Course Syllabus

Information Theory describes a method to reduce and measure the contents of telephone conversations traveling on a wire. Once measured, this information may be stored, processed and reproduced. Information Theory aims to reduce the size of the communication without loss. Just as all the passion of Anna Karenina may the communicated over the wire, Information Theory gives Biology a way to measure the genetic information stored in DNA. In this class we will study the information content of life. We will study cell theory, evolution and biochemistry as a branch of information theory. Specifically we will study how bodies process, store and communicate genetic information and consider what this information has to say about our future. We will consider the impact of standards, abstraction and forward engineering on the life sciences and conclude with an introduction to Synthetic Biology.