Descriptions of the two required courses are listed below along with the courses that fulfill quantitative requirement and updates can be found on the BMB course website.

1. Note that the 961 course is not currently offered and students are encouraged to consider BMB 864 Plant Specialized Metabolism as a substitute.

2. Course: BMB 960 Sect 301 "Plant Biotechnology Research Forum"

   Semester(s) offered: Fall 2017 (First 8 weeks of the semester)

   Credits: 1

   If you are not a declared Biochemistry graduate student, you will need to submit the online override request form (http://bmb.natsci.msu.edu/undergraduate/override-request-form/) and then contact the instructors (Drs Björn Hamberger, hamberge@msu.edu, and Rob Last, lastr@msu.edu) for permission to enroll. Enrollment will be limited to 15 students.

   IMPORTANT: Attendance of the Symposium taking place in October will be a required portion of the course.

   Syllabus: Fall 2017 (PDF)

   Previous: Fall 2016 (PDF)

   Description: This is an advanced seminar focusing on reading of the literature and student presentations on topics related to plant biotechnology. Topic areas in general address modern problems in human health and environmental sustainability. Specifically in 2016 areas have included the engineering of ABA receptors for drought tolerance, engineering a plant biosynthetic pathway for sustainable production of a natural compounds, navigation of agricultural biotechnology workplaces from industrial perspective, repurposing the cutin pathway for triacylglycerol synthesis. The course is part of the training program in plant biotechnology 'Plants for Health and Sustainability' (https://plantmetabolism.natsci.msu.edu/), though students not participating in the training program are also very welcome to take the course. Confirmed speakers for 2017 are representatives from the industry, NASA, national labs and academia.
   
   Quantitative training requirement:
   Participants are also expected to complete at least one semester of coursework focused on statistical/quantitative analysis or computational biology. The following list is a selection of courses that fulfill this requirement.

A minimum of three CMSE 890-300 level course modules would fulfill the requirement:

• Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering (CMSE) 890-301
  ‘Programming Foundations for Bioinformatics’. One-credit introductory module. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
• Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering (CMSE) 890-302 ‘Statistical Analysis and Visualization of Biological Data’. One credit continuation module. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
• CMSE 890 (303) - Intro to Data Handling: Unix and Python (Spring 2020)
  No prerequisite but previous experience in a programming language highly suggested. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
• CMSE 890 (304) - Intro to Genomics (Spring 2020)
  Prerequisite is CMSE 890-303 Intro to Data Handling or equivalent experience in Unix and using high-performance computing clusters. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
• CMSE 890 (305) - Transcriptomic Data Analysis: from Reads to Functions (Spring 2020)
  Prerequisite is CMSE 890-301-304 or eqivalent experince in R, statistics, Unix, Python, and introductory genomics. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
• CMSE 890 (306) - Metagenomics (Spring 2020)
  Prerequisites of CMSE 890-304 and 309 or equivalent experience in introductory genomics and classical sequence analysis. See https://cmse.msu.edu/academics/bioinformatics-program/ for course details.
  
  Other courses that would fulfill this requirement:
• Plant Biology 810 ‘Theory and Practice in Bioinformatics’. Three credit intensive follow up to CMSE 890 modules. Can also be taken as a stand-alone course.
• Statistics and Probability 814 ‘Advanced Statistics for Biologists’. Four credit intensive course for advanced students.
• Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering 801 ‘Introduction to Computational Modeling’
• Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering 802 ‘Methods in Computational Modeling’
• Chemical Engineering 882 ‘Advanced Biochemical Engineering’. Three credit course focused on synthetic biology and biomanufacturing.
• HRT 841 -  Foundations in Computational and Plant Sciences. NRT-IMPACTS course is offered every Fall.