BIOL 1414 – INTRODUCTION TO BIOTECHNOLOGY COURSE REVIEW
First Meeting: Friday October 14, 2011, 1pm-3pm
In Attendance: Linnea Fletcher (first 30min), Shelley O’Grady, Keqin Gregg, Sulatha Dwarakanath, Angela
Wheeler
Introduction:
 Linnea introduced the meeting and had to leave for another meeting.
 Shelley handed out an agenda (attached) which outlined the overall plan of action for course
review. In particular she discussed:
o The importance of alignment - horizontal (pre and co-requisites) and vertical
(BIOL1415)
o Considerations of the needs of industry
o Consideration of the changes we make impact the high school programs
o Discussing the importance of setting up regular reviews so one large dramatic change
doesn’t need to happen
Textbook Review:
 Shelley started to discuss the textbook Review and stressed that we do not need to change the
book, but need to review the current available books to determine if the current book we use
meets our needs. If the current book meets our needs we can choose to keep it.
 Angela, Su and Keqin all agreed that the current book has some frustrations of being both too in
depth and not in depth enough. Also, the format was old and the animations and layout needed
some work.
 Shelley mentioned that the book could be utilized more in our upper division courses.
 Shelley brought several copies of BioRad’s new lab manual “Biotechnology – A Laboratory Skills
course”. Everyone in attendance liked the book and wanted to consider it for review.
 Shelley stated Linnea would like us to review Ellyn Daugherty “Biotechnology – Science for the
New Millennium”. The committee agreed.
 Shelley offered Pazdernik’s “Biotechnology”, Keqin brought a current copy of it and let the
committee know where to get a review copy (Course smart). Update: Shelley received two
copies, if anyone needs a copy it is in Steven’s Office.
 The committee agreed to 4 books to consider:
1. The current book “Introduction to Biotechnology” Palladino,
2. Ellyn Daugherty “Biotechnology – Science for the New Mellinium”
3. BioRad’s “Biotechnology – A Laboratory Skills course”
4. And Clark&Pazdernik’s “Biotechnology”, update edition (2012)
 The committee decided to allow everyone to obtain the books, and to review them over the
next month and reconvene in person at the end of the semester when everyone has had a
chance to review the books.
 The committee agreed it will be difficult to discuss course content without first deciding on a
textbook first.
 The committee agreed the new curriculum (if needed) will be developed in the spring and the
earliest will be used is the Fall 2012.
Lab Manual Review
 There was long discussion about some of the labs in the current lab manual that should be
optimized and/or removed.
 It was agreed that Shelley will create a table to send to the group, and everyone will input their
experiences about each lab into the table. See attached.
 Some ideas that were considered: remove some labs, change some labs, add in some labs...
o Shelley suggested that the Bioinformatics lab from the BioRad lab manual be added and
the current bioinformatics in our lab manual be removed. The BioRad bioinformatics
exercises uses all current bioinformatics tools and deals with the relevant topic of the
pGLO plasmid and GFP protein that is extensively explored in this course. This would put
together the use of plasmid composition, restriction analysis, GFP structure, protein
structure conservation in species and bioinformatics altogether.
o Shelley agreed to have her students try out the lab this semester and get back to the
group about how it went. Update: The students LOVED the bioinformatics lab.
Everything went smoothly and how it was outlined in the instructions. I highly
recommend we switch out the bioinformatics lab.
o Shelley brought up the Southern blot lab, on how it works beautifully, but blotting isn’t a
technique that is used often. The committee concurred and will consider if it should be
kept or not. There was discussion about importance of history of biotechnology, but
then, only so much time to teach new techniques.
o Also, the restriction mapping lab has been problematic. It is an outdated technique and
also doesn’t work well. There was some discussion on changing it to reflect how
restriction enzymes are used in industry (eg, to check for the insert in plasmid isolation).
Keqin recommended optimizing it. Angela suggested doing it as BioRad recommends.
o The Bioremediation lab was brought up that didn’t have enough guidance for the
instructor. Shelley discussed some ideas her class had contributed that may have
helped the bioremediation lab be more successful (we’ll see…). Shelley will work on an
instructor guide for this lab.
o The cGMP lab was brought up that the students didn’t have enough instructions on
what to do and they were frustrated by that. Everyone concurred. Keqin offered to add
in some extra instructions for this lab.
o There was discussion that the ELISA lab was too rudimentary and canned. Shelley
mentioned the 1402 ELISA was quantitative, and there was a qualitative version of that
lab from BioRad we can consider. Or even consider removing the quantitative ELISA
from 1402 into 1414???
 It was agreed we will discuss the manual extensively through email and using the summary table
and then have a meeting at the end of the semester about the labs specifically. Small changes
can be made for the spring 2012, major changes will be made for the Fall 2012.
 Shelley is working on edits (typos and small changes) for the spring manual and asked the
committee to send her edits for the Spring manual.
BIOL 1414 – INTRODUCTION TO BIOTECHNOLOGY COURSE REVIEW
First Meeting: Friday October 14, 2011
Agenda:
1. Discuss overall plan of action for course review
a. What are the needs of the program? Alignment - horizontal (pre and co-requisites) and
vertical (BIOL1415)
b. What are the needs of industry?
c. How does this impact the high school program?
d. Setting up regular reviews so one large dramatic change doesn’t need to happen
2. Textbook Review
a. Does the current textbook meet our needs?
b. Are we utilizing the current textbook appropriately in this course, and in the upper
division courses?
c. Do we want to extend focus on some chapters and reduce focus on others?
d. What intro text are other biotechnology departments using?
e. Review of at least 3 more texts: Bio-Rad lab manual/text, Ellen D, Clark & Pazdernik,
Fitzgerald & Reichsman...
3. Lab Manual Review
a. Do the current technologies in the lab manual still reflect the needs of the
program/biotechnology education for our community?
b. Remove outdated techniques?
c. Add in more current/new/interesting techniques?
d. Fix things that are not working optimally. Labs: RNA gels, bioremediation, low yield on
plasmid isolations? Any others?
e. Recommend adding in bioinformatics lab from Bio-Rad on GFP bioinformatics and
remove the current one in the manual
4. Lecture Curriculum Review
a. Does the curriculum reflect the mastery requirements of the upper division courses?
b. Does the curriculum reflect biotechnology education?
c. Does the curriculum fill needs by our industry partners?
d. Does this curriculum allow access into our program – get students excited about
biotechnology – help with persistence and/or a gateway into the program?
e. Now that we have 3 intro sections per semester – how can we standardize our teaching
so that each student receives the same experience? Standardized tests? Comprehensive
final? Lab practical?
5. Other Items to consider?
1414 LAB MANUAL REVIEW
LAB
LAB UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION TO
BIOL1414 LAB
LAB UNIT 2: CURRENT GOOD
MANUFACTURING PRACTICES
(cGMP)
LAB UNIT 3: BASIC TOOLS IN THE
BIOTECHNOLOGY LABORATORY
LAB UNIT 4: PREPARING
SOLUTIONS
LAB UNIT 5: TOTAL RNA
ISOLATION FROM ALFALFA
SPROUTS
LAB UNIT 6: TRANSFORMATION
OF E. coli WITH A RECOMBINANT
PLASMID
LAB UNIT 7: PLASMID ISOLATION
LAB UNIT 8: RESTRICTION
ENZYME MAPPING
LAB UNIT 9: GREEN
FLUORESCENT PROTEIN
PURIFICATION
LAB UNIT 10: SDS-PAGE OF
PURIFIED GFP
LAB UNIT 11: PCR-based VNTR
Human DNA Typing
LAB UNIT 12: BIOREMEDIATION
LAB UNIT 13 – DNA
FINGERPRINTING BY SOUTHERN
BLOT ANALYSIS
LAB UNIT 14 – INDIRECT ELISA
FOR HIV-1 DETECTION
LAB UNIT 15 – MINING
RATING
(1=remove, not relevant
doesn’t work, 2=needs
optimization or changes,
3=works well, no opinion,
4=works well and relevant)
COMMENTS
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