Topic Courses

MMG1310H F - Experimental Techniques in Developmental Biology 

The goal of this topics course is to get a thorough understanding of the main techniques used in Developmental Biology and their history in the lab. The format of this course will be journal club style presentation and general discussion of selected review articles and primary research papers. Below, you will find the topics listed for each class, and papers will be carefully chosen to represent a variety of developmental model organisms as well as techniques that are used in Developmental Biology. All students are expected to read 3-5 assigned papers prior to class and come prepared to actively participate in group discussions regarding the application, merits, and limitations of experimental techniques across various model systems. Presentations should focus on the techniques used, as well as the technology that allowed for the technique to be used (as opposed to covering the biological data in the papers) 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors: Dr. Sevan Hopyan and Dr. Madeline Hayes 

Dates Wednesdays, October 14 – November 25, 2026  

Time and Location: 10:00am – 12:00pm, PGCRL Room 19.9701 -- a seminar room at the PGCRL  

MMG1311H F - Functional Genomics 

The course provides a survey of current and emerging approaches in functional genomics and proteomics, with a focus on experimental design and data interpretation. 

The course consists in a series of presentations and guided discussions by researchers that are developing cutting-edge functional genomics and/or proteomics approaches. 

Topics to be covered this year will include: a) Next Generation nucleic acid sequencing, b) Genetic interactions in model organisms, c) Proteomics and protein interactions, d) High content screening, e) CRISPR technologies, and f) Systematic assay development, g) computational analysis. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Charlie Boone and Dr. Andy Fraser 

Dates: Mondays, TBD 

Time and Location:  3:00pm-5:00pm, Donnelly Centre, 11th floor meeting room

MMG1317H F - Special Topics in Advanced Cancer Proteomics 

The premise the course is that cancer is largely a product of the sequence-to-phenotype continuum: DNA-to-RNA-to-Proteome-to-Phenotype (i.e. cancer). The course comprises a series of lectures delivered by leading proteomics experts and researchers. Students will learn about mass spectrometry-based proteomics including spectral analysis, and tissue proteome profiling as methods to discover cancer drivers and biomarkers, and to define and compare phenotypes such as normal versus cancer; drug responsive versus drug resistant. Innovative high-content proteomics technologies will be introduced that have been developed and applied to systematically interrogate proteomes for protein interactions associated with disease, cell regulation, and drug responsiveness. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Michael Moran, Dr. Hannes Röst, Dr. Brian Raught, Dr. Thomas Kislinger 

Dates: Wednesdays, November 11 – December 16, 2026  

Time and Location:  10:00am – 12:00pm, PGCRL, Room 9-9701 (9th floor)

MMG1318H - Cytoskeletal Dynamics 

The course will discuss recent advances in cytoskeletal dynamics, including, but limited to, those relating to the microtubule, actin and septin filamentous networks. Discussion will include, but not be limited to, cell division (prokaryotic and eukaryotic), cell migration, ciliogenesis and more. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Andrew Wilde 

Dates: TBD 

Time and Location:  TBD

MMG1324H - Mitochondrial Genetics in Health and Disease 

Mitochondria are essential intracellular organelles that contain their own genomes. This course will focus on understanding how mitochondrial genomes are maintained, inherited and expressed, and how their dysfunction contributes to diseases like cancer. Students will learn both fundamental concepts as well as recent advances in the field of mitochondrial genetics. 

The structure of the course is as follows. Students will be organized into six groups. Each group will be assigned a topic from endosymbiotic theory to the role mitochondria play in cancer (see below). Groups will then develop and present a 30-minute power point-assisted lecture that would be suitable to teach this topic to a class of first-year graduate students. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Thomas Hurd 

Dates: Thursdays, November 12 - December 17 

Time and Location:  1:00pm - 3:00pm, MaRS West Room 1522 

Stem cells are at the heart of development and regeneration in organisms from plants to humans. We will pursue issues of cell fate, cell division, differentiation and self-renewal (see the weekly topics below). This is a reading and discussion course, so everyone will read the papers for each week before coming to class. This means you should come to the first meeting having read all of the week one papers or don’t bother coming to class. Each person may be asked to give the synopsis of a paper and/or initiate the discussion by answering the first questions about the papers. For this course, you must be prepared for robust discussion and presentation. This course will be fun, and everybody will do well if they participate in the class discussion. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Derek van der Kooy and Dr. John Dick  

Dates: Tuesdays, September 15 – November 3
*Note: changed from Wednesdays

Time and Location:  2:00pm – 4:00pm, CCBR, Room 1112
*Note: The first session will take place from 12:00pm - 2:00pm

This course is designed to teach experimental biologists the basics and hands-on knowledge of bioinformatics programming. In today’s world, most graduate students in Molecular Genetics will encounter situations where they have to make use of computational tools and deal with datasets that are too large to practically handle manually (or with Excel). The main objective of this class is to give students the power of automation via bioinformatics programming. The class teaches by example and makes students comfortable with doing basic programming in R and adapting existing programs to their needs, as well as how to interface with standard bioinformatics software. We focus on R because it is the most popular data science and bioinformatics language and is easier to learn compared to most other programming languages. However, we will also give a brief introduction to the more general language of Python.

Prerequisite: This course is intended and required for first-year MoGen students (MSc or direct entry PhD) who do not have advanced computational biology training. Graduate students from other departments will be considered on a case-by-case basis if there is capacity. Students with advanced computational biology training (approved on a case-by-case basis by the instructors), will enrol in Foundational Computational Biology I (MMG1344; 0.25 FTE) instead of MMG1004.

Outline: Course Outline

Instructors: Dr. Brett Trost, Dr. Shu Wang

Dates: April 5 - May 12, 2027

Time & Location: 

• Mondays 10:00 am-11:15 am in SS 1072 (Sidney Smith)
  • *On April 6, the session will be held in BL 313 (Bissell Building)
• Wednesdays 10:00 am-11:15 am in SS 1072 (Sidney Smith)

MMG1306H S - Epigenetics & Transcriptional Control 

In this topics course, we will explore the fascinating world of epigenetic inheritance and chromatin-based gene regulation. 

The format for this course is a little different from other topics courses you may have taken and will require a greater sustained effort but will not involve a lengthy final assignment. We’re aiming for maximal student engagement and will in fact require you to assume much responsibility for the development of the course curriculum as well as marking. Brief weekly written assignments will comprise a significant portion of your grade and will be evaluated by you. The quality of the class you lead will comprise another major area of evaluation. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Marc Meneghini and Dr. Paul Delgado-Olguin 

Dates: Thursdays, March 25 – April 30, 2027 

Time and Location:  2:00pm – 4:00pm, 263 McCaul, Room 320

MMG1308H S - Human Genome Analysis 

The course will start with an introductory lecture, covering the basic theoretical and practical aspects of human genome analysis, including a historical perspective of current advances in the field. Subsequent sessions will involve class presentations of papers covering topics related to human genome analysis. 

All student papers will be chosen by the coordinators to reflect the following areas: Genome Sequencing and Analysis, Human Genome Variation, Common and Rare DNA Variant Interpretation, Other ‘Omic’ Approaches That Facilitate Genome Analysis 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Gregory Costain and TBD 

Dates: TBD 

Time and Location:  TBD, PGCRL Room TBD 

MMG1315H S - Gene and Protein Evolution 

This course will survey the genetic and biophysical forces that have shaped the evolutionary history of genes and proteins. The first lecture will review basic concepts in molecular evolution and mutational processes, while the latter lectures will discuss recent theoretical and experimental advances. Topics to be covered include: mutational processes; positive and negative selection; neutral theory of protein evolution; predicting deleterious protein mutations; evolution of gene expression and gene regulation; de novo mutations; biophysical models of protein evolution; protein sequence and structure spaces; mutational robustness; evolvability; epistasis and co-evolution of interacting amino acid residues; and examples of using evolutionary information to infer biophysical properties of proteins. Student grades will be based on participation in discussions, a written CIHR grant LOI, and referee reports on two grant proposals submitted by fellow students. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Zhaolei Zhang 

Dates: Wednesdays, March 24 to April 28 

Time and Location:  1:00-3:00 pm, Location: TBD 

MMG1316H S - Cancer Genetics 

This course will focus on recent advances in cancer molecular genetics and application to human disease. Specifically, we will address genetic factors with respect to cancer susceptibility (tumor suppressor and DNA repair genes), tumor-specific genomics and gene expression (tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes), and therapies targeting this knowledge. Within each area, clinical application and relevance will be emphasized. Scientific tools that enable this research will be addressed, such as statistical genetics, expression profiling, genomic screens, and siRNA approaches to targeted therapies. The course will consist of lectures and presentations and discussion by students of selected publications. The course grade will be based on presentations, participation in discussions and a short written paper. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Daniel Schramek, Dr. Irene Andrulis 

Dates: Thursdays, February 25 - April 15, 2027 

Time and Location:  6 Thursdays 2:00pm-4:00pm, Feb 25th, March 4th, 11th, 18th or 25th, April 1st, April 8th or April 15th. 2027,  Mount Sinai Hospital,  Room 1062, 10th floor Murray Street elevator 

MMG1328H S - Advanced Omics 

Quantitative high-dimension technologies continue to rapidly revolutionize the study of molecular biology. With increasing parameters, resolution, dimensions, and new modalities, paired computational analysis is necessary to properly utilize these methods. Covering the current standard and state of the art in single cell and spatial transcriptomics, their analysis, and utilization with other ‘omics technologies including proteomics, this course will detail how to use these technologies from experimental workflows through to paired analysis pipelines. Furthermore, we will discuss cutting-edge applications, the limitations of current systems, and a framework to develop new experimental and analysis methods. The course will feature a combination of lectures, discussion of recent publications, guest speakers and student presentations. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Hartland Jackson, Alissa Greenwald, Aleksandrina Goeva 

Dates:  Tuesdays, April 13 - May 18, 2027, Mount Sinai Hospital,  Room 1062 

Time and Location:  2:00-4:00pm 
 

Prerequisites: MG1004H, preference will be given to students with MMG1344H 

MMG1344H S - Foundational Computational Biology I  

The Foundational Computational Biology (FCB) courses, offered through the Molecular Genetics Graduate program, are taught as two 6-meeting topic courses that cover selected foundational concepts and current applications for computational biology and bioinformatics.  The courses are targeted to 1st year graduate students, with preference given to students in the CBMG track of the Molecular Genetics Graduate Program.  Assignments will be both pen-and-paper and practical assignments requiring programming (e.g., Python) or statistical environments (e.g., R). Enrollment is subject to Instructor approval, and will require: 

evidence of comfort with computer programming and excellence in two or more quantitative subjects, which may include: calculus, linear algebra, probability/statistics or other mathematics courses. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Jüri Reimand, Dr. Gary Bader and Dr. Kieran Campbell 

Dates: Fridays, March 19 - June 4, 2027 

Time and Location:  2:00-4:00pm except Good Friday (Thursday in that case), Location: TBD 

MMG1345H S - Foundational Computational Biology II 

The Foundational Computational Biology (FCB) courses, offered through the Molecular Genetics Graduate program, are taught as two 6-meeting topic courses that cover selected foundational concepts and current applications for computational biology and bioinformatics.  The courses are targeted to 1st year graduate students, with preference given to students in the CBMG track of the Molecular Genetics Graduate Program.  Assignments will be both pen-and-paper and practical assignments requiring programming (e.g., Python) or statistical environments (e.g., R). Enrollment is subject to Instructor approval, and will require: 

evidence of comfort with computer programming and excellence in two or more quantitative subjects, which may include: calculus, linear algebra, probability/statistics or other mathematics courses. 

Outline: Course Syllabus (attached) 

Instructors:  Dr. Jüri Reimand, Dr. Gary Bader and Dr. Kieran Campbell 

Dates: Fridays,  March 19 - June 4, 2027 

Time and Location:  2:00-4:00pm except Good Friday (Thursday in that case), Location: TBD