Biology / Living Systems

The objectives of the module is to teach a series of biology essentials to non-biology (engineering) students. One of the purposes is to make some concepts and vocabulary of biology available to the participants, so that communication with and on biological projects would be greatly facilitated. Also, participants should be able to complete some general biology chapters by their own. The concepts targeted are those of the diversity of living (in the three domains of living: bacteria, archea —microbial or non-nucleated cells— and eukaryotes —with nucleus-bearing cells—), the reality of proteins and protein evolution, protein structure, organism genomes and genomics, basic biotechnology, and that of micro-organisms pathogeny towards other levels of livings (plants, insects, mammals).

A- Archaea

1. Early life evolution i. pre-biotic chemistry and autoreplication ii. Appearance of cellular life iii. LUCA and eukaryote formation
2. Extremophily
3. Lipids and archeal (vs bacterial) membranes. What is a membrane and what is it for

B- Procaryotes

1. Bacteria
2. Génomics of procaryotes
3. Photosynthesis
4. The advent of plants, photosynthesis

C- Eucaryotes

1. Organismal ecology. Biomass, elemental cycles, Biomes and interactions
2. Taxonomy and Phylogeny of the living. Biodiversity. Examples: Insects; Birds
3. Interaction biology (organism-centered)
4. Predation and Parasistism
5. Symbioses (Host-centered).
6. Darwin vs Newton: Skeletons. “a-skeletted” , Exoskeletons, Endoskeletons
7. Living chemistry: Enzymes, from genomes to functions
8. Genomics of eukaryotes