Splash Biography

In the lifetime of a multicellular organism, such as a human, millions of their cells will die in a coordinated manner. All of this cell death is a natural part of development and disease prevention. How do these cells decide to die and how does death occur? We will discuss the process of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, that occurs in development and can happen (or fail to happen) in many diseases.

What is cancer? What happens in the body when cancer starts and spreads? What causes cancer? How can we treat it? What would it take to cure this disease? We'll discuss all of these questions through a whirlwind lesson on genetics, cell biology, evolution, medical research, and more! Be ready to participate and bring any questions you have on cancer and scientific research.

Enjoy reading and discussing poems? We will take it easy, eat some snacks, and talk about poems. Feel free to bring a short poem that you want to share, but please keep it PG-13.

Does DNA determine exactly how a living organism will look or behave? How do all the many cells in the human body function differently despite having the same DNA? Discover how non-genetic factors in our cells lead to a diversity of cell states, allowing us to function as complex, multicellular organisms, but also causing serious problems such as cancer when these factors go awry. This class is a basic introduction to epigenetics. If you are already familiar with histone modifications, etc. then this may not be the class for you.