Previous Successful Courses organized by SynBio4ALL Africa

SynBio4ALL Africa initiative had provided two courses in 2023-2024

Our first work is the Beginner's Course in Synthetic Biology providing 6 lectures in various topics taught by a mixed team from Africa and US volunteers. We had more than 300 applicants and approximately 40 individuals who completed the course materials and homework synchronously. Our course materials and recordings were made open access for self-pace study which we encouraged students to review before conducting any further Synthetic Biology research and studies beyond beginner's level.

The most recent one conducted in 2024 is the Intermediate Course in Microbial Synthetic Biology. We had >700 applicants, over 100 participants in our first lecture, and >100 individuals completing the group project during our course. During the development of this course, we also invited various stakeholders to share their perspectives and inspire African scientists through our monthly webinar. All contents were made publicly available, and a complete list of topics were listed below.

Beginer's Course in Synthetic Biology 2023 

We conducted 6-week lectures with homework review to accompany our introductory presentations.

Launch event Webinar (October 28, 2023)

Week 1 (November 1, 2023): What is Synthetic Biology?

Week 2 (November 8, 2023): Central Dogma

Week 3 (November 15, 2023): Controlling what cells make

Week 4 (November 22, 2023): Useful parts in synthetic biology

Week 5 (November 29, 2023): Laboratory Techniques in Synthetic Biology

Week 6 (December 6, 2023): Cell biology by the numbers and intro to CRISPR

 Intermediate Course in Microbial Synthetic Biology 2024 

The first 7 weeks of Microbial SynBio course were given as a lecture format followed by 3-week Research Proposal Project formulation. Examples of final project presentations can be found on our website.

Week 1 (May 1, 2024): Beginner Course Review

Week 2 (May 8, 2024): Protein Engineering

Week 3 (May 15, 2024): Strain Engineering and Validation

Week 4 (May 22, 2024): Metabolic Engineering

Week 5 (May 29, 2024): Frugal Science and Makerspaces

Week 6 (June 5, 2024): Applications - Engineered Bacterial Therapeutics

Week 7 (June 12, 2024): Applications - Microbes for Sustainability

Week 8 (June 19, 2024): Group work on project

Week 9 (June 26, 2024): Group work on project

Week 10 (July 3, 2024): Final Presentations