Courses offered by the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics are listed below. For course descriptions and a complete, up-to-date listing of the courses currently offered, please visit the MSU Course Catalog. For graduate seminars, see the section below the course list. For the number of credits you need per semester go to the FAQ page.

MMG 801: Integrative Microbial Biology
MMG 803: Topics in Integrative Microbial Biology
MMG 813: Molecular Virology
MMG 825: Cell Structure and Function
MMG 833: Microbial Genetics
MMG 835: Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics
MMG 840: Advanced Food Microbiology
MMG 851: Immunology
MMG 855: Molecular Evolution: Principles and Techniques
MMG 861: Advanced Microbial Pathogenesis
MMG 890: Special Problems in Microbiology
MMG 892: Seminar
MMG 899: Master's Thesis Research
MMG 991: Topics in Microbiology
MMG 999: Doctoral Dissertation Research

Other relevant courses in other departments.

GRADUATE SEMINARS

Fall 2009

MMG 803, 2 credits, (½  lec and ½ student presentations), Prof. Claire Vieille, aspects of "Microbial Products" Room and time tba. This seminar series will explore the diversity of microbial products, their applications, and their advantages, as well as the strategies used for product discovery and for increased production. Likely topics will include biofuels, enzymes, organic acids, pesticides, polysaccharides, a variety of nutrients, and chemotherapeutic agents. Grades will be based on participation and presentations.

MMG 890 (sec 401), 1 cr, Jay Lennon (MMG), Chris Klausmeier (PLB) and Elena Litchman (ZOL), (This does NOT count as an MMG seminar class)
Graduate seminar on Advances in Microbial Community Ecology and Biogeography, at the Kellogg Biological Station (Fridays at 9:30 am) as part of the series Advances in Microbial Community Ecology and Biogeography. Students will read and discuss papers on microbial diversity, biogeography, plant- or animal-microbial interactions and global change effects on microbes.  Microbes are broadly defined and include terrestrial and aquatic archaea, bacteria, protists, viruses and fungi.This seminar will cover recent topics in microbial ecology, evolution and biogeography.

Spring 2010

CMB 800 (section 001) or GEN 800 (section 001), 1 credit, Prof. Brad Day , "Microbial Effectors in Pathogenesis".  Wed. 1:30-2:30 PM, CIPS Conference Room.  This seminar course will focus on the function of microbial effector proteins and their role in pathogenesis in plants, animals and insects.  Emphasis will be placed on the development of a better understanding of the genetic and biochemical processes related to pathogenesis, and more importantly, how pathogens elude host defense responses.  Current research papers from journals such as Cell, PNAS, Science, Nature, Molecular Microbiology, EMBO and MPMI will be selected by the students during the first meeting to present during the course. The student is expected to engage the audience in discussion, and grading will be based on presentation style and participation in discussions.

CSE 891 (section 003), 3 credits, Prof. Titus Brown, "Open Problems in Bioinformatics", Tu/Th 12:40 PM - 2:00 PM, 1300 Engineering. This course will introduce biologists to computational considerations, and computational scientists to biological considerations, in the context of modern biological "grand challenges". Likely topics include genome-scale annotation, comparative and regulatory genomics, metagenomics, large-scale analysis of experimental data, phylogeny, gene and protein interaction networks, and machine learning techniques. Additional potential topics include genome-scale alignments; RNAi/ncRNA; gene finding; assembly issues; whole-genome phylogenetics; protein structure; databases, data integration, and data warehousing. The intention is to cross-fertilize interests and expertise, as well as expose students to considerations in large-scale data analysis and scientific inference. The course will be graded on reading, attendance, participation, and presentation.   One 80 minute lecture, 2 x 40 minute student presentations each week.

MMG 803, 2 credits (½  lec and ½ student presentations), Prof. Todd Ciche, "Microbial Symbiosis".  Room and time tba. Microbes dont usually live in isolation, but are symbiotic with other micro- or macrorganisms. However, we know very little about most symbiotic interactions, as evidenced by the observation of a milkyor bioluminescent sea from space (Miller et al., PNAS 102:14181), which Nealson and Hastings (AEM 72:2295) speculate is the result of microbe-algal symbioses. Diverse symbiotic associations will be discussed to illustrate how microbial symbioses function, develop, and evolve.