Faculty : Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences

School :

Course Description :

For the Thesis Master’s in Biotechnology, students will be trained, with the help of their supervisors, to perform a literature review, identify im-portant issues in a specific field and understand the scientific approach to research questions in Biotechnology, carry out a scientific study and appropriately managing the obtained data. Also, students will be trained to appreciate the ethics involved in Biology/Biotechnology research, and to express themselves clearly in science (when speaking and writ-ing). The students will be trained and encouraged to prepare their work for publication in high impact scientific journals. The student will be guided to submit a research thesis not exceeding 60,000 words, includ-ing tables, figures and footnotes, and present an appropriate defense in an oral examination.

Faculty : Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences

School :

Course Description :

The growth, development, and environmental responses of even the simplest microorganism are determined by the programmed expression of its genes. Among multicellular organisms, turning genes on (gene expression) or off alters a cell’s complement of enzymes and structural proteins, allowing cells to differentiate and respond properly to the sur-rounding environment. In this course, students will be exposed to the discussion of various aspects of cell signaling including the control lay-er of cell signaling and modifications in protein folding and binding me-diating cell signaling. Importantly, the course will make an emphasis on the two-component signaling systems, and on signaling events regulat-ing gene expression in eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The course will discuss various aspects of the biotic and abiotic stress signaling in plants with an emphasis on the roles of plant hormones. Students will be, also, exposed to various signal transduction protocols applied in constructing cell signaling networks.

Faculty : Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences

School :

Course Description :

This course introduces the topics of OMICS including genomics, prote-omics and metabolomics. Equal focus is given to the technological ad-vancements as well as their specific applications. Therefore, the course provides a comprehensive account of the state-of-the-art latest devel-opments and trends of omics approaches in plant science. The course will present an overview about various instrumental techniques and methods used in omics. An emphasis will be devoted for reviewing the functional genomics and their applications in plant science and bio-technology. Technologies and applications of plant proteomics will be discussed. The course will also introduce an overview of plant metabo-lomics technology platforms and their applications in biotechnology.

Faculty : Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences

School :

Course Description :

This course will discuss the key engineering issues in bioreactor design and operation. The course will introduce the basic processes that con-tribute to production of biological products via bioreactors. Also, this course will give an emphasis on the operating parameters in bioreac-tors, including: controlled temperature, optimum pH, water availability, salts for nutrition, vitamins, oxygen (for aerobic processes), gas evolu-tion and product and byproduct removal. The various types of bioreac-tion systems will be covered in this course including; batch, continuous, semi-continuous, surface/tray, submerged, and air-lift loop bioreactors. An emphasis will be given to submerged liquid and solid state fermenta-tion bioreactors. Finally, technologies under development will be re-ferred to here, as well. Several visits to factories that use bioreactors for production of their products will be made to help students be familiar with different types of bioreactors.

Faculty : Institute of Basic and Applied Sciences

School :

Course Description :

Environmental pollutants have become major global concern due to rapid growth of industrialization, urbanization, modern agricultural de-velopment and energy generation. The contamination of ground water, surface water, soil and air with hazardous and toxic chemicals is one of the major problems the industrialized world faces today. This course discusses bioremediation technology based remediation used on ge-netically modified microorganisms to restore contaminated sites and protect the environment. It studies the opportunities for more efficient biological processes in molecular biology and ecology. Notable accom-plishments of these studies include the cleaning up of polluted water and contaminated land. The course discusses in detail microorganisms that enzymatically attack the pollutants and convert them into harmless products. The course will discuss various topics in bioremediation of contaminated environments including: biodegradation and bioremedia-tion techniques for pesticides treatment, environmental nanotechnology for remediation of contaminants; biosorption in environmental remedia-tion, genomic approaches for bioremediation, and the application of ge-netic engineering of plants and microbes in developing new ap-proached for bioremediation.