Download Incorporating Research into a Laboratory Course

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
Students perform restriction digest and PCR
analysis to determine the size of the cDNA insert
PvuII
digests
PCR
PvuII
719 bp
PvuII
SP Primer
200 bp
XP Primer
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
Students publish their DNA sequences in the databases
Student
>200 sequences on NCBI
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.
Other considerations:
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
Research in a lecture course
Students must determine which gene on a clone is involved
in a specific biological process (cell cycle, meiosis,
replication etc.)
Genomic
DNA
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