Tips and ideas for the teaching of Microbial Genetics in the post-genome era

Abstract:

In this article, I share my teaching experiences, and explore ideas on teaching Microbial Genetics in the post-genome era. To increase student interest in this course, I propose the use of story-telling and visualization as two teaching strategies. In addition, to help students better understand post-genomic approaches, I suggest integration of traditional genetics and related post-genomics (examples of integration include traditional forward genetics and fast forward genetics, phenotypic analysis of single-gene deletion and genome-wide deletion mutant analysis, and traditional genetic interactions and genome-wide genetic interactions). Also, introducing online bioinformatics resources extends the classroom teaching, and improves teaching quality.