Course Weekly Lecture Plan

Week	Topic
1	Introduction to Microbial Ecology of Natural and Engineered Ecosystems: -Importance of studying microbial ecology -Advantages of molecular tools over traditional tools -Target molecules
2	Basic Molecular Tools: DNA and RNA isolation; quan. and qual. analyses of nucleic acids (spec, agarose gel electroph., PAGE); PCR; reverse transcript.
3	Assessment of Microbial Diversity-I: Cloning and Sequencing
4	Assessment of Microbial Diversity-II: DGGE; TRFLP (ARDRA)
5	Quantification of Certain Microbial Groups-I: Real time PCR
6	Quantification of Certain Microbial Groups-II: FISH
7	Assessment of Function of Microbial Groups-I: Proteomics, RNA-targeted analyses
8	Assessment of Function of Microbial Groups-II: Microarray; FISH-MAR; SIP
9	Submission of Term-Papers (Written Reports)
10	Student Presentation-1: Cloning and sequencing DGGE
11	Student Presentation-2: Real Time PCR (Q-PCR) FISH
12	Student Presentation-3: Microarray SIP
13	Student Presentation-4: Proteomics Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis
14	Overall Assessment