ABSTRACT

We report a summary of the results from an education research project that investigated student reasoning related to Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics and enzyme inhibition. We have previously discussed students' mathematical reasoning related to rate laws and reaction order, student conceptions of different types of enzyme inhibition (competitive, noncompetitive, and uncompetitive), and student understanding of representations used to describe enzyme kinetics (Michaelis-Menten graphs, Lineweaver-Burk plots, reaction schemes). In this paper, we bring together the different publications that resulted from this project to emphasize the implications for instruction gleaned from each study and discuss the additional insight provided by synthesizing the results across studies. For this work, the results from this project have been framed according to the refined consensus model of pedagogical content knowledge, a framework from science education that defines the knowledge and skills needed to transform content knowledge into teaching.

ABSTRACT

Advances in fluorescent biosensors allow researchers to spatiotemporally monitor a diversity of biochemical reactions and secondary messengers. However, commercial microscopes for the specific application of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) are prohibitively expensive to implement in the undergraduate classroom, owing primarily to the dynamic range required and need for ratiometric emission imaging. The purpose of this article is to provide a workflow to design a low-cost, FRET-enabled microscope and to equip the reader with sufficient knowledge to compare commercial light sources, optics, and cameras to modify the device for a specific application. We used this approach to construct a microscope that was assembled by undergraduate students with no prior microscopy experience that is suitable for most single-cell cyan and yellow fluorescent protein FRET applications. The utility of this design was demonstrated by measuring small metabolic oscillations by using a lactate FRET sensor expressed in primary mouse pancreatic islets, highlighting the biologically suitable signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range of our compact microscope. The instructions in this article provide an effective teaching tool for undergraduate educators and students interested in implementing FRET in a cost-effective manner.

ABSTRACT

Self-organization is ubiquitous in biology, with viruses providing an excellent illustration of bioassemblies being much more than the sum of their parts. Following nature's lead, molecular self-assembly has emerged as a new synthetic strategy in the past 3 decades or so. Self-assembly approaches promise to generate complex supramolecular architectures having molecular weights of 0.5 to 100 MDa and collective properties determined by the interplay between structural organization and composition. However, biophysical methods specific to mesoscopic self-assembly, and presentations of the challenges they aim to overcome, remain underrepresented in the educational laboratory curriculum. We present here a simple but effective model for laboratory instruction that introduces students to the world of intermolecular forces and virus assembly, and to a cutting-edge technology, atomic force microscopy nanoindentation, which is able to measure the mechanical properties of single virus shells in vitro. In addition, the model illustrates the important idea that, at nanoscale, phenomena often have an inherent interdisciplinary character.

As a former high school physics teacher, attracting students to consider careers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has been a long-term interest. Consequently, undergraduate students have often played prominent roles in my laboratory's research activities. Approximately 50 students have been involved in research in my lab either through summer research programs (including first-year medical students), for academic credit, as volunteer interns, or because of other academic requirements. Among those student researchers, 29 were coauthor on 1 or more peer-reviewed publications, with 12 students as first or co-first author. Many of these students went on to pursue

A Homebuilt Experiment to Quantify the Mechanical Properties of Hair

Fabian Bennati Weis,

Tizian Schmidt,

Kilian Kuhlbrodt,

Ruth Meyer,

Charlotta Lorenz, and

Sarah Köster

Research on Students' Understanding of Michaelis-Menten Kinetics and Enzyme Inhibition: Implications for Instruction and Learning

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Designing a Compact, Low-Cost FRET Microscopy Platform for the Undergraduate Classroom

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A Laboratory Model for Virus Particle Nanoindentation

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Take-home Tensile Testing System for Biomechanics Education

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The Biophysics of Cell Migration: Biasing Cell Motion with Feynman Ratchets

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Barriers to Diffusion in Cells: Visualization of Membraneless Particles in the Nucleus

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4f Koehler Transmitted Illumination Condenser for Teaching and Low-Cost Microscopic Imaging

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Machine Learning in a Molecular Modeling Course for Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Biophysics Students

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Reflections on Undergraduate Research Mentoring

Lessons Learned from Organizing a Biophysics Symposium in a Developing Country

Science and networking

Biophysics in Isolation: Pushing Beyond the Niche

Stochastic Modelling of Reaction–Diffusion Processes by Radek Erban and S. Jonathan Chapman

A Homebuilt Experiment to Quantify the Mechanical Properties of Hair

An Entropy-Based Approach to Introducing Osmotic Pressure

A ChatGPT-Assisted Reading Protocol for Undergraduate Research Students

Exploring Viscoelasticity: An Outreach Workshop for Middle and High School Students

Visualizing Cell Structures with Minecraft