Design2Data
Ashley Vater, University of California-Davis
The D2D program is centered around an undergraduate-friendly protocol workflow that follows the design-build-test-learn engineering framework. This protocol has served as the scaffold for a successful undergraduate training program and has been further developed into courses that range from a 10-week freshman seminar to a year-long, upper-division molecular biology course. The overarching research goal of this CURE probes the current predictive limitations of protein-modeling software by functionally characterizing single amino acid mutants in a robust model system. The most interesting outcomes of this project are dependent on large datasets, and, as such, the project is optimal for multi-institutional collaborations.

Laser spectroscopy of atmospherically relevant molecules and clusters in helium nanodroplets
Paul Raston, James Madison University
Superfluid helium nanodroplets present an ideal medium for the study of chemical dynamics at the molecular level. Their low temperature, enormous heat conductivity, and weakly interacting nature allow for the investigation of various things, such as how molecular rotation is effected by a solvent, and how molecules interact with each other. These two topics will be addressed in the lab by (1) measuring the spectra of unexplored molecules in helium nanodroplets and determining their rotational constants; this data will then be used to test known models describing the interaction between the molecule and helium solvent, and (2) synthesizing and characterizing unexplored molecular clusters in an effort to better understand molecular solvation; students will solvate the "unexplored molecule" with an atmospherically relevant species (O2, N2, H2O), and investigate the resulting clusters with laser Stark spectroscopy.

Random gene mutagenesis for gene identification linked to prodigiosin production in Serratia marcescens
Verena Carvalho, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
This lab course is designed to provide course-based undergraduate research experiences. You will learn how to prepare, execute, and interpret your own experiments. While all of you will conduct the same techniques in the course, each of you will create their own sets of mutant strains and study different features of your bacterium. We will study Serratia marcescens, an opportunistic, nosocomial pathogen, and is particularly linked to catheter-associated bacteremia, urinary tract infections, and wound infections. It is responsible for 1.4% of hospital-acquired infection cases in the United States. These bacteria are commonly found in the respiratory and urinary tracts of hospitalized adults, and in the gastrointestinal systems of children. Many strains of S. marcescens have a bright red colony color (a tripyrrole pigment called prodigiosin), while pigment production is often temperature-dependent. Prodigiosin is a secondary metabolite, and its expression is thought to be related to phosphate limitation. It was also identified as a natural bioactive substance with high potential for antibiotic and anti-cancer applications. It currently receives renewed attention for its wide range of potential applications, including activities as antimalarial, antifungal, immunosuppressant, and antibiotic agents. It is also prominently known for its capacity to trigger apoptosis of malignant cancer cells, and high activity against stationary phase Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, has been demonstrated. Given its diverse effects, the exact mechanisms are currently not elucidated, and may be highly complex, including phosphatase inhibition, copper mediated cleavage of double stranded DNA, or disrupting the pH gradient through transmembrane transport of H+ and Cl- ions. Clearly, prodigiosin is a highly promising drug candidate, and is currently in preclinical phase study for pancreatic cancer treatment. In this course, we will use the transposon Tn5 to generate random mutations in the chromosome of Serratia marcescens. The transposon will be provided by a plasmid hosted in a donor E. coli strain, and transferred into your test bacterium via conjugation. We will then first select for successfully transposed mutants by testing for antibiotic resistance, and screen for your mutants that are altered in their pigment production. To identify the gene where the mutation has happened, we will remove the chromosomal DNA from the mutant strains, perform restriction enzyme digest, and generate self-circulating DNA. These plasmids are transformed into an E. coli strain that can replicate the fragment of genomic DNA that contains the transposon, and we can sequence the insertion site with the transposon DNA as anchor. In summary, in this course you will gain hands-on experience with modern genetic and biotechnological techniques, you will gain insights into bioinformatics and into working with public databases, which are all essential skills in modern microbiological research.

BIOL 189T Fungal Biology
Alija Mujic, California State University-Fresno
The diversity, community structure, and functional diversity of fungi in the high Sierra is understudied and is largely unknown from the Sierra Nevada foothills. Through use of direct field sampling I will engage BIOL189T students in sampling efforts to elucidate the fungal biology of these understudied habitats. Students will sample fungal sporocarps (mushrooms) from existing field plots established by the National Environmental Observation Network (NEON) and use morphological identification techniques and DNA barcoding methods to identify the fungal diversity in these habitats. Future iterations of the course will likely focus upon selected fungal taxa identified in previous iterations of the course to investigate the phenology and ecological interactions of the fungal community in these habitats in NEON plots.

Designing Authentic Undergraduate Experiences in Research (DAUER)
Joseph Ross, California State University-Fresno
In this research experience, students will learn about how inheritance of diverse genetic material from their parents can impact the health (fecundity) of offspring. Students will design experiments to mate pairs of populations from a diverse global collection of microscopic worms and measure and compare the fecundities of their hybrid offspring.

Emerging Contaminants in Arizona
Frank Marfai, Phoenix College

Kinetics of bioorthogonal reactions
Jen Heemstra, Emory University
Bioorthogonal reactions such as strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC) and inverse electron demand Diels–Alder (IEDDA) are widely used for labeling of biomolecules, which in turn enables numerous applications in basic science and biotechnology. The key characteristic of these reactions is the ability of the functional groups involved to react with each other while remaining inert to the other functional groups found in nature. Despite the wide use of these chemistries, relatively few studies have evaluated the effect of reaction conditions on the kinetics of the reaction, and it would be of value to the scientific community to know how factors such as buffer identity, pH, ionic strength, and temperature impact reaction rate. In this CURE, students synthesize reagents or biomolecules and utilize UV spectrophotometry to measure the reaction rate under varying conditions. Students communicate their results in a final report written in the format of a peer-reviewed publication, and this CURE has yielded peer-reviewed research publications to share the data with the scientific community.

A short medicinal-chemistry inspired laboratory sequence aimed at understanding and controlling bacterial communication.
Laura Brown, Indiana University-Bloomington
Medicinal chemists are organic chemists (often employed by pharmaceutical companies) who synthesize and develop new organic molecules with favorable biological properties. As an illustrative example, penicillin was discovered in 1928 and developed into a drug in 1942. Resistance quickly arose and continues to be a problem, and penicillin is not effective against all types of bacteria. In the decades that followed, medicinal chemists synthesized a variety of molecules that were similar in structure to penicillin, but that either demonstrated enhanced antibiotic activity or did not exhibit the same resistance profile. A new approach to controlling the pathogenicity of bacteria is to simply "trick" the bacteria into remaining in their "normal" non-pathogenic state by controlling the ability of bacteria to communicate with one another by a mechanism termed "Quorum Sensing." Quorum sensing is a form of chemical communication by which bacteria sense each other's presence via concentration gradients of small molecules. I have a collaborator in the biology department who has developed a biochemical assay to identify inhibitors of this process, and the students who sign up for this course will synthesize a small library of molecules to test in this assay.

Genetic Engineering of Zebrafish to Investigate Tumorigenicity of Cancer Mutations
Terry Shackleford, St. Marys University

Secondary Data Analysis to Explore Health Equity in a Psychological Framework
Anna Lee, North Carolina A & T State University
This class will provide students with the opportunity to conduct a research project to examine psycho-social factors related to health equity in North Carolina communities. Students will work in small groups to pose a novel question, analyze data using a publicly available dataset. and report findings. Over arching course goals are to write a complete APA formatted research report, to conduct a secondary data analysis, and to present findings.