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Integrating Human Cell Culture into Undergraduate Research Projects
Author(s) -
Taylor Christopher Edward
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.589.5
Subject(s) - undergraduate research , presentation (obstetrics) , engineering ethics , institution , knowledge management , engineering management , medical education , computer science , engineering , sociology , medicine , social science , radiology
One of the most important aspects of undergraduate research is to prepare students with the conceptual knowledge and technical skills that they will need for graduate or industrial research. Projects that involve human cell culture and the biochemical methods used to evaluate cell viability, protein expression, and mRNA production are an effective way to build up both the concepts and technical skills that undergraduates will need. However, these projects also tend to require substantial investments of time and money, which are often difficult at the institutions which typically focus on undergraduates. This presentation will provide ways to adapt cell culture based projects to the resources – particularly funding, student time/expertise, and advisor time – that are realistically available at a primarily undergraduate institution. Aspects of this discussion will include: maintaining cells and running plate based experiments given relatively inexperienced undergraduate researchers, improving undergraduate familiarity with topics that typically go beyond the undergraduate curricular offerings, minimalist budgeting for cell culture based projects, and managing several undergraduate research projects on a typical PUI teaching load.