BIMS

Last night I finished a book on the submarine the USS Scorpion and was struck by how busy naval ships are when they return to their home ports.  Rather than the boats sitting idle while the crew gets some R&R, it is a time when systems are tested, problems are fixed, and improvements are made.  With the close of the spring semester and the onset of summer, we find our BIMS program returning from a year “at sea” where the courses and techniques and facilities have been operating to conduct our “mission” – teaching BIMS majors.  Now with the conclusion of the year, we are  back in “home port” doing the same program tests, fixes, and upgrades submariners do before we take our program back out to sea next fall.  We find ourselves taking stock of what worked, what didn’t, and what comes next…

What worked.

• We were pleased with the direction taken in BIMS 1300 Introduction to Scientific Research.  The focus on learning the basics of how science is conducted, how to critically analyze the world around us, and how to apply the skills of science and analysis to better understand  our world was a positive development this year.
• We were pleased with the functionality of the new spaces for teaching and research that came online in November.  The micro lab was used by three different lab/lecture classes without any trainwrecks.  The student project spaces gave us flexible space to support student work outside of regular hours that functioned flawlessly.  Student card access to the labs was appreciated by students and allowed some previously impossible activities (round-the-clock monitoring of growth) to take place.  New equipment in the student research labs and teaching labs gave new approaches for studying lab problems.
• We were pleased with the new Genetics course taught by Dr. Brosius.  As a more balanced mixture of Mendelian, population, and molecular genetics, it gave an exceptional foundation for students ready to delve deeper in Molecular Cell Biology classes next year.
• We were pleased with the transition to a new schedule for offering BIMS courses in the freshman sequence.  Next year, our new sequence will be fully operational.

What didn’t work.

• We found the positioning of some pieces of equipment in our new spaces to be less than ideal.  For instance, a large rack for placement of backpacks and student materials went unused and students continued to put those things on the floor of the lab.  Incubators were crowded together making access by students from two classes meeting simultaneously very difficult.  After “living in the spaces” for a full semester, we will “rearrange some of the furniture” this summer.
• We found less success in Advanced Micro and capstones than was hoped.  We realized halfway through the semester that student ownership of the projects was necessary in order to move them toward self-sufficiency and greater investment in getting results, and so we made adjustments to that effect.  Still, at the end we realized there were other steps we could have taken to improve the experience and the productivity.
• A hiring freeze undermined our efforts to fill the vacant molecular biologist position that has hamstrung us during the year.  We are unable to deliver our complete BIMS program without that person, and so we found ourselves scrambling to substitute courses to allow students to graduate.  The result was for those graduates a fine degree but in some ways lacking of all the breadth and depth BIMS should have.

What’s next?

• BIMS faculty are spending May taking stock of what worked and what didn’t with the intention to refine our efforts to improve our program.  This annual review and planning insures we don’t continue doing the same things in the same ways out of habit or because it is easy.
• Even in the midst of a hiring freeze, we have secured the services of McM alumna Sheena Banks to teach molecular courses for us as an adjunct.  Sheena received her MS in Immunology from UTMB and is working as a Research Associate at the TTUHSC School of Pharmacy.  This should help us bring a major portion of the molecular dimension of the BIMS program back online.
• We will continue to experiment with courses and their delivery next year.  For instance, the BIOL 1301 Unicellular Organisms course and BIMS 1101 Uni Lab will receive a major overhaul next year to help strengthen areas in student learning that our testing of junior and senior BIMS students has revealed.  Also,  the BIMS 4491 Advanced Micro course for the fall will focus on spore ecology and physiology, and will meet in two hour blocks three times weekly.  Students will see how different compositions of growth media influence the size and resistance of Bacillus thuringiensis endospores.  Our expectation is that this work will result in presentation at the spring meeting of the Texas Branch of the American Society for Microbiology and subsequent publication.

All this is to say the BIMS program is not static, is never satisfied.  While for many on campus the summer represents a time of rest, for us it is a very busy time.  We want our program to be the best it can be – battle-ready and tested, improved – when we set sail again next fall to accomplish our mission to give BIMS majors the very best knowledge and skills and experiences possible.

Dr. D

This week, Dr. Heidi DiFrancesca’s Genetics students are testing foods for the presence of foreign DNA to determine whether they are “all natural” or have been genetically engineered.  Genetically-modified foods (GMFs) include those that contain corn or other plant products that have been improved through introduction of genes from other species.  Presence of such foreign genes in foodstuffs is detected using the same tools that allow federal agencies to see whether the plant’s genome has been modified genetically - molecular methods for cloning and DNA manipulation.

One frequently-encountered genetically-modified crop is corn, where the delta-endotoxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis is introduced to the genome to enable the plant’s production of  the toxin to kill a variety of insects that can ruin the crop.  The toxin is harmless to people and other vertebrates – in fact, it is harmless to all but a small collection of insect pests.  We could eat the toxin by the handful without effect, but for those susceptible insects one bite means certain death.  You may recall the uproar in recent years over GMO/GMF (genetically-modified organisms/genetically-modified foods) and the European bans that resulted, or the threat to monarch butterfly populations some believed to be posed by fields of genetically-modified plants expressing the toxin.  The methods and materials to be used in Dr. D’s class were developed by industry to allow for screening of foods for presence of the delta-endotoxin gene.

Bt spores and bipyramidal crystals (source of the delta-endotoxin)

Students will take common foodstuffs containing corn – perhaps corn chips, perhaps corn tortillas (this is Texas, after all!) – and extract the DNA contained within.  Then, using molecular probes for the delta-endotoxin gene sequence they will look for its presence in the DNA recovered.  More likely than not, someone’s corn-based product will have the target sequence because it has been genetically modified to improve yield.

Bottom line is our students are learning valuable skills that are used by industry professionals to address real-world concerns.  Not a bad week’s work for McMurry’s biomedical science students!

We’re entering the mid-summer period where the wind-down from the spring semester collides head-on with the spool-up for the fall semester.  Things are busy on campus.  Here’s a sampling:

• The first SOAR is over and the second one is next week.  SOARs are events for incoming students to go through orientation and get their class schedules worked out for the fall.  We had 120 students make McMurry their college home a week or so ago.  Over 100 more incoming freshmen are scheduled to be on campus next week.  They are the smart ones, as waiting for the third SOAR or to register at the beginning of the semester means risking closed classes and schedule conflicts.  I mentioned in a comment that roughly 10% of students at the first SOAR signed up for the initial BIMS course.  Looks like it will be a great start for Year Two of BIMS.
• Summer research is well underway.  Dr. Paul Pyenta has been working with a Welch Summer Research student to clone gfp protein into a plasmid compatible with Bacillus thuringiensis.  They’ve been using the new centrifuge mentioned in a recent post, but found the need to spin 250 ml bottles at a high speed than is possible with the swinging bucket rotor we got with it.  Another centrifuge and modified procedure will have to suffice until we can purchase another rotor more suitable to the speeds required by the original protocol.
• Dr. Pyenta ordered a new digital gel documentation system today that will allow clear photography of gels for publication and presentation.  This is a valuable piece of equipment for helping students build their biological portfolios – artifacts from their hands-on lab work will be collected and saved to document their proficiency.
• Dr. Tom Benoit taught Microbiology in Summer 1 and now is working on a proposal for the lab renovation competition McMurry will hold in August.  Science faculty were encouraged to propose innovative spaces for teaching and research for the competition, which will see the winning entry adopted to guide a lab renovation project to take place in Summer 2010.  Two labs and support spaces will be renovated to provide a model of future spaces to be seen in the Finch-Gray Science Center.  BIMS intends to have the best proposal for consideration.
• Dr. Heidi DiFrancesca has spent time this summer traveling.  No word yet whether she will join her husband Mark on a trip to Japan on behalf of their church.  One additional task Dr. D will accomplish this summer is purchase of the next important pieces of teaching/research equipment:  real-time PCR, Nanodrop spectrophotometer, new tissue culture hoods, and more.
• Dr. Larry Sharp has been busy overseeing applications to health professions schools – medical and dental, mainly.  He us also teaching both A&P I and II this summer, all while designing the new Pre-Health Professions Seminar series to be taken by our pre-health students.
• Dr. Gary Wilson has been juggling administrative duties with an overhaul of his microbiology course and some development work for his software package VirtualUnknown(TM) Microbiology.  A new totally online version of the software is in development.
• BIMS faculty plan to hold a retreat this summer to assess what worked this year and what needs “tweaking” as the BIMS program enters its second year.  One item for discussion is how we can intentionally link courses together through common projects so that we work together in research as our students learn.  We got a great start on that this year, but more can be done.

No doubt, it is a busy summer in Abilene!