Teaching
Ongoing:
​
BI2123 (UG course) : Introduction to Biological Systems (w/ Dr. Collins Assisi)
​
Biological systems are elaborate machines with parts that interact in surprising ways. This course can be envisaged as the antithesis of reductionism. Rather than take the biological machine apart, we will try to put it together and demonstrate the properties that emerge are often more than the sum of its parts. Using thematic examples from subcellular to organismal scales, we will try to derive organizational principles that mediate interactions between components. The course will introduce the quantitative methods necessary to develop a systems perspective.
Next semester:
​
BI6472 (PhD course): Design Principles of Nervous Systems
​
The course intends to discuss general organising principles of nervous systems. We will treat nervous systems as physical devices that perform specific functions and try to intuit the underlying design principles by ‘reverse engineering'. The goal is to understand the general principles that allow nervous systems to function and the constraints within which nervous systems have evolved. We will consider simple nervous systems (like that of the worm) to intermediate insect nervous systems and larger mammalian brains to understand common organisational principles