Course Description

Instructor: Ed Stephenson

An introductory class in Genetics, taught using examples from everyday life. Topics to be covered include phenotypes and genotypes; basic heredity; DNA, proteins and how they work; human genetic diseases; the genetics of viruses and cancer; the use of DNA in forensics, human ancestry and deep human history; and other topics. All relevant background will be covered - you do not need to remember any part of the high school biology class that you took many years ago.

Bio: I am a retired professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Alabama and have recently relocated to Atlanta. My research and teaching areas were in Genetics and Developmental Biology. I also taught majors General Biology and a non-majors course in Evolution. I’m an alumnus of the University of Alabama OLLI program, where I taught courses in Genetics, Evolution and Viruses.