Medicine and Surgery

Evolutionary Genetics - Population genetics and Hardy & Weinberg equilibrium - Agents of evolution: fitness and natural selection, genetic drift - Genetic polymorphisms within species - Molecular evolution Molecular genetics - Recombinant DNA technology. Restriction endonucleases and plasmids. Bacterial transformation. - Genomic and cDNA libraries. Contigs, DNA sequencing. - Nucleic acid hybridyzation and analysis of gene expression - Diagnostic use of molecular probes. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), Real time PCR - Polymorphic genetic markers. Association studies with diseases. DNA profiling and applications in forensic medicine. - Brief notes on gene therapy. Main techniques for in vivo and ex vivo gene transfer, viral and non viral vectors.

Recommended textbooks: - Genetica. Un approccio molecolare - VI edizione (2024) - Russel PJ - Pearson - Genetica. Principi di analisi formale - VIII edizione (2021) - Griffiths et al. – Zanichelli Additional texts or scientific articles for further reading will be agreed with the teachers during the course