Instrumentation for Undergraduate Lab Instruction in Molecular Cell Biology Using Non-Radioactive Labels and Computer Data Analysis

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Preparing undergraduates for careers in the biological sciences requires a laboratory-rich curriculum, which includes hands-on experience with current technologies. Many methods in cell and molecular biology involve exposure to toxic and radioactive chemicals. The new instrumentation is part of an effort to redesign the bioscience curriculum around nonradioactive, nontoxic methodologies. Exercises that teach quantitation of nucleic acids and proteins (including PCR products), DNA, RNA, and antibody blotting, analysis of SDS-PAGE, DNA sequencing, protease and nuclease assays, gel-shift assays for DNA-binding proteins, CAT reporter assays, and protein phosphorylation assays used in signal transduction studies can be performed with nonhazardous fluorescent labels instead of toxic or radioactive detection reagents. The new instrumentation also provides for computer data analysis, designed to improve student understanding of computational tools in biology and help them to process and report their data. Providing for direct, safer experiences with current technologies allows students to broaden and deepen their understanding of laboratory applications in biomedical science. Concerns of students, especially women students, about potential reproductive hazards should be significantly reduced. When fully implemented, the program can eliminate the need for radioisotopes and toxic dyes like ethidium bromide, along with their associated financial and environmental costs. This approach to laboratory instruction in the molecular biosciences should be broadly applicable and is particularly important for the department's attempts to increase the number of students preparing to be teachers who opt to take biology as their science and who will be better prepared in this science..