Academic

The academic committee provides an opportunity for graduate students to learn and practice skills required for a future career in academia. This includes an FAES course on laboratory techniques taught by graduate students as well as an informal course on teaching and learning for graduate students. Please contact the co-chairs at GSCcochair@od.nih.gov if you wish to teach.

FAES Laboratory Techniques Class - Every fall, the NIH Graduate Student Council organizes and teaches a course for post-bacs through FAES called, "Molecular Approaches to Studying Disease." Each lecture is taught by a graduate student and focuses on various techniques and their application to studying disease.  This course gives postbacs an opportunity to expand their knowledge of molecular biology and graduate students an opportunity to participate in designing and teaching a lecture. Some topics include nucleic acid biology, RNAi, protein biology, biophysical analysis, microarrays and sequencing, microscopy, cell culture, bacterial cloning, and immunohistochemistry. This lecture discussion based course is designed to help students gain an appreciation of techniques including molecular, cellular, biochemical, transgenic animal models, and imaging techniques. Students will learn a historical perspective of technique development, discuss applications and explore recent advances using these specific approaches. Diseases that will be addressed include both monogenic and polygenic diseases of complex origin. For more information, contact GSClabtechcourse@od.nih.gov.