Molecular Biology - Part 1: DNA Replication and Repair

The quality course is really amazing, especially the animations, that help to understand concepts that could be quite hard to grasp any other way. Even though I'm rather familiar with the subject, the course is designed so the information flows in a way that makes interesting and the expertise and teaching experience of Prof. Bell clearly show. I also think the Cerego quizzes are a great help to ease the burden of memorizing complex names and concepts for first time learners. The only thing that bummed me out a little bit is that I understand that the unit quizzes for auditors are only available for the first three units and I think this might discourage learners from finishing the course for the lack of formative evaluation (the test yourself are rather simple if you understood the previous lecture fragment). I understand that this is a free course, but given the fact that, as I understand it, Verified Track Learners also have a final test and earn a certificate, maybe the possibility of making all Unit Quizzes available for all learners should be taken into consideration. Great course nevertheless.

I have just finished the last quiz of this course and I must admit I really enjoyed taking this course!

The animations were absolutely amazing. They really helped me understand the abstract concepts more easily.

The weekly quizzes were a lot of fun to complete; I actually felt that I work in a research lab with Zoe, Brian, and Rajeev. This gave me an insight of how is it to be part of a research team that has to collaborate to solve different problems.

I wish the course had some videos presenting how the assays are done practically. I liked that it was focused on how to interpret the data obtained after conducting the assays, but I think that it would've been useful to see how the assays are actually done.

Overall, I can't wait to enroll for the second and third part of this course!

I finished it today and it was a great experience and definitely worth the 100 dollars!
Prof. Bell explains really well and is in general just a likable person.
The course is constructed after weekly assignments, where you basically learn the whole week and then do a quiz/test at the end of the week. The learning part is structured, so that you have a small (3-10 mins) part of the lecture on one topic followed by questions about that part and thus you gradually work yourselves through the lectures, while already answering questions about the material. Another great thing is that this course uses Cerego to help you memorize important assays, which is a fun and quick way of learning stuff like that. I also like the fact that the quizzes are always bringing in new content, making you work and use the knowledge of the lectures instead of just recalling facts.
Conclusion: Great Course!
kind regards,
Jonathan

This class takes what you learned about DNA replication before to the next level. I am reviewing this after the third week of the class and I want to give you an idea of what the first week was like. The next two weeks are structurally similar, but with different topics.

Week 1: DNA structure, major and minor grooves, an understanding of what is in those grooves and how that affects what binds to DNA and how. A much deeper understanding of DNA polymerase, what drives its reactions and its structure as well as the Primer Template Junction. The patterns of the major and minor grooves and why they matter. Also covered are proofreading exonucleases. To drive matters home, we also learn in fair detail about how to assay polymerase, including the Incorporation Assay (using both filter binding and electrophoresis) and the primer extension assay. We also learned how to measure DNA polymerase processivity. That's week 1.

Each week incorporates questions to assist learning, and a graded exam that is far from easy but is also part of the learning experience. It also includes something called "Cerego" to help memorizing terms and concepts. But don't think you can pass the tests by memorizing stuff -- you really have to understand the material. The tests are very realistic in the scenarios they present and there's no way on earth you can cheat on them.

The classes are well presented and complete, but I have found that doing some additional research on the topics is helpful including looking up some studies on the Internet and going through the related sections in Watson's "molecular biology of the gene." This is NOT a requirement of the class, but I have found it helpful.

So far, at the end of the third week, I have to say this is a very challenging class, but it is not challenging merely to be a pain -- it is genuinely imparting deeper knowledge that is topical and relevant.

I am really enjoying this class and I recommend it highly for people interested in the topic. DO at least have a BIO101 and maybe even an intro genetics class under your belt beforehand though.

To put my review into context:
I hold a MSc in Agricultural sciences, working in (molecular) plant breeding.
That means: I am familiar with genetics and replication, mitosis, meiosis.

This course is of interest for me because I wanted to get behind the molecular mechanisms of all the lab-techniques I use like PCR / Sequencing to possibly improve the assays I develop or to adopt assays.

The course requires quite some attention but it is totally worth it!
It gives so much understanding on how the molecular machinery works in concert and everything is backed-up with experiments. Sometimes WAY to detailed (for me) but overall a great course.

I especially like the explanatory videos.

Really well done!

This is a very good course. I withheld a star because I feel certain subjects need to be clarified more as they are explained, especially the assays. The devil is in the details when it comes to assays and every assumption needs to be made clear. Animations would be quite helpful to detail the steps in Assays. As with many online courses, quiz questions sometimes seem too vaguely described and seem to incorporate assumptions in the mind of the question designer that are not explicit and leave too much ambiguity. Some questions are very well formulated. The lecturer is great, holds your attention. I am not a fan of subjective questions, where you speculate on what might be "best", etc; they seem unfair and can depend heavily on experience outside the course. I think the course does give a good overview of the subject. Because biology has such depth, I found I had to spend a lot of time transcribing almost word for word many of the lectures to capture the requisite information to understand the material. That takes a long time, more than comfortable . So far I feel the replication origin assays the most confusing, where I need more discussions and detail to really picture how the data results from the experiments.

This is a top quality course. I just finished the last quiz of the last unit. It was intense but very very interesting. The staff, community members, and all other students are very responsive, respectful, and interested in what they learn. Prof. Steve Bell and Prof. Tania Baker (last unit) are professionals and committed in a top quality teaching. The material is fascinating. The quizzes are themselves are very educative and lead you to additional discoveries you did not learn directly in the videos of the lectures. Do not count to advance this course superficially. It requires lot of attention. I have some scientific background, but I am not a biologist and have no experience in lab, so for a biology student the course should be slightly easier (but only slightly). If you do not have a background in biology, you still can follow this course, but you absolutely need to take introductory biology and biochemistry course before. There are lot of extraordinary assays, and I loved learning them, and never ceased to be amazed how incredibly the secret processes of the enzymes are discovered and revealed by very simple but ingenious ideas. Quite proud to have completed this course. I recommend it!