are taking this class with rigeur.