Systems Biology Laboratories

Laboratory Opportunities for Students

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) supported Center for Modular Biology at Harvard will be hosting two laboratory opportunities for high school science students. These laboratories will introduce students from local high schools to the technologies being used to explore questions related to the Biology of Diversity. In each of the three-hour laboratory sessions, a teaching fellow group consisting of graduate students, staff and postdoctoral fellows from the Center will instruct students. Laboratory sessions will be offered during the first two weeks of April. Sessions are three hours in length open to classes from public, private and charter schools. Teachers from high schools in New England (MA, RI, NH and ME) are encouraged to apply online from October 1st through December 20th for the following spring’s program.

Plasmid Technology Laboratory:

There are three main goals for students participating in the Plasmid technology laboratory:

1. To understand what restriction enzymes do and why they are important tools in modern molecular biology.
2. To learn how gel electrophoresis works.
3. To understand the basic laboratory process that can identify an individual based upon a sample of DNA.

Students will be given an unknown piece of bacterial DNA (a plasmid) and use restriction enzymes to determine which one it is out of three possible types of plasmid DNA. Discussion during the laboratory will focus on the applications of this technology to areas of research at the Center and its applicability to the students’ lives.

Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory:

There are four main goals for students participating in the Antibiotic Resistance laboratory:

1. To understand antibiotic resistance.
2. To learn basic microbiology procedures including sterile technique.
3. To understand what restriction enzymes do and why they are important tools in modern microbiology.
4. To understand the basic mathematical models used to predict antibiotic resistance by mutation-driven selection.

During this laboratory, students will be setting up restriction digests of unknown plasmid DNA, screening for antibiotic resistance and using gel electrophoresis to analyze the products of their digests. Discussion during the laboratory will focus on the role of humans in driving antibiotic resistance and the specific research laboratories at the Center exploring this issue.

For additional information, please contact Tara Bennett.