Meet Carsonella rudii - an organism with a tiny genome - only 160,000 bases. Compare that to 3 billion bases for the human genome or even 5 million bases for E coli!



Scientists think it may be so simple because it never goes out - C rudii lives in the gut of an insect that lives in a plant and it has only 213 genes



This workshop consists of TWO SESSIONS on two consecutive Sundays.



The Price above is for both sessions.



Spend a couple of evenings tinkering around with the parts of this ultra minimal bacterium. Carsonella is a great introduction to the minimal organisms which are being designed and engineered to do new tricks.



This unique workshop will investigate and understand the spectrum of gene function in a living cell.



In the first session, we'll go over the core machinery of cell replication and metabolism, visualizing the bacterium in an art project on a wall in the lab.



The second session will wrap up metabolism and look at genomic Dark Matter. Despite having only 7% of the genes of E coli, nearly a quarter of the genes in Carsonella are listed as having no known function. We'll look at some ways to get an idea of what these genes are doing.



Course Taught by Corey Hudson PhD and Ron Shigeta PhD



Please bring a laptop with a wireless connection and a web browser installed. Basic biology will be covered and no experience is required.