Experimental Methods in Biology Course Engages Students in Authentic Research on Phage SuperInfection Immunity Testing

One of the recommended action items from the 2011 Vision and Change report was for undergraduate biology courses to be active, outcome oriented, inquiry-driven and relevant. At four-year undergraduate teaching institutions similar to Georgia Gwinnett College, maximizing student outcomes while providing quality, substantive research experiences for each student can be challenging. The Experimental Methods in Biology (BIOL4570) course was designed to enable students to investigate a problem from literature to the bench, within the limits of a fifteen week semester. The objective of the course was to provide students with direct, hands-on experience that would be relevant in most biological career fields. As an example of this methodology, I will be presenting the module created for students to troubleshoot and adapt some of the protocols used by GGC non-science majors as part of the phage hunting model used in the HHMI supported SEA-PHAGES Program

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead