UNDERGRADUATE CLASSROOM TEACHING: EXPERIMENTAL COURSE IN MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR BIOLOGY(MCB100) MCB100 was created to forge close ties between faculty research and Harvard undergraduates. This course gives enrolled students the opportunity to experience how science is done through the practice of experimental inquiry. Teams of students work on research projects emanating from the laboratories of participating faculty members.

RELATED LINKS The following links contain the description of the research projects offered to students iduring the Spring terms 2004 and 2005 and in the Fall term 2004. MCB100 research project Spring 2004 Screening for small molecules that target transcription factors using small molecule microarrays MCB100 research project Spring 2005 The use of cell-based phenotypic assay to screen for small-molecule inducers of adipocyte differentiation MCB100 research project Spring 2005 Regulation of the Fatty Acid Synthase Promoter During Membrane Biogenesis MCB100 research project Spring 2005 Characterization of the interaction between a tumor suppressor and small molecules MCB100 research project Fall 2004 and Spring 2005 Natural products from uncultured bacteria: construction and screening of environmental DNA (eDNA) libraries. MCB100 research project Fall 2004 Identification of synthetic lethal interactors with deubiquitinating enzyme genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae MCB100 research project Fall 2004 Screening for small molecules that target transcription factors using small molecule microarrays MCB100 research project Spring 2004 Genetic regulation of Bacillus subtilis biofilm formation MCB100 research project Spring 2004 Systemic RNAi and C. elegans MCB100 research project Spring 2005 Chemical Genetic Analysis of Budding Yeast: targeting conserved networks involved in neuronal function using small molecules

ASSESSMENT Students evaluate the course on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high) in the following categories: instructors, readings, handouts, audio/visual aid, website, workload, difficulty, competition, pace, assignments. Students are also invited to include written comments on the course and the instructor and the project leaders. The impact of the course on students\' ability to perform independent scientific research is also evaluated. The evaluations are processed by the committee on undergraduate education (CUE) staff. The staff reads and tallies student\'s comments and creates a course write-up including a statistic table summarizing the compiled information from the numerically rated portions of the CUE form. The write-up also includes a summary of the comments that are made by a least 10% of the respondents. Half-way through the term, the course instructor meets individually with all the students to discuss their progress, to assess students needs and, to hear their suggestions for course improvement. The course instructor is also accessible to students daily. The constant dialog with students provides the instructor with feedback allowing, when necessary, immediate adjustments. Regular meetings between the course instructor and project leaders are also part of the course assessment.

From left to right: Jillian Spangler (mcb100 student), Prof. Richard Losick, and Dr. Alain Viel (MCB100 course head) during mcb100 laboratory meetings

REFLECTIONS ON THE MOTIVATION, PROCESS, AND PRODUCT Course organization The selection and the diversity of the research projects allow the opening of the course to students with or without an extensive laboratory experience. MCB 100 gives less experienced students an opportunity to do project-based research with a possible segue to an undergraduate thesis. One major goal of this course is to give students that are not necessarily life science concentrator the opportunity to work in a research setting. Too often students that have chosen non-scientific concentrations and are interested in scientific research have limited access to laboratories. Students in each small team share the responsibility for experimental design, identifying and mastering the scientific literature relevant to their project, and completing selected experiments. The progress of the research project is monitored during regularly scheduled lab meetings where student teams share their data. Aside from oral presentations at group meetings, students submit a short progress report during the term, and a final report. The format of the final report is based on modified guide lines for NIH grants (Research plan of RO1 grant application). Students use the data accumulated to formulate a central hypothesis and to propose a set of new experiments to validate this hypothesis. This exercise is designed to train students to argue convincingly for their own ideas and experimental approaches. Challenges: The variety of the research projects, and the expected quality of the students research required some training for our teaching staff and the development of set of quality controls of solutions and media prepared by the staff. It is important to identify very focused and well-piloted projects that can be achieved during the term. Compartmentalized or empirical projects pose challenges for student interest and motivation. The number of students in a research team must be maintained to a maximum of 5 or 6 to provide students with the best possible environment.

THE TEACHING LABORATORY In the Fall 2004, we moved to a fully renovated laboratory space located on the fifth floor of the Biological Laboratories (click here for pictures of the laboratory space). The teaching laboratory can accomodate up to 25 students and is ADA compliant. The renovation of the laboratory space was made possible by funds provided by: The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University The Faculty of Art and Sciences, Harvard University The Provost of Harvard University To emulate research in an active laboratory, the teaching space has been equipped with material necessary to perform a variety of experiments in cell and molecular biology, biochemistry and bacteriology. The equipment was purchased using HHMI funds from: The HHMI professor award, Prof. Richard Losick The HHMI Undergraduate Science Education award, Dr. Robert Lue program director.