Functional Genome Analysis by RNAi: Phase II Curriculum Dissemination and Evaluation

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Biological Sciences (61) This Phase 2 CCLI project is disseminating experiment- and computer-based laboratories on RNA interference (RNAi) that can help students integrate key concepts of gene and genome analysis. The program focuses on a set of lab/bioinformatics experiments developed with Phase I funding that explore RNAi in the model organism C. elegans. The experiments can be integrated into existing courses, provide the basis for new courses, or serve as the foundation for student research projects. Over its two-year term, the project is reaching 204 faculty directly, many of them at community colleges and minority serving institutions, at week-long workshops conducted at 8 sites nationwide, helping them develop approaches to best include these experiments in a variety of institutional settings. The program includes significant follow-up and support to encourage implementation as well as longitudinal assessment of participants'' mechanisms for including these activities and concepts in their courses and an experimental study of student effects. In a unique capacity-building effort, workshop participants will collaborate to develop targeting vectors to silence approximately 100 C. elegans genes, which will be maintained at the DNALC and distributed free-of-charge to any interested faculty for use in student projects. Intellectual Merit The intellectual merit of this project resides in the intellectual quality of the materials being produced and the challenges they meet in helping faculty keep their courses current and responsive to new developments in both pedagogy and the science they are presenting. RNAi is amazingly simple to perform in C. elegans. Any gene of choice can be "silenced" merely by feeding worms bacteria that express double-stranded RNA that corresponds to part of the targeted gene. The C. elegans/RNAi system offers almost unprecedented opportunities for students to move from formatted experiments to entirely open-ended projects and explorations. Equipped with little more than a computer, dissecting microscope, DNA thermal cycler, pipettes, and a gel electrophoresis chamber, students can work "backwards" from genome sequence (including human homologs) to develop targeting constructs and directly observe the phenotypic effects of gene silencing. Broader Impact. Holding half of the workshops at traditionally minority institutions will ensure high participation by underrepresented groups. Internet sites for each experiment, custom bioinformatics tools, and the forthcoming laboratory text, Genome Science (scheduled for 2008 publication by CSHL Press) all support broad classroom implementation.