A Microbiology course focusing on cancer and AIDS has had a significant impact on the smoking habits of students, causing many of the smokers in the class to quit. Smoking cessation will now be made a permanent part of the course.

Students in the spring 2007 "Biology of Cancer and AIDS" course were polled about their smoking habits as part of an assignment and asked if the class had influenced their behavior. After a series of lectures on smoking and cancer, 27 of the 47 smokers in the class that responded to the survey had quit smoking and eight students were in the process of trying to quit.

Lectures covered everything from the history of smoking and statistics on tobacco use to how smoking causes cancer by blocking the action of a tumor suppressor gene that keeps cells from dividing too rapidly. Also included was a discussion on the various types of lung cancer and the poor prognosis faced by lung cancer patients.

"Most of the students didn't understand the detrimental impacts of cigarette smoking and had never seen all the information presented as a whole," said Wilmore Webley, assistant professor of Microbiology. "Just learning how significant it was made some of them quit smoking."

One slide that caught the student's attention showed the harmful chemicals contained in cigarette smoke like arsenic, cadmium and hexane and how they are used as ingredients in paints, batteries and lighter fluid.

They were also shocked by the increased risk of oral cancer posed by the combination of smoking and drinking alcohol, a common behavior for many of the students. "Alcohol damages the epithelial cells that line the mouth and throat," said Webley. "This causes the rate of cell division to increase when cells are repaired. Smoking makes this worse by increasing the chance of DNA damage at a time of increased cell division."

Webley plans to make smoking cessation a permanent part of the class. In the fall there will be a structured support group for students who wish to quit smoking and materials from the American Lung Association and the National Cancer Institute will be made available.

"This experience made me realize that what you say as a teacher does have an impact," said Webley. "I didn't realize that so many of the students would have quit smoking based on the course materials."

"Biology of Cancer and AIDS" is a General Education course designed for nonscientists with an enrollment of approximately 470 students each semester.