Connecting biology and organic chemistry introductory laboratory courses through a collaborative research project

The Organismal Form and Function Lab-Course: A New CURE for a Lack of Authentic Research Experiences in Organismal Biology

There are many benefits to engaging students in authentic research experiences instead of traditional style lectures and "cookbook" labs. Many Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have been developed that provide research experiences to a more inclusive and diverse student body, allow more students to obtain research experiences, and expose students to the scientific process. Most CUREs in the biological sciences focus on cellular and molecular biology, with few being developed in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology. Here, I present a one-semester CURE focused on organismal form and function. The goal of the course was to have students develop their own research questions and hypotheses in relation to invertebrate form and movement, using high-speed cinematography to collect their data. In this paper, I describe the motivation for the course, provide the details of teaching the course, including rubrics for several assignments, the outcomes of the course, caveats, and ways a similar course can be implemented at other institutions. The course was structured to use a scaffolding approach during the first half of the semester to provide the content of form-function relationships and allow students to acquire the laboratory skills to quantify animal movement. The second half of the course focused on student-driven inquiry, with class time dedicated to conducting research. As there is a push to engage more students in research, I hope this course will inspire others to implement similar classes at other universities, providing a network of collaboration on integrative organismal student-driven research.

Integration of a faculty's ongoing research into an undergraduate laboratory teaching class in developmental biology

Traditional developmental biology laboratory classes have utilized a number of different model organisms to allow students to be exposed to diverse biological phenomena in developing organisms. This traditional approach has mainly focused on the diverse morphological and anatomical descriptions of the developing organisms. However, modern developmental biology is focusing more on conserved genetic networks which are responsible for generating conserved body patterns in developing organisms. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a new pedagogical tool to educate undergraduate biology students in the laboratory class of developmental biology with the genetic principles which are responsible for generating and controlling the developing body patterns. A new undergraduate laboratory class for developmental biology was developed in order to offer students the opportunity to explore a wide range of experimental procedures, also incorporating the instructor's on-going research. Thereby the course can serve as a bridge between research and education by combining both into a single theme. The course design involves a sequence of exercises which can be easily adapted to the faculty's ongoing research. This style of laboratory coursework could be a transitional form between a regular laboratory course and a discovery-based laboratory course. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 46(2):141-150, 2018.

Innovations in Undergraduate Chemical Biology Education

Chemical biology derives intellectual vitality from its scientific interface: applying chemical strategies and perspectives to biological questions. There is a growing need for chemical biologists to synergistically integrate their research programs with their educational activities to become holistic teacher-scholars. This review examines how course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are an innovative method to achieve this integration. Because CUREs are course-based, the review first offers strategies for creating a student-centered learning environment, which can improve students' outcomes. Exemplars of CUREs in chemical biology are then presented and organized to illustrate the five defining characteristics of CUREs: significance, scientific practices, discovery, collaboration, and iteration. Finally, strategies to overcome common barriers in CUREs are considered as well as future innovations in chemical biology education.

A 13-week research-based biochemistry laboratory curriculum

Here, we present a 13-week research-based biochemistry laboratory curriculum designed to provide the students with the experience of engaging in original research while introducing foundational biochemistry laboratory techniques. The laboratory experience has been developed around the directed evolution of an enzyme chosen by the instructor, with mutations designed by the students. Ideal enzymes for this curriculum are able to be structurally modeled, solubly expressed, and monitored for activity by UV/Vis spectroscopy, and an example curriculum for haloalkane dehalogenase is given. Unique to this curriculum is a successful implementation of saturation mutagenesis and high-throughput screening of enzyme function, along with bioinformatics analysis, homology modeling, structural analysis, protein expression and purification, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and enzyme kinetics. Each of these techniques is carried out using a novel student-designed mutant library or enzyme variant unique to the lab team and, importantly, not described previously in the literature. Use of a well-established set of protocols promotes student data quality. Publication may result from the original student-generated hypotheses and data, either from the class as a whole or individual students that continue their independent projects upon course completion. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(5):437-448, 2017.

Undergraduate research as curriculum

To date, national interests, policies, and calls for transformation of undergraduate education have been the main drivers of research integration into the undergraduate curriculum, briefly described here. The New Horizons in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) this fall presents an exciting opportunity to discuss integration of undergraduate research into the curriculum and other cutting-edge topics in biochemistry and molecular biology education from a cross-national perspective. I look forward to exploring prospects for international collaboration on research and development of course-based undergraduate research experiences and on STEM education in general. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(4):293-298, 2017.