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Molecular Biotechnology Education

The Biotechnology Program (BIT) at NC State University.

About the image: In the BIT Organoids course, students use mouse intestinal organoids to study cancer initiation. Students transfect organoids with CRISPR/Cas9 editing tools to delete the gene Apc and a second gene of interest. Apc is an important part of the Wnt pathway, and disrupted Wnt signaling is a key early change that happens in intestinal cancer. This image shows a brightfield image of a CRISPR/Cas9-editing Apc-knockout organoid that is thriving in conditions that have killed the non-knockout cells around it. Image credits: Taylor Roberts (transfection) and Ravi Appalabhotla (CRISPR knockout) in Dr. Leigh Ann Samsa’s class.

New award! Congratulations to Dr. Dums for receiving a Postdoctoral Meeting Award to present his pedagogical work on growth mindset at the ASBMB 2021 National Meeting.

New DELTA Exploratory Grant:  BIT Faculty Dr. Melissa Srougi receives an exploratory grant from NC State’s DELTA to develop a series of virtual reality-based student-driven training videos on biotechnology laboratory techniques.

New courses: DNA Forensics and RNA World.

New publications: The BIT Faculty published a new educational case study about coronavirus! Chen S., Goller C., Srougi M. 2020. COVID-19: Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go? National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. Available on the web. 

BIT Teaching Postdoctoral Scholar, Dr. Leigh Ann Samsa, and BIT graduate teaching assistants Adam Groth and Linnea Andersen publish CRISPR lesson.

New BIT Teaching Postdoctoral Scholar, Dr. Drew Hasley publishes an article on cultivating inclusive instructional and research environments.

New collaborations: BIT leads a multi-institution project to expand Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory Education Modules (MBLEMs) with five partner institutions.