This course provides a comprehensive overview of biological energy capture and conversion, with emphasis on photosynthesis and the metabolic engineering of plants and microbes for bioenergy applications. Students will examine the flow of energy from sunlight into chemical bonds and explore how systems and synthetic biology approaches are used to redesign metabolic pathways for sustainable biomanufacturing. Topics include light reactions of photosynthesis, electron transport, carbon fixation, photorespiration, nitrogen fixation, metabolic integration, and engineering strategies for improving biological energy efficiency. The course integrates biochemical mechanisms with systems-level analysis and contemporary primary literature. (Biology Major Area A)

Human-induced climate change poses a pressing and pervasive threat to both human populations and to the biological world. The challenges of climate change are manifest and well known, increasing temperatures, greater variability of weather, sea level rise, leading to a host of consequences. Adapting to and mitigating climate change are essential activities for confronting the threats of climate change. The biological sciences offer great potential for addressing these threats. This course focus on efforts in biological research to adapt and to mitigate climate change. Topics will range across the biological sciences from microbial engineering and biotechnology to zoonotic diseases and one health, to ecosystem function and conservation of biodiversity. The course consists of lectures, discussion of assigned readings, and class projects. Class projects focus on science topics that addresses new approaches to climate adaptation and mitigation and constitute both of a written paper and class presentation. The goals of this class are: (1) to develop an understanding of basic climate science and the biological aspects of climate change, ( 2) to develop knowledge of the biological efforts towards adaption and mitigation for climate solutions.