Graduate Seminar in BioSciences

This subject provides advanced critical appraisal of contemporary and controversial issues in the biosciences and, for some, how they may inform solutions to anthropogenic challenges. Topics are drawn from physiology, plant and microbial sciences, cellular and developmental genetics, ecology and evolutionary biology. Each week, students (in groups of 2-3) will provide a seminar of a particular issue (reflecting a fundamental idea or a controversy of competing ideas or empirical evidence), which will form the basis of subsequent critical discussion by the class. Students will attend 12 seminars, at least two will be common to all students, who will then choose from two concurrent series according to their research interests. The choice of specific issues within each series will be determined at the start of the subject according to the availability of individual academic staff that act as a ‘champion’ of the issue.