| Department of Agriculture and Ecology
75 % Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology 25 % | |||||||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | BSc. 2 year to MSc. 2 year | ||||||||||||||||
| Duration | One block | ||||||||||||||||
| Credits | 7.5 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||||||
| Course Level | Joint BSc and MSc | ||||||||||||||||
| Examination | Final Examination oral examination All aids allowed Description of Examination: Oral presentations on one of 6 topics within the pensum. Topics are given out 2-3 weeks before the exam. Presentations are prepared for all topics and the one to present is decided by lottery at the exam. Duration 15 minutes for presentation followed by 15 minutes questionning. Questions could concern anything in the pensum but will be mostly related to the presentation. 7-point scale, internal examiner | ||||||||||||||||
| Requirement For Attending Exam | Submission of at least 75% of case and lab reports. | ||||||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | |||||||||||||||||
| Block Placement | Block 2 Week Structure: B | ||||||||||||||||
| Teaching Language | English | ||||||||||||||||
| Course Contents | |||||||||||||||||
| In the theoretical part fungal biology will be covered including a presentation of main classes of fungi with an emphasis on microfungi. Lectures will be given on cell and mycelium biology, growth, differentiation, nutrition, metabolism, fungal products, life cycles, fungal genetics, transformation and reporter strains, spore production and industrial applications. Biogeochemical aspects of fungal activities will be covered and their associations with other organisms, plants as mycorrhiza, rumen fungi and lichens. Pathogenicity factors, toxins, hydrolytic enzymes and cellular processes such as autophagy will be treated in relation to development of disease resistant plants. Finally fungal nutrition in relation to N/C content and the fight for iron in the environment and during pathogenicity will be discussed. This part comprises of 40 % of the course. Another 40 % of the course will be theoretical excercises and PBL. The remaining 20 % of the course will be practicals/demonstrations and a study visit. | |||||||||||||||||
| Teaching And Learning Methods | |||||||||||||||||
| A considerable part of the course will be comprised of lectures and theoretical exercises. The theoretical exercises, aim, to illustrate what has been presented and discussed during the lectures. These exercises will be of varying character including information searches, use of growth models or problem solving. The theoretical exercises are intended to be completed during the scheduled time each day. During the course there will also be a limited number of practicals/demonstrations as well as a one day study visit to a biotech company using fungi. | |||||||||||||||||
| Learning Outcome | |||||||||||||||||
| After completing the course the student should be able to: Knowledge: -Display overview of fungal physiology and nutrition. -Display overview of fungal genetics, genomics and expression profiling in filamentous fungi. -Describe how fungal biosynthetic pathways may be resolved. -Describe autophagy in fungi. -Display overview of fungal pathogenicity factors, toxins, and hydrolytic enzymes -Describe how you develop fungal reporter strains for gene expression studies. -Describe how reporter strains can be used to study fungal infection processes. -Describe the major groups of fungi. -Describe the relationship between hyphae, septa, anastomoses and mycelia. -Describe different modes of fungal spore formation and dispersal. -Display overview of fungal interactions with plants and animals -Describe the life cycle of main fungal groups -Reflect about what is the fungal individual. Skills: -Carry out basic biological experiments with fungi. -Carry out basic genetic analysis of fungi -Understand the experimental techniques which are applied in functional genomics. -Understand the use of fungi in bioremediation and sustainable agriculture -Prepare short oral presentations on a given topic. -Extraction of information from original articles in relation to a given research problem. Competences: - Evaluate the potential of fungi in industrial ventures: eg. strain improvement, drug leads, enzymes and biocontrol. -Discuss the role of fungi in biogeochemical nutrient cycles -Discuss how to control fungal growth in relation to pathology and food safety -Discuss fungal toxin production in relation to pathogenesis, food safety and fungal fitness. -Discuss spore survival strategies in relation to environment conditions. -Critically discuss original research articles. | |||||||||||||||||
| Course Litterature | |||||||||||||||||
| Basic course book: Jim Deacon: Fungal Biology 4th edition, Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006 Recommended additional reference book: Websters Introduction to Fungi. | |||||||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||||||
| Stefan Olsson, sto@life.ku.dk, Department of Agriculture and Ecology/Section of Genetics and Microbiology, Phone: 35332646 | |||||||||||||||||
| Study Board | |||||||||||||||||
| Study Committee NSN | |||||||||||||||||
| Course Scope | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||