Molecular Biology - Part 1: DNA Replication and Repair

I have just finished the last quiz of this course and I must admit I really enjoyed taking this course!

The animations were absolutely amazing. They really helped me understand the abstract concepts more easily.

The weekly quizzes were a lot of fun to complete; I actually felt that I work in a research lab with Zoe, Brian, and Rajeev. This gave me an insight of how is it to be part of a research team that has to collaborate to solve different problems.

I wish the course had some videos presenting how the assays are done practically. I liked that it was focused on how to interpret the data obtained after conducting the assays, but I think that it would've been useful to see how the assays are actually done.

Overall, I can't wait to enroll for the second and third part of this course!

The quality course is really amazing, especially the animations, that help to understand concepts that could be quite hard to grasp any other way. Even though I'm rather familiar with the subject, the course is designed so the information flows in a way that makes interesting and the expertise and teaching experience of Prof. Bell clearly show. I also think the Cerego quizzes are a great help to ease the burden of memorizing complex names and concepts for first time learners. The only thing that bummed me out a little bit is that I understand that the unit quizzes for auditors are only available for the first three units and I think this might discourage learners from finishing the course for the lack of formative evaluation (the test yourself are rather simple if you understood the previous lecture fragment). I understand that this is a free course, but given the fact that, as I understand it, Verified Track Learners also have a final test and earn a certificate, maybe the possibility of making all Unit Quizzes available for all learners should be taken into consideration. Great course nevertheless.

This class takes what you learned about DNA replication before to the next level. I am reviewing this after the third week of the class and I want to give you an idea of what the first week was like. The next two weeks are structurally similar, but with different topics.

Week 1: DNA structure, major and minor grooves, an understanding of what is in those grooves and how that affects what binds to DNA and how. A much deeper understanding of DNA polymerase, what drives its reactions and its structure as well as the Primer Template Junction. The patterns of the major and minor grooves and why they matter. Also covered are proofreading exonucleases. To drive matters home, we also learn in fair detail about how to assay polymerase, including the Incorporation Assay (using both filter binding and electrophoresis) and the primer extension assay. We also learned how to measure DNA polymerase processivity. That's week 1.

Each week incorporates questions to assist learning, and a graded exam that is far from easy but is also part of the learning experience. It also includes something called "Cerego" to help memorizing terms and concepts. But don't think you can pass the tests by memorizing stuff -- you really have to understand the material. The tests are very realistic in the scenarios they present and there's no way on earth you can cheat on them.

The classes are well presented and complete, but I have found that doing some additional research on the topics is helpful including looking up some studies on the Internet and going through the related sections in Watson's "molecular biology of the gene." This is NOT a requirement of the class, but I have found it helpful.

So far, at the end of the third week, I have to say this is a very challenging class, but it is not challenging merely to be a pain -- it is genuinely imparting deeper knowledge that is topical and relevant.

I am really enjoying this class and I recommend it highly for people interested in the topic. DO at least have a BIO101 and maybe even an intro genetics class under your belt beforehand though.

I'm taking this course to prepare for grad school and a change of career (from tech/management to bioengineering/management). Initially, I tried to take this course after getting 2/3 of the way through 7.00x, and found it challenging enough to want to postpone. I've now re-approached the course, having completed both 7.00x and 7.05x, and I'm finding the material to be much easier (while still being a ton of information to absorb).

The course content is great, and the animations supporting the class are really well done. The reasons I gave the course a four instead of a 5 are:

* The quizzes at the end of each chapter are very easy, and don't make you think or put in as much research or work (unlike the much tougher quizzes in 7.00x and 7.05x).

* I think having professors that inspire you to do more work in the topic area is a huge part of what makes a course great. Professor Bell is a very good instructor, but doesn't seem as excited or passionate about the topic as the 7.00x or 7.05x professors were.

This is a top quality course. I just finished the last quiz of the last unit. It was intense but very very interesting. The staff, community members, and all other students are very responsive, respectful, and interested in what they learn. Prof. Steve Bell and Prof. Tania Baker (last unit) are professionals and committed in a top quality teaching. The material is fascinating. The quizzes are themselves are very educative and lead you to additional discoveries you did not learn directly in the videos of the lectures. Do not count to advance this course superficially. It requires lot of attention. I have some scientific background, but I am not a biologist and have no experience in lab, so for a biology student the course should be slightly easier (but only slightly). If you do not have a background in biology, you still can follow this course, but you absolutely need to take introductory biology and biochemistry course before. There are lot of extraordinary assays, and I loved learning them, and never ceased to be amazed how incredibly the secret processes of the enzymes are discovered and revealed by very simple but ingenious ideas. Quite proud to have completed this course. I recommend it!

To put my review into context:
I hold a MSc in Agricultural sciences, working in (molecular) plant breeding.
That means: I am familiar with genetics and replication, mitosis, meiosis.

This course is of interest for me because I wanted to get behind the molecular mechanisms of all the lab-techniques I use like PCR / Sequencing to possibly improve the assays I develop or to adopt assays.

The course requires quite some attention but it is totally worth it!
It gives so much understanding on how the molecular machinery works in concert and everything is backed-up with experiments. Sometimes WAY to detailed (for me) but overall a great course.

I especially like the explanatory videos.

Really well done!

I'm coming to this course after graduating with a BA and having taken no science classes since high school, except for 7.00x (Intro to Bio) on EdX a few months ago while reading through my old AP textbook. I took this course because Biochemistry was temporarily unavailable, and I'm looking to pin down which field I'd like to pursue in grad school. While it certainly helped me with that, I'm a little unhappy that you have to pay for access after the first 3 quizzes. The lecture videos are always free, but the quizzes where you really learn the material aren't. Parts 2 and 3, the follow-ups to this course, are entirely free, so it doesn't make sense that this one isn't.

This course was difficult, but definitely do-able. If you've taken college science classes or work with this stuff professionally, I'm sure it will be easier for you. The main professor does a great job explaining things and makes all the concepts really easy to understand. I was never confused in the lecture videos. The quizzes were variable, often with very easy and very difficult questions in the same test, but they always helped me learn the material. They almost never quiz you on memorization, but rather require you to use knowledge from the lectures to draw new conclusions about novel questions. The only complaint I have is the instant feedback. You immediately know if you answered in/correctly, but couldn't see the correct answer until after the quiz was due, sometimes a week after taking it.

First of all I want to thank Drs. Bell and Baker, their graduate students, and MIT Biology staff for designing this wonderful course. I had completed 700.x (Intro to Biology - secret of Life) with the express goal of deep-diving into molecular biology. This first part (7.28.1x) has taught me a lot! More than just learning I have enjoyed the Quizzes, which though challenging, really help entrench the learning. Above all, I have started reading molecular biology papers on replication, and am overjoyed at being able to read and, more importantly, understand them. I am no longer scared of alphabet jumbles/alphabet soups (RecA, RecBCD, DNA Pol III, RuvABC , HR DSBR, RFR etc.) and am able to appreciate the beauty of nature and life that this course has helped me appreciate through literature.

This is the best $99 that I have spent in my life (I don't take courses w/o credits/certificates).

Thank you MITx Biology! Now, onto 7.28.2x after a short break.

Lal829

This is a very good course. I withheld a star because I feel certain subjects need to be clarified more as they are explained, especially the assays. The devil is in the details when it comes to assays and every assumption needs to be made clear. Animations would be quite helpful to detail the steps in Assays. As with many online courses, quiz questions sometimes seem too vaguely described and seem to incorporate assumptions in the mind of the question designer that are not explicit and leave too much ambiguity. Some questions are very well formulated. The lecturer is great, holds your attention. I am not a fan of subjective questions, where you speculate on what might be "best", etc; they seem unfair and can depend heavily on experience outside the course. I think the course does give a good overview of the subject. Because biology has such depth, I found I had to spend a lot of time transcribing almost word for word many of the lectures to capture the requisite information to understand the material. That takes a long time, more than comfortable . So far I feel the replication origin assays the most confusing, where I need more discussions and detail to really picture how the data results from the experiments.

This is a superb course that delves deep into the mechanisms of DNA replication and explains the scientific techniques (various assays, uses of microarrays and deep sequencing etc) through which this understanding came to be. It explores differences between these mechanisms in prokaryotes (bacteria) and eukaryotes (yeast and humans), brings you up to date on our current detailed understanding of this subject and provides plenty of optional scientific papers that further explore each course topic such that the most ambitious student will not be disappointed. The professor does an excellent job of explaining a non-trivial subject matter in a way that the attentive student will find to be very clear. Prepare to be amazed at the machinery of life and how it has evolved to date !