Authentic engagement in research provides students with skills in scientific inquiry and experimental design that are not easily obtained through traditional pre-developed laboratories. The goal of this work was to transform a twenty-week traditional laboratory experience for first year MS students in a biotechnology program into an authentic research experience. The original goal of this biotechnology teaching laboratory offered to first year MS students was to provide experiential learning opportunities in foundational biotechnology techniques in order to prepare students to enter research labs in their second year in the program. This goal was previously met with pre-designed laboratories that focused on molecular cloning, protein expression and purification, and cell culture. In the re-design, the curriculum focused on a new publication involving a signal transduction cascade in leukemia stem cell self-renewal. In the first ten weeks of the course, students critically evaluated the publication. They developed methods presentations to introduce modern techniques in biotechnology, they identified gaps in knowledge in the newly proposed molecular mechanism, and they designed experiments to address those gaps in the form of an NIH-style research proposal. Simultaneously, the students engaged in wet labs in molecular cloning to generate protein expression constructs required to address their research questions. In the second ten weeks of the course, the students conducted their proposed experiments using protein purification and cell culture techniques. During this quarter they presented their lab results weekly and developed a final poster presentation to showcase their final work. Students were exposed to multiple learning modalities including individual and group work, knowledge-based quizzes, experimental design, data analysis, and presentation. In the future, we would like to determine (1) if students are acquiring experience that facilitates their entry into research labs and (2) if faculty mentors perceive these students as well prepared when they enter the research space.
Keywords: signal transduction, biotechnology, molecular mechanisms, stem cells
University of Victoria (2022)
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