Students taking introductory biology classes may soon have the opportunity to sequence their own DNA, pending approval of a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to fund an experimental laboratory option for Biology 2 and 11.
"This would give students a chance to compare real life experiences to their own genetics," biology professor Lee Witters, who is also a professor at Dartmouth Medical School, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Dartmouth is presently in the third year of a four-year grant of $1.5 million from HHMI that is intended to enrich undergraduate science teaching. The grant, which ends next August, is used to fund post-doctoral fellowship positions, an interdisciplinary science course, outreach to local school systems and an undergraduate research opportunity, according to biology professor Roger Sloboda, the program director for the HHMI-funded initiatives.
The College was invited by HHMI to apply for a renewal of its current "core" grant and also for a new grant intended to fund experimental life science education programs like the proposed laboratory option for Biology 2 and 11.
In the proposed laboratory, students would have a chance to isolate their own DNA, sequence four genes and compare the sequences to others in the class, Sloboda said.
"They will look at their group as a whole and how gene variation occurred on an evolutionary scale, and then match that to population movement around the globe," he said.
The biology department is considering having students sequence the gene that determines lactose intolerance, the gene that creates the ability to detect sweet and bitter tastes, a gene involved in skin and hair pigmentation and a gene that helps digest starch, Sloboda said, adding that the results of the gene tests will remain confidential.
Of the 196 colleges and universities invited to apply for funding, 165 applied for the core grant, and a subset of 56 institutions also applied for the experimental grant, HHMI precollege and undergraduate science education program assistant William Biederman said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Fifty institutions will receive core grants of up to $2.2 million, and five will receive the experimental grant of up to $600,000, Biederman said.
The new experimental laboratory curriculum, if funded, will be implemented during the 2011-2012 academic year, Sloboda said, and will include two 20-student laboratory sections, one for a Biology 11 class and another for Biology 2.
Sloboda said the biology department currently plans to offer students the opportunity to sign up for the courses either with or without a laboratory section. If more than 20 students elect to take one of the labs, students will be selected through a lottery process to make the test program as unbiased as possible, Sloboda said.
This would be the first time a biology course intended for non-majors included a laboratory section in "a long time," Sloboda said.
If the laboratory option proves to be popular in the first year of the program, the department will likely expand the two sections to accommodate 40 students each, Sloboda said.
"There's a major question out there that some of us feel is unanswered: Does the addition of laboratories really add quality to the course in terms of outcome?" Witters said.
The proposal for the new laboratory sections was in part inspired by the HHMI competition, but also driven by a desire to use the new laboratory space that will be available in the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center. The center is scheduled for occupancy in August 2011.
"We are currently restricted in part because we don't have space in the building," Sloboda said, referring to Gilman Hall, the current home of the biology department.
The 2010-2011 academic year would be used to plan the laboratory curriculum and "work out any kinks," he said.
"The hypothesis is that a hands-on, inquiry-based laboratory section would enhance students' interest in the life sciences," Sloboda said. "We don't want to create a cookbook lab."
Sloboda said he will still push to implement the program if Dartmouth does not win the additional HHMI grant support it requested.
"In the absence of that funding, it'll be a little harder because it's not cheap to do this," Sloboda said.
