Homework

Week 1 HW: Principles and Practices
Question 1: A biologically engineered application that I find particularly compelling is the development of gene editing tools for biodiversity conservation. Given the rapid global decline of many species driven by human activity, emerging infectious diseases, and climate change, preserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem stability has become an urgent scientific and societal challenge. One promising application of genetic engineering in this context is the germline editing of amphibian genomes to combat the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which has caused widespread population declines and driven numerous frog and toad species toward extinction.
Week 2 HW: DNA Read, Write, Edit
Week 2 Pre-Lecure Homework: Homework Questions from Professor Jacobson: Nature’s machinery for copying DNA is called polymerase. What is the error rate of polymerase? How does this compare to the length of the human genome. How does biology deal with that discrepancy? DNA polymerase makes about 1 error per 10⁴ bases during replication. Since the human genome is about 3 billion base pairs, this would result in roughly 300,000 errors per replication if left uncorrected. Biology handles this through proofreading and DNA repair systems, which dramatically reduce the final number of mistakes.