We examined the neural substrates of fear memory formation and maintenance when repeated recall was used to prevent forgetting in young animals. In contrast to adult rats, juveniles failed to show contextual fear responses at 4 d post-fear conditioning. Reconsolidation sessions 3 and 6 d after conditioning restored contextual fear responses in…

The "'Streptomyces' genetics and secondary metabolism" laboratory course gives an introduction to the versatile soil dwelling Gram-positive bacteria "Streptomyces" and their secondary metabolism. The course combines genetic modification of "Streptomyces"; growing of the strain and protoplast preparation, plasmid…

We have developed an integrated, project-oriented curriculum for undergraduate molecular biology and biochemistry laboratory courses spanning two semesters that is organized around the "ldhA" gene from the yogurt-fermenting bacterium "Lactobacillus bulgaricus," which encodes the enzyme d-lactate dehydrogenase. The molecular…

Successful learning of biochemistry requires students to engage with the material. In the past this often involved students writing out pathways by hand, and more recently directing students to online resources such as videos, songs, and animated slide presentations. However, even these latter resources do not really provide students an…

Course-integrated Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) involve large numbers of students in real research. We describe a late-year microbiology CURE in which students use yeast to address a research question around beer brewing or synthesizing biofuel; the interdisciplinary student-designed project incorporates genetics, bioinformatics,…

To keep biochemistry instruction current and relevant, it is crucial to expose students to cutting-edge scientific research and how experts reason about processes governed by thermodynamics and kinetics such as protein folding and dynamics. This study focuses on how experts explain their research into this topic with the intention of informing…

Although the potent effects of cation-p interactions for stabilizing protein structure and binding ligands to proteins have been reported in the chemical literature for over two decades, there are no undergraduate biochemistry textbooks covering this important noncovalent attractive force. In an attempt to remedy this situation, this primer…

An assessment was developed using entries from the macromolecular Crystallographic Information File that was given to students in an upper level bioinformatics class at the end of the semester during a 2½ hour time period. Although all students completed the same questions, they were assessed on an individual protein they had worked on during the…

In the Fall of 2015 and in the 2016-2017 academic year, we conducted a two-week, team-taught, interdisciplinary module concurrently in an advanced biochemistry course, offered in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, and a sophomore-level environmental-ethics course, offered in the Religion Department, at Oberlin College. The focus of the…

The mathematical models that describe enzyme kinetics are invaluable predictive tools in numerous scientific fields. However, the daunting mathematical language used to describe kinetic behavior can be confusing for life science students; they often struggle to conceptualize and relate the mathematical representations to the molecular phenomena…

Medical laboratory technology major was set up to meet rapid development of science and medical research technology in 2013. Students majoring in medical laboratory had learnt a lot of techniques distributed among different specialized courses. But, they did not understand why they had to learn these techniques and how they were applied in a…

A one semester undergraduate biochemistry laboratory experience is described for an understanding of recombinant technology from gene cloning to protein characterization. An integrated experimental design includes three sequential modules: molecular cloning, protein expression and purification, and protein analysis and characterization. Students…

This case study describes a classroom-based questionnaire that was carried out with a group of 36 high school students (17-18 years old) in Catalonia. The aim was to examine the usefulness of questionnaires focused on scientific inquiry, both to evaluate students' inquiry abilities and for their potential as tools to improve the understanding of…

The US Department of Justice released the final report on school violence and showed that middle school is the age when violence is high, accounting for more than 70% of all violence cases (Zweig et al., 2013). After having perpetrated, the probability that the perpetrator will commit violence again will increase significantly (Office of the…

Currently, traditional paper methods may not effectively be used in education due to lack of access, outdated content, and poor graphics. Education through mobile-based applications is one of the alternative solutions. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate LabSafety educational application and its effect on promoting the…