Isolation and characterization of antibiotic-producing soil bacteria
Maria Messner, Lenoir Community College
One of the biggest threat in hospitals is the rising cases of people who harbor antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. Therefore, it is critical to find and characterize novel antibiotics to combat the resistant strains. Most of the antibiotics used in healthcare settings come from anti-biotic producing bacteria and fungi found in the soil. The goal of this CURE will be to isolate antibiotic-producing bacteria and fungi from the soil in the local area, and to determine the chemistry of the antibiotics. An extension of the project will be to determine how the presence of antibiotic-producing microbes affect other organisms resident in the soil, as it is unclear as to why microbes use energy to produce antibiotic factors.

Get the Lead Out: Impacts of Toxins from SuperFund Sites on Human Health, Ecology, and Socioeconomic Conditions, with an Evaluation of Environmental Racism in Regional Communities
Jessica Smith-Rohrberg, Massachusetts Bay Community College
Students in a community-college introductory Environmental Studies course will extract soil samples from a Massachusetts-based SuperFund site. They will analyze toxins and perform research to enhance and promote scientific literacy, to examine impacts of environmental toxins on human health and development, and to discuss equity and environmental racism.

Hunting for Microbes
Barbara Stegenga, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In this introductory research course, students will develop microbiology skills to help them identify soil bacteria and perform co-culture screens to investigate bacterial interactions. Students will collect soil samples, predict how treatments will affect bacteria and then isolate the bacteria. The treated bacteria will be co-cultured with a reporter strain so that fluorescence among colonies can be screened to identify the organisms whose secreted compounds induced the bacteria to differentiate. Discovery of new products formed by bacteria is an exciting possibility in this course for students.

DNA Barcoding
Heather Aloor, Durham Technical Community College; kathy zarilla, Durham Technical Community College
Using a DNA barcoding protocol from the DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor, students will be exposed to authentic research in an introductory biology class. Students will experience a multi-step, several week project requiring planning, implementation and documentation similar to that of a molecular biology research lab. Students will be expected to explain their project results both orally and in writing. Students will also be able to relate the research activity to the lecture content of the course.

Niners Mining the Microworld - Mapping and Characterization of Microbial Communities on the Campus of UNC Charlotte
Sharon Bullock, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The study of the diversity of plants and animals in different geographical locations has been extensively explored over the years. However, there are still many questions regarding this topic for the microbial world (Fierer, 2012). The principal research goal of this CURE is to isolate, identify, and characterize bacterial communities in the soil that exists in different locations on the campus of UNC Charlotte. Students will work in small groups to do this project. Each group will start by doing a literature search on the topic of the diversity and biogeography of soil bacterial communities. Based on their findings each group will select a different location on campus to collect their soil samples and hypothesize/make predictions about the types of bacteria they will find in the selected location. Before starting their work, students will then go through a series of training modules to teach them the basic lab skills necessary for carrying out the work required for the project. Student groups will then collect their soil samples and analyze the bacteria isolated. Analysis of the bacteria will consist of 1.) determining the type of bacteria by physical appearance and shotgun metagenomic analyses of the 16S rRNA gene and 2.) whether the bacteria are resistant to common antibiotics. Data from each of the student groups will be compared and information will be graphically displayed on a geographical map of the campus. Data from multiple CURE classes will be added to this map and conclusions will be made about how location corresponds to the types of bacterial communities found. PNAS December 26, 2012. 109 (52) 21390-21395

Burk in the Dirt: Characterizing the bcpAIOB operons of environmental Burkholderia species
Elizabeth Danka, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Students will be isolating species of the bacterial genus Burkholderia from soils from in and around the town of Walla Walla, WA. We will be cultivating these organisms, identifying their species using 16S sequencing, and sequencing particular sets of genes that have been shown to be involved in interbacterial interactions. Students will then choose a next step for their experiment, and will explore gene expression or interbacterial competition or virulence. At the end of the semester, the students will organize their project and present their work as a formal scientific poster presentation.

Histological Analysis of Microglia in the Mouse Brain
Monica Gaudier-Diaz, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Histological Analysis of Microglia in the Mouse Brain CURE is an opportunity for undergraduate students to engage in scientific research. Prior to the course start date, the instructor will identify and establish collaborations with research laboratories that are currently overlooking the phenomenon of neuroinflammation. Through collaboration, the course instructor will have access to mouse brains from different experiment, which will be sectioned and prepared for immunostaining. For the first portion of the CURE, students will search for primary literature and develop an informed hypothesis concerning the experimental condition(s) and how it may alter microglia morphology. Then, for the practical portion of the CURE, students will stain brain slices for Iba-1, take pictures in a fluorescent microscope (if possible) and trace microglia using image j. For the microglia tracing and analysis, an image per sample (ideally N=24, 12 controls and 12 experimental conditions) will be accessible to all students, and they will be expected to trace one microglia cell per sample. Then, working in pairs, students will calculate average cell body area and extension of the processes. With these numbers, students will use excel to run statistical analysis (t-tests) and create graph representations of their findings. For the final project, students will write a report to share with the primary research group, describing the hypothesis, methods and conclusions.

College Success Undergraduate Research Experience
Andrea Fernandez, North Carolina A & T State University
The term student success has increasingly permeated the higher education landscape over the past several years. Higher education professionals define student success in various ways; however, the student's experience should always be at the nucleus of the definition. As with any institution, students entering North Carolina A&T State University experience varying levels of stress anxiety. Some of these students are successful and some students are not. Our goal is to develop an understanding of who students at NC A&T define success and what factors contributes to or hinders their success.

Microbial evolution for antibiotic resistance
Sonia Singhal, Johnson C Smith University

Encouraging Student Independence with Protein Engineering
Eric Lazear, North Carolina State University
Students will be introduced to the techniques and concepts of protein engineering, including DNA cloning, mammalian cell culture, forward genetic screens, and protein expression and purification. Students will design and carry out their own strategy to develop an engineered protein.