Scientists awarded $1.6m to revamp biology program
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has awarded $1.6 million over four years
to a team of scientists from the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics to redesign the undergraduate biological sciences program.
The researchers will use the funding to revamp the curriculum, training and research opportunities for undergraduates to better prepare them for careers in the biological sciences.
The thrust of the team’s proposal is to improve the quantitative and analytical skills of students by integrating principles of physics, chemistry, math and bioinformatics into the biology classroom and lab. Team-taught courses and research internships for students are critical components of the redesign. Faculty will also be trained in the new curriculum through seminars and institutes, including the UMass 2010 Institute, where faculty teams will work on projects that help incorporate cross-disciplinary themes into their teaching.
“We are going to transform the undergraduate experience for the life science major — both in the classroom and in the laboratory — by taking an interdisciplinary approach to their education,” says biologist and project director Elizabeth Connor.
For many biology majors, a class in Newtonian physics for example, seems to have little relevance — a course that must be endured only to meet degree requirements.
“There is a perceived dichotomy between the physical and life sciences that is reinforced by the separation of disciplines in the classroom and lab,” says Connor. “But it is a false dichotomy—students should be able to use concepts and reasoning from a discipline such as chemistry to address biological questions.”
Four new classes at the introductory level will bridge that discipline gap, says Connor. A first semester course for freshman, “Quantitative Biology of the Cell,” will explore the inner workings of the building blocks of life through a number of activities, including examining the chemical environment of a reaction spurred by enzymes and quantitatively evaluating how the microbe E.coli directs its movement. A second semester course will apply modeling to core biology concepts like evolution and ecology. Students will use concepts borrowed from physics, such as level mechanics and torque, to ask questions about form and function in the evolution of the skulls and teeth of mammals.
Two other courses will build on the freshman experience and prepare students for independent research opportunities, notes Connor. The first will focus on bioimaging — training students in optics and imaging — courses usually populated by physicists. And a final course will focus on gene and genome analysis—teams of students will investigate an “orphan” gene of unknown function, testing their hypothesis with bioinformatics tools.
To ensure an integrative approach to the new curriculum, faculty will teach classes in teams — biologists pairing with colleagues from chemistry or information sciences. These pairs of junior and senior faculty will attend the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education. Post-doctoral fellows and graduate students will also be trained in interdisciplinary teaching through an HHMI mentoring seminar.
Research experience has a profound impact on the career success of biological science students, says Connor, and broadening access to how science is actually done is a core component of the redesign. There will be opportunities for students on several levels including summer research internships, academic year internships and a Junior Fellows in the Life Sciences Program. More than 70 campus labs will open their doors to students who will work closely with a lab mentor, exploring topics such as protein structure as visualized through X-ray crystallography or energy conversion in bacteria.
Additionally, the campus will host an annual HHMI undergraduate research symposium, where all students will be encouraged to present their work, getting feedback from mentors and peers.
The biological sciences are taught by 124 faculty across nine departments on campus. In 2005 alone, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics received more than $43 million in external research support, notes Connor.
“UMass Amherst recognizes the critical role that research plays in undergraduate education,” she says. “This funding will allow our students to bring the skills that they learn in the classroom into the lab. It is appropriate, because there they will be working at the interface of biological, physical and information sciences.”
June 20, 2006.
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