This advanced laboratory for microbiology majors features the integrates the technology of modern cell and molecular biology into existing laboratory exercises so that students select for molecular study an organism they have isolated from nature. They utilize molecular probes to confirm the identities of their isolates by fluorescence microscopy. They then purify DNA from their isolates, and apply both polymerase chain reaction (PCR) gene amplification and Southern blot analyses to the DNA. This integrated approach enables students to understand isolated techniques in a wider context.
