This project greatly enhances the laboratory experience of undergraduate biology students at the University of Minnesota at Morris by providing a microprocessor-controlled luminometer. Undergraduate students often need quick, exciting, safe, and successful projects that represent the state-of-the-art technology in order to first appreciate the rewards of doing research. Great improvements are being made in this department's ability to meet these goals by developing several projects centered around new technologies involving luminescence detection. The kinds of projects involve: a) quantification of bioluminescent phenomena in whole organisms, cell fractions and biochemical fractions (fireflies, luminescent algae, and luminescent bacteria are readily available); b) quantification of ATP in cell fractions after being exposed to various conditions (luminescence using firefly luciferase is by far the most accurate and sensitive method known for measuring ATP); c) quantification of several enzyme activities by following NADH concentration in cellular fractions (commercially available bacterial luciferase can be used as a sensitive method of detecting NADH and related compounds); and d) detection of antibodies using commercially available luminescent tags. The experiments described here are so far superior in cost effectiveness and safety to the radioisotopic methods usually employed in this context that the grantee is being urged to publish them for wide dissemination among college biology faculties. The approaches supported through this grant are expected to significantly improve undergraduate biology laboratories at the University of Minnesota at Morris and potentially to have value on a national scale.
