Biology 3120 Goals and Outcomes

The following course outcomes will be met by all offerings of Biology 3120.

• Employ safe laboratory practices

• Use standard lab equipment.

  • Students will demonstrate micro pipetting specific volumes into centrifuge tubes and verifying accuracy through mass.

  • Students will demonstrate centrifuge use by properly balancing the centrifuge to collect cell pellets. 

• Use standard compound light microscopes.

  • When provided a sample of liquid culture, students will be able to prepare a wet mount.

  • Students will be able to identify the common laboratory research organisms (bacteria, yeast and mammalian) through visualizing with a light microscope.

    • Students will be able to illustrate their observations through a light microscope to communicate their findings

• Students will be able to perform transfections to introduce foreign DNA into cells using plasmids.

  • Students will be able to isolate and purify DNA plasmids from bacteria lysate using miniprep.

  • Students will be able to identify collected DNA plasmids using restriction digest followed by gel electrophoresis.

  • Students will be able to amplify collected DNA plasmids using PCR and confirm the identify of plasmids through selection of appropriate primers. 

  • Students will be able to transfect plant cells with DNA plasmids then visualize the efficiency of the transfection through fluorescent microscopy.

  • Students will be able to explain the significance of GFP use in scientific research techniques such as cell labeling and flow cytometry.

• Students will be able to edit genes in a yeast model using CRISPR Cas9.

  • Using CRISPR Cas9, students will be able to cause a loss of function in the ADE2 gene in yeast cells.

  • Students will be able to evaluate the efficiency of their gene editing through visualization of transformed colonies and basic statistical analysis.

• Communicate with the scientific community

  • Students will evaluate the contribution of faculty at The Ohio State University through the search and reading of primary literature.

  • Students will select a faculty member with interests compatible to their own to pursue further work and undergraduate research opportunities.

  • Students will compose a cover letter to communicate their interests to the selected faculty member.