Subject to some change during the course of the semester. Under certain circumstances, the instructor may have to alter course requirements, assignment deadlines, and grading procedures; and the university may have to alter the semester calendar.
| Meetings: | MWF 10:30am-12:40pm, Online Zoom |
| Recitations | MWF 9-9:50am, Online Zoom |
| Credits | 3 |
| Optional text | Genetics: From Genes to Genomes, 8th Edition, ISBN 978-1-266-11559-2 |
| Instructor: | Michael Osier |
| Office: | Online |
| Schedule | |
| Contact: | mvoscl@rit.edu |
Students are expected to read this entire syllabus and understand it before the first day of class. If you have any questions about the expectations, please email them to the instructor before the first class session. You can find the instructor's email address in our myCourses shell under Classlist.
For this course, you will see that some sessions, or portions of sessions, will require attendance on Zoom at a scheduled time. These sessions in the table below will be colored green or grey.
Other sessions, in blue, red, or yellow, will require outside activity to be done on your own, sometimes at the scheduled time. Instructions for these sessions will be posted and/or emailed in advance.
For red exam times, a Zoom session will be available to ask questions. I recommend joining that Zoom at the start of the exam time in case there are any announcements, such as clarifications.
In this course, I will be your guide. What you learn from this course depends on the effort that you put in. In addition to our in person sessions, there will be many opportunities to ask questions such as email, office hours, class time, and online discussions. Please take advantage of those opportunities.
| Green | Zoom lecture - attendance required |
| Yellow | Online self-directed activity |
| Gray | Zoom recitation - attendance required |
| Blue | Online quiz at scheduled time - 10 minutes |
| Red | Online exam at scheduled time |
| Black | No class |
Monday morning |
Monday |
Wednesday morning |
Wednesday |
Friday morning |
Friday |
|||||||
| 9-9:50am | 10:30am-10:40am | 10:40am-12:40pm | 9-9:50am | 10:30am-10:40am | 10:40am-12:40pm | 9-9:50am | 10:30am-10:40am | 10:40am-12:40pm | ||||
| Week 1 - May 11th | No class | Welcome and open questions | Introduction; Why study genetics?; Phenotypic Variation; Mendel and Darwin (Chapters 1.1-1.2, 2) | Activity: NIH Genetic Testing Registry | Quiz 1 | Genome structures; Organization of the Chromosome; Mitosis and Meiosis; Mutation and Repair; Eukaryotic gene structure; Polymorphism (Chapters 3, 6.3-4, 13, 7, 12.1) | CoT in the Act by Dr. Rothman | |||||
| Week 2 - May 18th | Quiz 2 | Model organisms; Sex-linked inheritance; Sex determination and the Lyons hypothesis; (Chapter 4) | Activity: sex-linked Drosophila phenotypes | Quiz 3 | Trancription, splicing, and translation (Chapter 9.1) | Exam review session | Exam 1 | |||||
| Week 3 - May 25th | No class - Holiday | Exam 1 debriefing | Prokaryotic gene expression (Chapter 18) | Quiz 4 | Mapping prokaryotic genes (Chapter 16.3-16.4) | Prokaryotic mapping problems | ||||||
| Week 4 - June 1st | Quiz 5 | Eukaryotic gene expression (Chapter 19) | Independent assortment (Chapter 1, p. 141 Tools of Genetics) | Quiz 6 | Independent assortment (Chapter 1, p. 141 Tools of Genetics) | Recombination; tetrad analysis (Chapter 5.1, 5.2, 5.5) | Independent assortment practice | Quiz 7 | Linkage (Chapter 5.3) | |||
| Week 5 - June 8th | Exam review session | Exam 2 | Activity: finding double-recombinants | Segregration analysis; Eukaryotic gene mapping; Karyotype analysis; Quantitative genetics (Chapters 1.3, pp. 380-381 Tools of Genetics, 5.3, 25.1) | Mapping problem packet | Quiz 8 | Introduction to Population Genetics: Random mating, non-random mating, and HWE; (Chapters 24.1, 24.2 through p. 740) | Activity: Forensics and HWE | ||||
| Week 6 - June 15th | Quiz 9 | Random Genetic Drift; HWE and Selection (Chapters p. 739, 14.2) | Exam review session | Exam 3 | No class - Holiday | |||||||
| Week 7 - June 22nd | HWE Selection activity | Complementation (pp 236-237); Pleiotropy and Penetrance and Phenocopies, oh my! (Chapter 2.1-2.2) | Quiz 10 | Review session | Final Exam | |||||||
Bonus points are available for homework assignments.
| Quizzes (4 points each x 10) | 40 pts |
| Lecture questions and attendance | 24 |
| Exam 1 | 28 |
| Exam 2 | 36 |
| Exam 3 | 36 |
| Final Exam | 36 |
| Total | 200 pts |
|---|
If your final exam grade is higher than your average for the first two exams, your final exam grade will replace
your lowest grade in Exams 1 and 2. So if you earn 90% on your final, and your average was 83%, and your lowest grade
was a 70%, the 90% will replace the 70%, plus you get a 90% on the final.
| A | [190-200] |
| A- | [180-190) |
| B+ | [173.4-180) |
| B | [166.7-173.4) |
| B- | [160-166.7) |
| C+ | [153.4-160) |
| C | [146.7-153.4) |
| C- | [140-146.7) |
| D | [120-140) |
| F | <120 |
Each day of lecture (green above, excluding the catchup day) will include a Q&A session. As part of your participation points, you must submit at least three questions about the readings and/or slides from the previous lecture section to the appropriate Assignment box before midnight the night before the next session. So the first questions are due on Friday of Week 1 and would be regarding the lecture Week 1 on Wednesday. You must also attend all noted sessions (green and grey) via Zoom, stay for the period, and answer all Zoom polls.
You must post the Q&A questions for at least eight class sessions in green. There are plenty of opportunities to earn this credit, but also some breaks in the schedule to allow you flexibility. I strongly suggest earning the credit as quickly as possible, in case an emergency comes up later in the course. The questions will not be accepted late, as there are many opportunities to get them in.
For periods with yellow outside activities, the activities are required as part of your participation grade.
The below homework questions are not required, but may be reflective of some questions on quizzes and exams. With the exception of dates without assigned problems, for every completed homework assignment submitted to the appropriate Assignment box on myCourses, in handwriting, and scanned in before the due date at the start of class in the below table, students will earn 1 bonus point toward their final grade. No late submissions, no matter how late, will be accepted for bonus points. Correct answers are not required...just an honest effort. If you have questions about a specific problem, please stop into office hours to discuss.
All numbers below are Problems problems from the optional textbook from the end of the corresponding chapter. "2.1" corresponds to Chapter 2, first Problems problem. All odd numbered problems have answers in the back of the text. Problems from outside the textbook are also sometimes indicated.
| Week | Day Assigned | Day Due | Assignment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wednesday | Week 1 Friday | 1.1, 1.5, 1.23, 1.29, 1.33; Search OMIM for a disease of interest to you...in no more than one-half page, single-spaced, describe what is known about the genetics of this human trait. |
| Friday | Week 2 Monday | 7.1, 7.11, 7.21, 12.1, 12.5, 12.9 | |
| 2 | Monday | Week 2 Wednesday | 4.1, 4.7, 4.15, 4.17, 4.21, 4.25, 4.31, 9.1, 9.3, 9.7 |
| Wednesday | Week 2 Friday | None | |
| 3 | Wednesday | Week 3 Friday | None |
| Friday | Week 4 Monday | 18.1, 18.3, 18.17, 16.12, 16.17, 16.23, 19.3, 19.7, 19.19 | |
| 4 | Wednesday | Week 4 Friday | 1.15, 1.17, 1.19, 1.41 |
| Friday | Week 5 Monday | Exam review packet | |
| 5 | Wednesday | Week 5 Friday | 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 2.21, 4.20 a & b, 5.12 1.35, 1.37, 1.39, 1.41, 5.21, 5.27a-b, 25.1, 25.5, 25.7 |
| Friday | Week 6 Monday | 24.5, 24.7, 24.9, 24.13 | |
| 6 | Monday | Week 6 Wednesday | Exam review packet |
| 7 | Monday | Week 7 Wednesday | 2.1, 2.9, 2.19, 2.25, 2.35, 2.39 |
| Wednesday | Start of final exam | Due before the final: Exam review packet |
On days with quizzes, the recitation section will be used. You must complete the quiz within the 50 minute block and upload any work to the appropriate Assignment Box before 10am. An optional Zoom session will be available in the Office Hour Zoom room for any questions not related to the current quiz.
On exam days, an optional Zoom session will be available during the exam time in the Office Hour Zoom room.
If more than one person needs a makeup for a specific quiz/exam, everyone will take the makeup on a single day/time. If possible, please email the instructor as soon as possible before the quiz/exam, or as soon as possible after.
Supporting information
Contents last updated 4/26/26