Bioinnovation Laboratory

Leann Norman, Towson University

Location: Maryland

Context

This Bioinnovation CURE is an upper-level laboratory course that meets twice a week (6 hours per week) over a single (16-week) semester. Enrollment consists of approximate 10-20 students majoring in various areas of biology. Depending on their specific concentration, successful completion of the course fulfills an upper-level laboratory requirement or elective. While the class typically consists of juniors or seniors, graduate students who are looking to build laboratory experience have also been permitted to enroll. Although entering the course with a well-developed biology foundation, most students had limited experience with cell culture, bioengineering skills or regenerative medicine.

Target Audience:Major, Upper Division
CURE Duration:A full term

CURE Design

The Bioinnovation Laboratory CURE is focused on understanding the complex nature of the MSC secretome and its potential uses in the field of regenerative medicine. Specifically, this laboratory is focused on identifying ways to use the MSC secretome for tailored disease-specific treatments and bioengineering applications. To achieve this, students worked in groups to design experiments that would develop a more thorough understanding of the MSC secretome under intentionally designed cell-culture environments. Students modify parameters such as substrate stiffness, cell density, protein coating, pH or other variables if explained appropriately in their project design. Financial and equipment limitations required students to use PDMS gels when modifying substrate stiffnesses and also required the selection of a cytokine that could be detected through a commercially available ELISA kits. 

Prior to experimentation, the first half of the course uses a variety of small individual assignments, quizzes and a midterm lab practical to assess students on their knowledge of the course content, the underlying research objectives and the experimental techniques. The second portion of the course involves group-based research and the opportunity to share their work at a university sponsored Undergrade Research & Creative Inquiry Poster Session.
When designing their experiments, students were required to submit a project design report assignment which required explanation and justification of their proposed experimental design. The assignment involved a 1-2 paragraph response that required responses to the four questions: 

1. What part of regenerative medicine (or stem-cell application) relates to your research?
2. How will you use and modify polydimethysiloxane gels?
3. Which component of the MSC secretome will you evaluate? Why are you choosing this component and how is it related to regenerative medicine discussed in Question #1? 
4. Which variables are you measuring and how do these measurements relate to regenerative medicine discussed in Question #1?

Initially, this assignment is done individually to assess each student and their understanding between regenerative medicine, potential bioinnovation opportunities and stem cell research. Feedback is given to individual students and then groups resubmit a common hypothesis that requires instructor approval prior to experimentation. Students are assessed on the process and not on the research results to ensure that all students have the opportunity to succeed in the course.

The stakeholders include bioengineers and the scientific community. Guest lecturers in the field of entrepreneurism and stem cell manufacturing were also included throughout various stages of the course. The university was included in this course as students presented their work as research posters during our university sponsored Undergraduate Research & Creative Inquiry Poster Session event. The opportunity to publish scientific results is also available to students depending on the research outcomes.

Core Competencies: Analyzing and interpreting data, Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering), Planning and carrying out investigations
Nature of Research:Basic Research

Tasks that Align Student and Research Goals

Instructional Materials

A recent course syllabus with additional details on learning objectives, timeline and assignments can be found here:

Class Syllabus Template (Acrobat (PDF) 205kB Jun13 23)
Intro Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 47kB Jun13 23)

Assessment

Introduction assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 47kB Jun13 23)

Instructional Staffing

An undergraduate learning assistant (ULA) is employed for this course. After the first iteration of the course, the ULA was selected from previously enrolled students. The ULA assists with cell maintenance and sample collection during the days when the class is not scheduled to meet and is involved in regular lab maintenance and organization.

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Leann Norman Towson University

Provenance: Leann Norman, Towson University
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Author Experience

Leann Norman, Towson University

CURE laboratory classes have become a beneficial way to include an increased number of students in authentic research opportunities. The motivation for this CURE was to provide interested students with the opportunity to explore the field of bio-innovation and entrepreneurism while receiving class credit. I wanted to expose students to not only a unique set of lab skills, but also the critical business, legal and ethical components involved in the field of bioengineering.

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Advice for Implementation

• Emphasize the "why." It is important to be clear with the students why the time, energy and resources are being spent on this project. I found that bringing in guest lecturers who are entrepreneurs and have well established companies and research labs were helpful in emphasizing the value of these projects.
• When outlining the course schedule, leave space open for unexpected changes in the schedule.
• Remind students frequently that authentic research requires patience and repetition.
• I found it very helpful to keep detailed weekly notes during the first iteration of the course. Keeping track of how long procedures took, the skills that required extra repetition and any unexpected details. These notes were very valuable for future iterations and for outlining plans for ULAs.
• While it is often easier to prep things prior to class, I found it valuable for students to prepare their own media and solutions. This provided multiple opportunities for the students to gain extra practice working with lab math calculations, dilutions, aseptic technique, etc.
• Involve the scientific community and university as much as possible. The students took great pride in presenting their research posters at the university sponsored poster session and enjoyed listening to other classes and their CURE research. These types of experiences provide great value in terms of scientific identity and inclusion.

Iteration

The course timeline and schedule were intentionally designed to leave room for iteration. The first half of the course was focused on content, learning the necessary lab skills, and designing appropriate projects. The second half of the semester was very loosely scheduled to provide each group of students the ability to modify and repeat experiments as needed.

Students are frequently reminded that it's ok for experiments to not go as originally planned. I emphasize to the students that they are collecting data regardless of the outcome and that the data they are collecting provides value to the scientific community.

Requiring students to reflect on their results before repeating experiments is an important part of the course and prepares them for their research poster presentations. Giving students the opportunity to adjust their projects based on initial results and literature in the field contributes to their ownership in the project.

Using CURE Data

Students share their research projects and data with their peers and the university community at a university sponsored student research poster session forum. Although the research is done in groups, the students in this CURE present their work individually with the other group members listed as co-authors on their poster. This allows each student to prepare their own poster and present their work independently.

Resources

Please see the following publication for additional details regarding the design and implementation of this CURE course: Norman, L. Development and Implementation of a Bioinnovation Focused Course-Based Research Experience for Undergraduate Students. Biomed Eng Education (2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-022-00099-8

The following manuscripts are useful resources for faculty and students:

• Akther, Fahima, Shazwani Binte Yakob, Nam-Trung Nguyen, and Hang T. Ta. 2020. "Surface Modification Techniques for Endothelial Cell Seeding in PDMS Microfluidic Devices" Biosensors 10, no. 11: 182. https://doi.org/10.3390/bios10110182
• Chuah, Y., Koh, Y., Lim, K. et al. Simple surface engineering of polydimethylsiloxane with polydopamine for stabilized mesenchymal stem cell adhesion and multipotency. Sci Rep 5, 18162 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep18162 
• Natarajan V, Berglund EJ, Chen DX, Kidambi S. Substrate stiffness regulates primary hepatocyte functions. RSC Adv. 2015;5(99):80956–66. https://doi.org/10.1039/C5RA15208A
• Palchesko RN, Zhang L, Sun Y, Feinberg AW. Development of polydimethylsiloxane substrates with tunable elastic modulus to study cell mechanobiology in muscle and nerve. PLoS One. 2012;7(12):e51499. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051499. Epub 2012 Dec 11. PMID: 23240031; PMCID: PMC3519875 
• Pittenger MF, Discher DE, Pe ́ ault BM, Phinney DG, Hare JM, Caplan AI. Mesenchymal stem cell perspective: cell biology to clinical progress. NPJ Regen Med. 2019;4:22. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41536-019-0083-6.
• Zhou, T., Yuan, Z., Weng, J. et al. Challenges and advances in clinical applications of mesenchymal stromal cells. J Hematol Oncol 14, 24 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13045-021-01037-x