Inquiry Exercise 30 - Purification of plasmid DNA

Challenge - To  develop a purification method for plasmid DNA from first principles .

Students are provided with a bacterial culture that harbors plasmid DNA. After a review of the properties of plasmid and chromosomal DNA, students will develop a method to purify plasmid DNA.

Milestone

 Demonstration of the purity of the plasmid DNA preps.

Inquiry Exercise 21 - Identifying a factor that changes phenotype - The Griffith experiment Redux

Challenge:  To identify the factor that confers resistance to ampicillin.

Students are provided with almost identical bacterial strains that only differ in their sensitivity to ampicillin.  Students review classic experiments on the factors that confer phenotype. They then design experiments to isolate and  confirm the function of factors that militate resistance to ampicillin.

Milestone

Functional demonstration

Inquiry Exercise 18 - Fall 2013 - Student Results

Excellent work , all groups  were successfull in making DNA  ! Milestone validations are  below !

Inquiry Exercise 25 - The Diagnosis of AIDS

Challenge  -  To  develop  an assay for AIDS

Students  will review the  molecular basis of AIDS and will develop a diagnostic assay.  In these deliberations,  students  should  consider the basic  principles of  protein-protein interactions  as  outlined in the General Biology and Basic Techniques in Biotechnology course.

As in typical inquiry exercises , discuss with your group,  ask for materials  and perform experiments that may convince the instructor that you have indeed  established such an assay. 

The milestone  will be the  diagnosis of a provided set of serum samples ( N.B.   these samples  are mimics and are not real human samples ).   

Inquiry Exercise 20 - An Assay to Diagnose Cancer.

Challenge - Devise a serum  diagnostic assay  for Cancer

You have formed a small company  that seeks to  market a test that can  diagnose cancer before it is clinically apparent.  Angel investors have provided 5 million dollars.   In your analysis of the  current literature,  you have noted that  it has been observed that  tumor cells can shed cell content into  blood. Thus, it should be possible to identify such cell content in a serum sample  and predict the presence of cancer  before it is clinically observable.

  As in typical inquiry exercises , discuss with your group,  ask for materials  and perform experiments that may convince the instructor that you have indeed  established such an  assay.

The milestone of this inquiry exercise   will  be  the  correct diagnosis of a provided set of  patient sera ( N.B.  these are mimics and not real human sera ) .

Inquiry Exercise - Introduction to Bioinformatics

Challenge
  
Diagnose and treat Cancer  by using Bioinformatics 

 It is the year 2014 and in this real world Bioinformatics exercise, you will play the role of a Molecular Pathologist. Your job is to analyze cancer at the genomic (DNA) level and to suggest molecular therapies.  The human genome ( 3 billion nucleotides of DNA sequence) was first sequenced in 2000 and cost about 3 billion dollars. At present, the cost of sequencing the human genome has decreased to $20,000. It is now economical to sequence the genome of human cancer cells to find out what has gone wrong and predict therapies that may work. In this introductory exercise, a preliminary analysis has been performed to identify sequences in a lung tumor that are different from the normal human sequence.  Your job is to determine whether these changes could cause cancer and where possible, suggest molecular therapies.


Click here to download   introductory exercise

Inquiry Exercise 12

Challenge :

Generate  an example of  cell specific gene expression.

Inquiry Exercise 8

Challenge:

Demonstrate  the catalytic conversion of Starch into Glucose    

Inquiry Exercise 5

Challenge:

Provide convincing  evidence that molecules move.

Inquiry Exercise 1

Student challenge:

What  is the  quantitative relationship between the volume and weight of water ?

Learning to do Science - Inquiry Exercises ?

Although there has been significant discussion in the education  community about  the need for   "doing science to learn science", most curricula  employ Inquiry laboratory exercises that are still simply "cook book "exercises in which the student cannot assume ownership.  Typically,  the hypothesis is already presented and the student  simply gets to choose a variable  in the experiment .  In the Capital  Biotechnology program,  we have been devising  novel Inquiry exercises that require  almost complete  independence  to achieve the objective. The exercises take the form of simple challenges. They are more difficult to run than  standard laboratory  exercises , since the students are likely to move in  unanticipated directions . Thus,  the instructor notes  are quite complex. In the following posts , we will describe our Inquiry Exercises , invite instructors to use them in their own courses,  and provide feedback .