Saylor.org's Cell Biology/Introduction

Dear Wikibookians,

No doubt some of you are familiar with the free college courses available on Saylor.org. Much like the Wikimedia community, we are committed to providing free and accessible education for everyone with internet access. At Saylor, we combine some of our custom-created educational materials with materials that are already available throughout the internet. However, because we sometimes use links to third party materials, those sections of our courses are not entirely sustainable. The Saylor Wikibooks Project is a way for you to help minimize that threat. We’ve uploaded a number of our course outlines to Wikibooks in the hope that you all will contribute to our effort. Our course outlines have been developed by our consultant professors by studying a collection of syllabi of relevant courses from various traditional brick and mortar institutions. This guarantees that our students will be provided the same learning opportunity as a student enrolled in a traditional institution. We believe that we have created the best structure for our courses, which optimizes the information that students would be expected to know. By creating openly licensed content that fits in with Saylor’s established course outlines, (in the form of Wikibooks’ textbooks), you can add to the ever-expanding body of wiki material, while simultaneously improving the sustainability of our courses.

Thanks for your help,

The Saylor Team

If you'd like to learn more about the project please visit User:Thomas_Simpson

Summary

The cell is the fundamental unit of life; in fact, the smallest living organisms are composed of a single cell. Despite their small size, cells are far from simple, and we have only recently begun to understand just how complex they are. This text will present you with a detailed overview of a cell’s main components and functions. The text is roughly organized into four major areas: the cell membrane, cell nucleus, cell cycle, and cell interior. We will approach most of these topics straightforwardly, from a molecular and structural point of view.

Global Learning Outcomes

Explain what a eukaryotic cell is, identify the components of the cell, and describe how a cell functions.
Explain how cell membranes are formed.
Identify the general mechanisms of transport across cell membranes.
List the different ways in which cells communicate with one another—specifically, via signaling pathways.
Define what the extracellular matrix is composed of in different cells and how the extracellular matrix is involved in forming structures in specific tissues.
List the components of the cell’s cytoskeleton and explain how the cytoskeleton is formed and how it directs cell movements.
Explain the fundamentals of gene expression and describe how gene expression is regulated at the protein level.
Define and explain the major cellular events involved in mitosis and cytokinesis.
Identify the major cellular events that occur during meiosis.
Describe the eukaryotic cell cycle and identify the events that need to occur during each phase of the cell cycle.
Identify all of the major organelles in eukaryotic cells and their respective major functions.