Apoptosis: A Four-Week Laboratory Investigation for Advanced Molecular and Cellular Biology Students

Over the past decade, apoptosis has emerged as an important field of study central to ongoing research in many diverse fields, from developmental biology to cancer research. Apoptosis proceeds by a highly coordinated series of events that includes enzyme activation, DNA fragmentation, and alterations in plasma membrane permeability. The detection of each of these phenotypic changes is accessible to advanced undergraduate cell and molecular biology students. We describe a 4-week laboratory sequence that integrates cell culture, fluorescence microscopy, DNA isolation and analysis, and western blotting (immunoblotting) to follow apoptosis in cultured human cells. Students working in teams chemically induce apoptosis, and harvest, process, and analyze cells, using their data to determine the order of events during apoptosis. We, as instructors, expose the students to an environment closely simulating what they would encounter in an active cell or molecular biology research laboratory by having students coordinate and perform multiple tasks simultaneously and by having them experience experimental design using current literature, data interpretation, and analysis to answer a single question. Students are assessed by examination of laboratory notebooks for completeness of experimental protocols and analysis of results and for completion of an assignment that includes questions pertaining to data interpretation and apoptosis

Call to restrict neonicotinoids

On 28 April 2018 the European Parliament voted for a complete and permanent ban on all outdoor uses of the three most commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides. With the partial exception of the state of Ontario, Canada, governments elsewhere have failed to take action. Below is a letter, signed by 232 scientists from around the world, urgently calling for global action by policy makers to address this issue