Life Science Biological (61) This project is developing a new type of laboratory lesson providing the inexperienced undergraduate bioscience student with the opportunity to discover metabolic pathways using expression microarray technology. The subject of almost 9,000 scientific articles since their inception in the mid-1990s, expression microarrays are an increasingly established technology for identifying and quantifying the release of genetic messages - mRNAs - from living cells, in a single overnight experiment. As currently practiced, basic instruction in cellular processes like glycolysis is typically reduced to memorization, with no opportunity given to students to identify participating enzymes by laboratory measurement. Through a series of technical innovations, small, rugged microarrays have been developed for students to begin learning about metabolic pathways through lab experience. The goal of this project is to design microarray lessons emphasizing glycolysis as a pathway theme, and the lessons are being tested in the undergraduate laboratories of participating institutions, including ten diverse regional community colleges.
Intellectual Merit: The new lessons incorporate novel technical designs that make student microarrays very inexpensive and easy to use in a modestly equipped undergraduate laboratory. In the hands-on experiments, students observe up- and down-regulation of genes as cells metabolize glucose. The experience reinforces the notion that cellular function is built around teams of genes acting in concert. Evaluation focuses on the degree to which students have learned glycolysis with and without the microarray lesson, and the impact of that learning on subsequent courses taken by the students.
Broader Impacts: This project opens a window for students to observe metabolic cycles at the cellular level. The PI has worked with a variety of institutions including those that serve economically disadvantaged students from rural, southern Appalachia. Dissemination is achieved, in part, through commercialization of the microarray lesson kits and faculty workshops to be offered at national conferences.
