This award provides funds to modernize a Biochemistry teaching laboratory to allow more effective instruction. Improvements, which focus in the area of enzymology, protein, purification, and molecular cloning, will be incorporated into an existing laboratory course required of undergraduate majors. A new spectrophotometer and personal computer will permit expansion of a unit on enzymology. The new instruments will permit each student to gather enough accurate data to perform meaning full analyses of cooperativity and the effects of allosteric efforts. New fraction collectors and conductivity meter will permit a unit on protein purification to be expanded to allow quantitative interpretation of chromatographic profiles. The ability to collect fractions over extended periods or in the cold will also allow greater flexibility in choosing enzymes to purify. Finally, incubators, and a microcentrifuge will replace presently inadequate arrangements for working with recombinant plasmids and their bacterial hosts. Instructors will be more readily able to grow cells for starting materials. Students will be able to grow and analyze larger number of cultures, and will have more ready access to their materials at all stages of the experiment. The grantee institution is matching this NSF award with funds from non-Federal sources.
