Lecture 1: Introduction: What Mendel Started
I. Why study genetics?
A. To identify genes and study their properties
B. To study the mechanism of inheritance
C. To understand how genes lead to traits; how genotype turns into phenotype
D. To understand how genes and their activities change in time (evolution) and in space (populations).
II. The changing face of genetics: impact of genome sequencing
III. Mendel's Heritage
IV. What Mendel found (MendelWeb (http://www.mendelweb.org)]
A. Experimental system
1. First insight: Picking the correct system
2. Second insight: Looking at specific traits
B. Mendel's first experiments.
1. Mating P0 plants (dominant and recessive traits)
2. Mating F1 plants (Third insight: seeking simple mathematical relationships)
3. Mating F2 plants (Fourth insight: examining subsequent progeny)
4. Mating further generations
C. Independent assortment: looking at two and three traits together
D. Deductions about germ cells.
E. Generalization: looking at other plants
F. Summary: first and second "laws"
V. How correct was Mendel?
VI. Independent assortment today