Education
Teaching Activities
Bachelor Biology
1st Semester
Exercises in the module „The Cell“ and “Plant Kingdom”
These exercises address fundamental principles of plant cell and tissue anatomy and morphology. Students are also trained in preparation and microscopy of plant materials.
2nd Semester
Module “Plant Physiology”
Although up to 250 participants, in this course small groups of 3-4 students together with one student assistant perform easy and descriptive experiments to acquire knowledge of basic plant physiology. In addition the students are introduced into principles of scientific report writing.
4th Semester
Module „Advanced Life Sciences: Molecular Plant Physiology for Advanced Students”. Practical course in small groups. In our part (1 week) students learn basic techniques in molecular biology (mutant screen, expression analysis). Using 1-2 scientific publications the participants will be introduced into the the methods and the examined individual genes. In addition the trainees will be guided to prepare and deliver a short scientific talk.
5th / 6th Semester
Modules “Specific Life Sciences 2 and 3 (SB2,3), Bachelor Thesis: From now on single students will join our current research and might work on one project up to the Bachelor Thesis. At the beginning they will be constantly superwised by a scientific mentor. The scientific report will first focus on methods and experimental setups (SB2), later on a more precise introduction (SB3). The thesis should finally prove the candidates ability to document experiments and to discuss the results critically. By these continuously increasing demands the students will be step by step led to the Bachelor Thesis.
Master program
Focus area 3
Lecture series
Our research group offers courses in the master program biology, focus area 3. These courses are organized by the departments; botany I, botany II and pharmaceutical biology.
Lecture focus area 3 (Current Methods in Biology)
In 9 lessons at the beginning of the lecture we teach basic, partially plant specific molecular biological techniques.
Molecular-, Cell- and Developmental biology, F1 and F2
Practical courses in the master program “biophysics of plant membrane proteins” will be linked to our current research projects. Based on these projects, the research topic of the practical course will be chosen and a working hypothesis will be postulated. Emphasis will be given to the scientific approach the experimental methodology, used in the experimental approach. The experiments will be conducted in our laboratories supervised by the group leader and PhD-students. The extended F2 course can be used to elaborate the experimental work of the F1 project and the results normally will be used as the basis of the master thesis. In contrast to the bachelor students, we expect from the master students a higher degree of autonomy with respect to experimental and literature work.
Possible topics for advanced Bachelor-/Master-courses
Stomatal regulation under stress, molecular analyses of sensoric signal pathways and regulation of signal transduction in guard cells of Arabidopsis and barley, heat-, drought- and salt-tolerance of the date palm, salt tolerance of quinoa (salt bladder physiology).
