University of the Sunshine Coast

Bachelor of Science (Biotechnology)

For a major in Biotechnology, students must successfully complete 8 courses:

• This course focuses on 5 main areas: medical genetics to improve health, population genetics to understand evolutionary forces & changing environments, agriculture to produce quality food, bacterial/viral genetics & bioinformatics to overcome disease challenges, & genetics & applications in society.
• You will learn modern concepts & apply acquired knowledge to undertake your own inquiry into the nature of future research & development in this area of science.

• This course focuses on principles and concepts relating to metabolic pathways.
• You gain understanding of the main biomolecules that are important to cellular structure and function.
• You learn how to analyze and interpret fundamental metabolic pathways, and apply your understanding to unfamiliar situations, using real-world examples of biochemistry.

• You will study the basic principles of molecular biology by discovering the interplay of molecules that underpin life and enable genetic engineering, biotechnology, and bioinformatics and synthetic biology fields.
• You will understand concepts relating to DNA structure, the genetic code, replication, and repair; and how RNA is transcribed, regulated, and functions within cells.
• You will also understand how proteins are translated, folded, and their myriad functions and perform key molecular techniques including PCR, cloning, sequencing, and protein production.

• This course introduces you to the world of microbiology, the basis of higher life forms.
• You learn the fundamental theory and laboratory skills needed to understand microbial isolation, growth, diversity, reproduction, physiology, metabolism, and identification.
• You also study the distribution of microorganisms in nature, their relationship to each other and to other living things as well as their beneficial and detrimental effects.
• Gain of ethics and laboratory skills is an essential component of the course as well as understanding the theory behind each experiment.

• Biotechnology is the use of biologically-derived knowledge (from tissues, cells, DNA, RNA, proteins, metabolites) to create useful products.
• You will follow the pathway from biotechnology research to product development, including drug discovery and how genetic material and proteins can be manipulated and produced, how metabolites can be utilized, and explore case studies in drug design and screening.
• The course includes aspects of intellectual property, commercialization, and basic enterprise management and the ethical and social aspects of biotechnology, as well as legal and regulatory affairs.

• This course has been designed to provide students with knowledge of the scientific principles and techniques that underpin molecular biotechnology, and how these techniques are applied using real-world examples.
• Topics covered include manipulation of DNA, cloning DNA into bacteria, plants, and animals, expression of recombinant proteins, and modification of genomes.
• The ethics of molecular biotechnology are also covered.

• This course will introduce you to the principles and key concepts of bioinformatics and will start with basics about DNA, RNA, and protein, then progress to databases, sequence alignments, evolutionary history reconstruction, genome annotation, and analysis of gene and protein expression.
• Systems biology, Linux system, and programming will also be introduced.
• Computer-based labs will provide you hands-on experience with databases and bioinformatics tools, and develop your skills in the analysis of biological data.