Research projects tend to take more time than the academic schedule allows, so integrating them into curricula can be challenging. Breaking the project down into eleven weekly protocols allowed the scaffolding of authentic research into two consecutive biochemistry teaching labs. Students completed a three-week “dry lab” research project teaching bioinformatics skills for a particular protein in Biochemistry I followed by a ten-week “wet lab” research project teaching protein purification skills for that protein (or a similar protein) in Biochemistry II. Novel results from one year provided the basis for the proteins selected for the next year, so that research inquiry continued annually, with important results replicated and confirmed by different groups of students. Students individually learned technical skills as they worked in groups and contributed original data to a larger project of authentic discovery. The long-term project investigated the structure and function of siderocalin proteins by first modeling them and then making them. In Biochemistry I, students were assigned novel siderocalin sequences with unknown function through the GENI-ACT online platform. Each year students gained bioinformatics skills and produced dozens of new homology models for siderocalins, and those with promising functional or stability predictions provided novel proteins for the next course. In Biochemistry II, students gained the skills to express selected siderocalin sequences in E.coli and purify the novel proteins using GST-tag column chromatography in order to carry out preliminary binding assays, following a ten-week schedule with data collected by GENI-ACT. Because human siderocalin binds an orange chromophore (the siderophore Fe-enterobactin), we expected some siderocalins to adopt that orange color. To our surprise, we also observed yellow, pink, and blue chromophores. In the following year, we expressed orthologous sequences, and observed two novel siderocalins from different species with the same bright yellow chromophore. This year, we are systematically searching for orthologous protein sequences that will exhibit similar chromophore-binding patterns. Each week, students gain specific professional skills relevant to modeling and making proteins for the biotech and pharma industries, while those skills are directed toward a research question with a distinctly novel outcome.

From “dry lab” to “wet lab”: Scaffolding multi-phased projects in teaching labs with GENI-ACT

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.