The request to revise BINF 4171 and BINF 4191 semester offerings

Date: February 7, 2012
To: College of Computing & Informatics
From: Clarence Greene, Faculty Governance Assistant
Approved On: February 7, 2012
Implementation Date: 2012

Note: Deletions are strikethroughs. Insertions are underlined.

Catalog Copy

BINF 4171. Business of Biotechnology. (3) Prerequisite: Junior or Senior status in a scientific/technical course of study or if in a nonbiological/technical or scientific program, special permission of the instructor. Introduces students tothe field of biotechnology and how biotech businesses are created and managed. The students should be able to define biotechnology and understand the difference between a biotech company and a pharmaceutical company. Additional concepts covered will include platform technology, biotechnology’s history, biotechnology products and development processes, current technologies used by biotech companies today, biotechnology business fundamentals, research and development within biotech companies, exit strategies, and careers in the biotech field. (Spring On demand)

BINF 4191. Biotechnology and the Law. (3) Prerequisite: Junior or Senior status in a scientific/technical course of study or if in a nonbiological/technical or scientific program, special permission of the instructor. At the intersection of biotechnology and the law, an intricate body of law is forming based on constitutional, case, regulatory and administrative law. This body of legal knowledge is interwoven with ethics, policy and public opinion. Because biotechnology impacts everything in our lives, the course will provide an overview of salient legal biotechnology topics, including but not limited to: intellectual property, innovation and approvals in agriculture, drug and diagnostic discovery, the use of human and animal subjects, criminal law and the courtroom, agriculture (from farm to fork), patient care, bioethics, and privacy. The body of law is quite complex and it is inundated with a deluge of acronyms. The course will provide a foundation to law and a resource to help students decipher laws and regulation when they are brought up in the workplace. (Fall On demand)