BIOL 3110L     Basic Laboratory Skills in Biology     Fall 2006

Instructor David Eisner, MD Room 403B, Biosciences Office Hours: by appointment Office Telephone: 542-5017 E-mail: deisner@arches.uga.edu

Teaching Assistants TBA

This class is designed to introduce you to the basic laboratory bench procedures you have read about, but with which you may have little or no direct experience. By the end of the semester, we hope that you will understand how to perform a given protocol and, perhaps more importantly, why it works.

Attendance

Attendance in this class is mandatory. Missing more than one class period a) places a significant burden upon your laboratory partner(s); b) prevents you from gaining applied experience, a major goal of this class and c) disrupts the continuity needed to complete multi-week experiments. Therefore, we allow one absence in this class, without an authorized excuse. Points will be deduction from your participation performance.

Grading and Exams

Grades are based upon your laboratory performance, exams and lab reports. There will be three examinations: one designed to test your “practical” skills and two subsequent exams designed test your knowledge of the theoretical foundation of each laboratory procedure. There will be no final exam; instead, you will submit four lab reports covering selected experiments during the course. The reports will be written in the style of a scientific paper. Make-up examinations may be scheduled at a mutually agreeable time. Finally, we will check your laboratory notebooks for accuracy. Each of these (applied performance, take-home exams, and laboratory notebook) will contribute to your grade as given below.

Allocation of Points in Determining Your Grade: Your grade will be based on the following work, weighted as indicated:
1. Practical Exam	50 points (9%)
2. Midterm Exams (2@100 points)	200 points (36%)
3. Lab Report(s)	200 points (36%)
5. Lab Notebook	50 points (9%)
6. Participation/Performance (as judged by staff)	50 points (9%)
Total	550 points

Final grades will be awarded as follows: A (90%+), B (80 –89), C (70 –79), D (60-69%) & F (<69%)

All academic work must meet the standards contained in “A Culture of Honesty.” Students are responsible for informing themselves about those standards before performing any academic work.

Schedule

This course is intended to duplicate the experience of working in a research laboratory. Therefore, one cannot predict exactly when certain experiments will be performed, or when one must deviate from the experimental outline in order to complete a procedure and produce accurate results. Thus, you can expect a certain amount of deviation from the schedule outlined below. The course syllabus is a general plan for the course: deviations announced in class by the instructor may be necessary. You must complete each set of experiments correctly before you can progress to the next step. Your final grade in this class depends in large part upon your progress in this set of experiments.

Tentative Course Outline

Lab	Topic
Intro	Introduction, Lab Safety, Dilutions, Solutions, Molarity
1	Pipetting, Bacteriological Techniques; Media Preparation & Sterile Technique; Isolation of Bioluminescent Bacteria
2	Restriction Enzymes
3	Gel Electrophoresis
4	PRACTICAL EXAM
5	Purification of pGEM plasmids from E. coli and verification
6	Isolation and purification of Vibrio genomic DNA
7	Verification of genomic DNA
8	Restriction Enzyme Digestion of pGEM and Vibrio genomic DNA
9	Verification of pGEM and Vibrio Restriction Enzyme Digests
10	Quantification of Plasmid DNA and Ligation into pGEM Plasmids
11	Prepare competent Escherichia coli (E. coli) DH5a
12	MIDTERM I
13	Verification of Ligations and Restricted Plasmids
14	Transformation of E. coli with Vibro fischeri DNA
15	Screening of V. fischeri genomic library for light producing clones
16	Gel purification of restriction fragments and repeat 10-16 (if needed)
17	Southern blotting
18	Finish Southern Blotting
19	MIDTERM II
20	Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
21	Gel Electrophoresis of PCR Products
22	Enzyme-linked Immunoadsorbant Assay (ELISA)
23	Student Symposium and Lab Cleanup