Course info

Every big biological problem has a structural, mechanical, evolutionary, genetic and population side to it. The goal of the biology core course is to illustrate that fundamental biological problems and phenomena can be approached from vastly different angles. In this course, we will bridge different areas in biology to show students how fundamental biological problems and phenomena can be approached from different perspectives. This year we will discuss one broad topic: Spatiotemporal organization. The instructors will provide a list of papers to be studied, typically in the form of a review paper or something equivalent.

Target group: Students planning to affiliate in a biology research group are encouraged to choose this course as their track core course.

Prerequisites: A background in life sciences is desirable; students without a life-science background are encouraged to attend other life science courses in the fall the Fall semester, or to contact the instructor in due course.

Evaluation: The grading scheme is pass/fail.

Requirements to pass the course:
- attendance: missing lectures or recitations without prior notification (e.g. via email, providing a reason of missing the class/recitation) to the course organizer and lecturer of the respective class/recitation results in a fail grade.
- presentation/paper discussion: each student will be assigned to prepare a presentation/paper discussion of a selected topic.
- research proposal: each student will have to prepare a short research proposal with the support of one PI (2 pages, focused on the background and questions, with only a short summary of proposed approaches). The goal is to obtain feedback and guidance on how to define research questions, research objectives and tasks and highlight scientific impact.

A sign-up sheet is provided at the beginning of the course. Each student signs up for one presentation/paper discussion with one PI, and a proposal with another PI. The students are then expected to reach out to the PI that they were assigned to to discuss both the topic of the presentation/paper discussion and the proposal topic early in the course.
Proposals need to be handed in at the start of exam week. Not handing in the proposal in time results in a fail grade.

Teaching format: Lectures, discussion.
Students will have to write a research proposal on a topic of their choice (2 pages, focused on the background and questions, with only a short summary of proposed approaches), supported by one of the faculty of this course.

ECTS: 6 Year: 2026

Track segment(s):
Track

Teacher(s):
Jack Bravo Xiaoqi Feng Edouard Hannezo Florian Schur Johann Danzl Eva Benková Michael Sixt Nicholas Barton Carl-Philipp Heisenberg

Teaching assistant(s):