Genetics

By Neda Mostafavi

Published: 15 August 2004

What do you come out with? BSc or MBiolSci

Why do it? Because they've sequenced the human genome and now you want to find out exactly what it can be used for and how to cure genetic diseases with all that information. Because you're interested in your inheritance and evolution, or perhaps intrigued by Dolly the sheep. Maybe you want to manipulate genes to produce giant foods to feed people in the future.

What's it about? Everything to do with genes. It's based on Mendel's discovery of inheritance, where siblings inherit either dominant or recessive characteristics from their parents. It's the study of the effect of genes?the blueprint for life. Human genetics is specifically related to humans, whereas population genetics applies to all organisms.

What are the students like? Logical and practical and want to find answers to the big questions. Sometimes they know a sufferer of an inherited disease so are motivated to try and find its cure.

How is it packaged? Newcastle splits 50/50 between exam and continuous assessment. However the last semester of the final year is a research project which is entirely assessed. Manchester increases the coursework side as the degree goes on, but overall is about 75 per cent exam and 25 per cent coursework. Liverpool and Leicester are similarly 70 per cent exam, 30 per cent coursework. Sheffield also puts the emphasis on exams at 90 per cent, and only 10 per cent coursework, though in the final year the coursework component rises to 25 per cent. Nottingham is mainly exam based.

How long is the degree? Three years at Newcastle; if you'd like a year out in industry it's four years. Manchester's course is four years, which includes an industrial placement (e.g. at a zoo, or in a research institute). Three years for Liverpool's Genetics and Molecular Biology courses, but four years for the Applied Genetics course (with a one year research industry placement). Sheffield offers the standard three year BSc or an MBiolSci which is four years of which the first three years are the same as the BSc plus an extra year on training and research techniques. The MBiolSci in genetics can be combined with microbiology, biochemistry, molecular cell biology or medical genetics. Three years at Nottingham for the Genetics, Human Genetics and Biochemistry and Genetics degrees, and although the year in industry option is not an established course, they are flexible and open to the idea if that's what you'd like. Three years at Leicester for both the Biological Science (Genetics) and Medical Genetics degrees.

How cool is it? Cool if you want to expand the frontiers of knowledge.

What A-levels do you need? At Newcastle biology is a must; chemistry to at least AS level is preferred. Biology and chemistry at Manchester but they like maths, science and English; if you're doing the joint degree with a language then you'll need an A level in it. Liverpool prefers two sciences but will consider applicants with biology as their only science. Nottingham requires chemistry and one other science for the Genetics and the Genetics and Biochemistry courses, biology and one other science is needed for the Human Genetics course. Leicester asks for two out of three A levels to be in sciences (biology, chemistry, physics and maths).

What grades? BBB/BBC for Newcastle. BBC for Manchester and Liverpool. Sheffield asks for ABB. Nottingham offers AAB/ABB for the Biochemistry and Genetics course and ABB/BBB for the Genetics and Human Genetics courses. BBB for 2005 entry at Leicester.

Will you be interviewed? No.

Will it keep you off the dole? Many go into research in universities, hospital labs, the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries and research institutes. Genetic counselling, although hard to get into, is another option. Jobs related to science are quite common such as scientific writing, journalism or teaching. About a third of graduates go on to further education after their first degree. Some move to jobs quite unrelated to their degree, such as become managers or accountants.

What do students say? Jonathan Mack, Human Genetics, Newcastle, graduated 2004. "The course was really good because it included a wide variety of biomedical sciences. I liked the medical aspect of the course, where genetics was related to certain diseases."

Hamira Sultan, Genetics, Sheffield, graduated 2004 with a first. "Sheffield's staff are very approachable and the facilities are really up to date. The research project in the final year was very interesting."

Simone Sharma, Genetics, Manchester, graduated 2004. "I like the way they make you study a lot of units, you really feel like you earn your degree. The placement in the final year was probably the best part."

Kim Holloway, Genetics, Leicester, graduated 2001. "The course at Leicester is excellent. In the third year your project is part of a proper research group and there is the opportunity to get your work published, it was a major part of the course and I really enjoyed the lab work. The teaching is great too, it's all good."

Where's best for teaching? With a top 24 out of 24 were Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Sheffield, Kingston, Nottingham Trent, Bath, Durham, Kent, Salford, Sunderland and York. Next were Wolverhampton, Warwick, Southampton, Hull, Essex, Open, Aston, Nottingham and Leeds with 23. Umist, Sussex, Ulster, Queen Mary, Staffordshire, Manchester Met, Brighton, Central Lancashire, East Anglia, Exeter, Huddersfield, Leicester, Plymouth and Portsmouth scored 22.

Where's best for research? Leicester was the only one to score a tip-top 5*, Cambridge and Nottingham both scored 5.

Where's the cutting edge? We're now in the post-genomic era (we've got the sequence of the human genome), now we need to make sense of it all and understand human diseases better. Geneticists can now compare genomes from different types of organisms and use, for example, mice genomes to tell us about human ones, because they are in fact suprisingly similar. Treating human diseases through the cloning of tissues is also an up-and-coming area.

Where are the stars? Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys at Leicester, who discovered DNA fingerprinting twenty years ago, which is now used for paternity testing, immigration and even ecology; he is now working on mutation research. Also at Leicester Professor Yuri E Dubrova researches human mutation following radiation damage, especially of Chernobyl; Dr. Mark Jobling, an expert on movements of populations researches into how related you are to people with the same surname as you; and Professor Julian Ketley works closely with compylobactajujuni, a bacteria three times worse than salmonella and the main culprit for diarrhea. Professor Allen Moore and Doctor Patricia Moore at Manchester for their work into the sexual selection of insects. At Newcastle's Institute of Human Genetics Professor Tom Strachan does research in the field of human and mammalian developmental genetics. At UCL its Professor Steve Jones, columnist in the Daily Telegraph and specialist in evolution and genetics and Professor Linda Partridge, head of the Partridge Laboratory at UCL's Centre for Evolution Genetics, which works with fly genetics. Professor Brian Tomsett, an expert in molecular and evolutionary aspects of plant biology and Professor Andy Cousins a specialist on fish genomics, both at Liverpool. Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Bob Lloyd, an expert in DNA repair in bacteria and Professor Paul Sharp who specialises in evolution and that of the Aids virus, are both at Nottingham.

Related courses: Molecular Biology, Human Genetics, Medical Genetics, Applied Genetics and Bioscience.

Where the famous went: Francis Crick, a graduate of University College London, won a third of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medecine in 1962 for "discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living materials".

Added Value: In 1984 Sir Alec Jeffreys discovered DNA fingerprinting at the University of Leicester. This year they have won the Queen's Anniversary Prize for world-renowned achievements in Genetics for the second time this decade.