Week 15 — Readings & Resources

Your primary reading is Chapter 15 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 46–60 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (19–22 min total)

• Mutations — Bozeman Science
• What is CRISPR? — Bozeman Science
• Can DNA Demand a Verdict? — Genetic Science Learning Center

① Switching genes on and off

Chapter 15, Section “Flip the lac operon switch” · Session 1, Segment 2, “The lac operon switch” · Remember: the repressor is the brake, and lactose, working through allolactose, takes the brake off.

• The lac Operon Explained — Nicole Lantz — a short whiteboard-style walk through the lac operon with lactose absent and then present; pause each time the repressor moves and say whether the genes are on or off. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
• Molecule of the Month: lac Repressor — PDB-101 — a short illustrated essay on the real protein behind the switch, showing how it grips the DNA and lets go when a sugar binds it; it says "lactose and similar sugars" where the chapter names allolactose, and it adds structural detail you can skim. Use it while working through the Week-15 module overview. (reading, 5–8 min)

② Typos in a gene

Chapter 15, Section “Sort the typos: silent, missense, nonsense” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Silent, missense, nonsense” · Remember: read the new codon in the table; same amino acid is silent, a different one is missense, and a stop is nonsense.

• Mutations — Bozeman Science — a steady explainer that compares DNA to a recipe and walks through substitutions, insertions, and deletions; its closing part on changes to whole chromosomes reaches past this week, so stop when it leaves single-base changes. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
• Frameshift variant — Genomics Education Programme — a short glossary entry with its own worked example of one deleted base shifting every codon after it; it says "variant" where the chapter says mutation, so read the two words as the same idea here. (reading, 2–4 min)

③ Copy, sort, and match

Chapter 15, Section “Read a gel like a crime lab: DNA profiling” · Session 2, Segment 7, “Whose DNA is it?” · Remember: PCR copies first, the gel sorts by size, and one band that differs rules a person out.

• PCR explained: biology animation — yourgenome — a two-minute animation of the three steps of each round, denature, anneal, and extend; say each step's name before the animation reaches it. This builds on Week 13's work with DNA's structure and how a cell copies it. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
• Electrophoresis explained: biology animation — yourgenome — a short animation of making a gel, loading samples, and watching fragments separate by size; check that the smallest fragments end up farthest from the wells. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
• Can DNA Demand a Verdict? — Genetic Science Learning Center — a plain-language article on how DNA evidence is used, how mistakes happen, and why ruling someone out is easier than proving a match; look for the sentence that matches this week's exclusion rule. (reading, 5–8 min)

④ Editing genes, and the questions it raises

Chapter 15, Section “Weigh the questions: gene editing and its ethics” · Session 2, Segment 9, “Two cases, no verdict” · Remember: somatic edits stay with the person treated, germline edits can pass on, and both cases deserve a full hearing.

• What is CRISPR? — Bozeman Science — an explainer on how the CRISPR system was found as a bacterial defense and then turned into a gene editor; listen for the guide RNA as the address and Cas9 as the scissors. (video, 7 min) (captions: creator)
• This gene-editing milestone raises big ethical questions — PBS NewsHour — a news interview about one embryo-editing experiment and the questions it opened; sort each point into the case for editing or the case for caution as you listen. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)
• What are the Ethical Concerns of Genome Editing? — National Human Genome Research Institute — a federal explainer that lays out safety, consent, enhancement, and fairness concerns, mostly about germline editing, with the arguments on more than one side; it is a few years old, so treat it as the shape of the debate rather than the latest news. (reading, 6–10 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

• Mutation — National Human Genome Research Institute Talking Glossary — the course's free glossary of genetic terms, open at its entry on mutation; read the short definition, and treat the narration as optional. (reading, 1–3 min)

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