Instructor

R. Sharon Regan
E-mail: regans@queensu.ca

Message from the Instructor

My name is Sharon Regan, I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Queen’s. I have been teaching Cell Biology or related courses since 2000 and have enjoyed finding new ways to make a somewhat complicated topic more interesting and more accessible to students. This online course has really been in the works for more than a decade as I have continually develop new learning approaches for my traditional face-to-face course and now have an opportunity to apply these approaches to this online course.

When I am not teaching I am still involved in Cell biology, my research is best described as Plant Cell Biology. We seek to understand basic cellular processes in plants by identifying the genes and proteins responsible and determining their function and interaction with other genes and proteins. My lab works primarily on three plants, Arabidopsis is a model plant system that most plant cell biologists use as a plant version of a “lab rat” and the more applied aspects of our research is focuses on poplar trees and potato. Poplars are an important forest crop not only for pulp and paper but is emerging as a good source of biomass for the production of second generation biofuels, and it is also naturally able to uptake many contaminants in the soil so it is also used in bioremediation. We study the genes responsible for these processes and look for mechanisms to improve the. We are also interested in potato, it is the 4th most important food crop in the world and a major contributor to the Canadian economy. Potato is threatened by many pests and as a result farmers need to apply enormous amounts of pesticides to these plants in order to produce the potatoes we eat daily. Our research seeks to identify genes that are responsible for natural pest resistance and our goal is to help potato breeders develop more resistant potato varieties so that fewer pesticides need to be applied.

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• Computer Requirements and Internet Access
• Moodle, Our Online Learning Environment 
• Academic Integrity
• Evaluation
• Suggested Time Commitment
• Required Material