Hello, Paul Craig, Herbert Bernstein, and Jeffrey Mills from the Rochester Institute of Technology, along with Edward Pryor from Anatrace, are interested in the development of educational kits for use in the laboratory component of undergraduate lab courses. We have prepared a brief survey to gain feedback from the community to aid in this development. Please see the attached note from Paul Craig, along with the link to the anonymous survey below.
Many thanks, --Eddie Pryor Dear Colleagues, Starting in 2015, a team of faculty on eight campuses developed BASIL, a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) biochemistry lab that is focused on protein function prediction (see http://basiliuse.blogspot.com). Students work in teams, sometimes across courses and even across campuses, with computational tools to predict protein function, then move to the wet lab to express and purify the proteins, and then test their predicted functions using enzyme activity assays. Neither the faculty nor the students know the actual function of these proteins, so it is truly discovery-based work, which may be suitable for presentation at conferences and publication in the literature. The approach is flexible but is designed around a one-semester Intro to Biochemistry lab (14 weeks, one 4-hour period per week). To further expand upon the BASIL project, we are interested in the design, production, and commercialization of educational kits for use in the laboratory component of this undergraduate biochemistry lab course. These kits will contain all of the materials and resources needed for the proper instruction of the main topics typically taught in these courses. These topics include, but are not limited to, protein expression and purification, determination of protein concentration, characterization of protein function by in vitro assay, an introduction to protein structure, and bioinformatics techniques. The purpose of this survey is to gauge your receptiveness and usefulness of these kits for an undergraduate biochemistry lab curriculum. Here is the link to the anonymous survey: https://rit.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_djntCdJYmatLoQl Please email me at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> if you have any questions or concerns. Paul Craig Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY Paul A. Craig Professor and Head School of Chemistry & Materials Science Rochester Institute of Technology 1 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, NY 14623 Telephone: 585.475.6145 FAX: 585.475.7800 SCMS on Facebook<https://www.facebook.com/groups/193235340773035/> Follow me on Twitter: @PaulCraigRIT
