incorporating research into a laboratory course
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Incorporating research into a laboratory course. 1993 - MBB changed its major to expose students to research Require all students to do an independent research project Needed to develop a course to train students in the basic techniques they would use in the lab - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Incorporating research into a laboratory course
• 1993 - MBB changed its major to expose students to research
• Require all students to do an independent research project
• Needed to develop a course to train students in the basic techniques they would use in the lab
• Introduction to Research (694:315, 447:315, 694:215)
Course Design - Open ended research project
Wanted to avoid cookbook exercises with known outcomes.
Needed the element of discovery
Needed to develop a project with:
1) Experiments that all students could carry out
2) Would give each student different answers
Intro. to Research Project: Analysis of clones from a cDNA Library
Students pick random clones and purify plasmids
SP Primer
XP Primer
200 bp
PvuII
PvuII
719 bpPvuII digests
PCR
Students perform restriction digest and PCR analysis to determine the size of the cDNA insert
Students learn different approaches to the same question
Must deal with discrepancies in the data
Evaluate DNA Sequence Data
Need to make subjective judgments
Conduct Bioinformatic Searches of the International Scientific Databases
Evaluate alignment data
Determine the function of the genes
>200 sequences on NCBI
Students publish their DNA sequences in the databases
Student
Lecture/Lab format on the same day works best
Students go through at least two rounds of each experiment
• Gives the students a chance for success
• Gives the student a chance for failure
• Opportunity to work through a problem - trouble shoot
• Reinforces the concepts and procedures
• Students learn that science often requires repetitive use of a technique to answer different questions.
Need to have experiments well tested
Expect problems
Expensive -
Money - Equipment, reagents, sequencing
Time - Faculty are in the lab, safety, trouble shooting
One to one interactions with the students
Need to revise and update procedures/experiments
Past - Radioactive sequences with high voltage gels
Present - Sequencing services for individual clones
Future - High throughput massively parallel sequencing
Other considerations:
Research in a lecture courseStudents must determine which gene on a clone is involved in a specific biological process (cell cycle, meiosis, replication etc.)
Given short DNA sequences at the ends
Use the genomic databases to determine which genes are on the clone
Examine gene expression, interaction (2-hybrid, co-IP), mutant phenotype public databases
Genomic DNA