Undergraduate research at Collin College

Bridgette Kirkpatrick

Carole Twichell

CCURI/Bio-Link Regional Conference-2014

“In a traditional class lab it’s all about rushing to finish the lab and we don’t care about the results, but in an undergraduate research environment you are really invested in the results and you are not rushing to get out of the lab, so you get the full experience of doing research.”

CCURI/Bio-Link Regional Conference and Poster Session Report

Center for Advanced Studies in Math and Natural Sciences (CASMNS)

• In place for 15+ years

•Projects vary between faculty

•Good for faculty to get relief from the classroom

•Elite-not many students can participate

• I’ve used it to gain allies

Embedded Research

• Genetics, Biotech, Honors Biology

• Course based research projects• Arabidopsis• C. elegans• Microbiology related projects

• They did not have enough structure to extend to a broader student population.

Previously-Utilized CUREs PARE (Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment)

Worked for Honors labs

• Issues: Not enough content for a whole semester

• Added extension activities to extend content

• Kirby Bauer

• Multiplex PCR

• E-Test

SEA PHAGES has enough content and direction, but is not scalable for the masses

How to reach more students• Restricting research experience to select students is

elitist

• We are not reaching all students who are gifted/interested

• We may very well be driving students out of science with our current “cookbook” biology labs

• PARE + extensions is appropriate, but prep-heavy• Also ran into biosafety issues (subculturing

unknowns)

• Proposed model: analyzing rAmylase activity and cellulase activity in environmental samples and lab strains (double-blind)

Going big!

•Cellulase expressing bacteria from environmental samples• Accessible to all or many

• Real-world applications

• Inexpensive to scale for multiple classes/campuses

• Prep is limited (students take part in setting up experiments)

• Extensions are available for honors sections

• Expandable as our enrollment is continuing to increase

• Currently ~4500 students per year

Support • Administration is supportive of faculty driven curriculum

changes

• Faculty wax and wane in support

• 2 steps forward 1 step back• We pilot new models and get initial buy-in

• We get push back about whether faculty or students can perform advanced skills such as PCR and sequence analysis

• Varied levels of experience amidst lab instructors is a problem• Potential solution: mandatory CE training for

adjuncts?

Things to consider

• When adapting or a new CURE:• Prep time, storage and cost-what appears simple on the

surface, may not be scalable to more than 1 or 2 classes

• Going from 1 to 40+ classes can be a game changer

• Protocols-writing and/or re-writing in student friendly language

• Identify allies and opponents-have solid data and an elevator speech

• Instructors who will be teaching new labs

• Training involved

• Resistance to change

• Technology (techniques and equipment) to be used

Chapter: Student Outcomes and Impacts of Discovery-Based Research in the First Two Years of Undergraduate Education“Course based undergraduate research”

STYLUS PUBLISHING, LLC

Ending the STEM Crisis? Increasing Student Persistence with Course-Based Research

Experiences

Offered at East Campus:

Average laboratory class size in the college (15-24)

Offer a one-year biotech certificate and two-year AS/AAS degree

Faculty and Staff:

Two tenured faculty members and one adjunct member

One full-time and one part-time lab technician

Student Profile: Majority of students are freshman with 2-3 post-baccalaureate and 1-2 HS students per semester

Articulation Agreements: TAMU-Texarkana and TAMUCC. (Majority of traditional students transfer; non-traditional students usually enter workforce)

DMC CURE Program in Biotech and

Biology Degree Programs

2412 Microbiology Lab

2412 Microbiology Lab

2412 Microbiology Lab

Summer Internships on Campus (SURE)

Suggestions for Campus- Based Internships

• Research Interests of faculty• Experienced Interns Working as

Teaching Assistants• Student’s Proposed Projects• Collaborating with Industry• Extension of SEA-PHAGES and PARE

2018 DMC Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)

Emerging Technology

Students from BITC 2441 class has constructed a GFP-crispr-Cas9 vector which has been used to knock out GFP gene in a cancer cell line the following semester in cell culture class.

Faculty Research Mentoring Workshops and Undergraduate Student Research Days

Summer Internship Symposiums

Annual Natural Sciences- Student Poster Session

Del Mar College 2015 Institutional DataFor Biotechnology Program

SEA-PHAGE Starts SEA-PHAGE Starts

UGR Activities as Recruitment Tools for the Biotechnology Program

Year Spring Semester

Student Recruited /Total Students Enrolled

Fall Semester

Student Recruited /Total Students Enrolled

Completion of the Biotech program

Recruit from BIOL1406 Sea-Phages?

2013 3/9 3/11 4/6 Yes, ALL

2014 2/11 3/15 3/5 Yes, ALL

2015 5/20 4/11 7/9 Yes, 8/9

2016 4/10 3/12 3/7 Yes, 6/7

2017 4/15 3/12 0 Yes, ALL

2018 5/14 Yes, ALL

Del Mar College –

Biotechnology/Biology

Student Tara Clancy

WINS 1st place at the

Community College

Undergraduate

Research Initiative

(Austin, TX)

Del Mar Biotech Students Have Been Awarded the 2017

First Place Champions of the NSF Innovation

Challenge! This is a Direct Result of Undergraduate

Research!

Students UGR Awards

Danial Nasr Azadani winsthe SACNAS poster

presentation award is pictured with Nobel

Prize winner Mario Cappechi, SACNAS 2017

Annual Meeting.

Erica and Tara presented their research

posters during the 2017 NSF-ATE PI conference.

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2016 American Society for Microbiology

Individual Research Projects on Campus2016 AAAS Annual Meeting- 1st Place Poster

Competition Cell & Molecular Biology

Publications Resulting from the Summer UGR

ASSESSMENT OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

D. I. Hanauer, et al. CBE- Life Sci Edu2016;15(4)

Post Internship Assessment Survey CCURI URSSA Spring 2017 All Schools

CCURI URSSA Spring 2017-DMC

Post Internship Assessment Survey - Handout CCURI URSSA Spring 2017 All Schools

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Barriers and Challenges to UGR

• Schools use lab safety issues to terminate research project

• Unwilling faculty members, unlike class overloads the UGR class requires more time and effort without additional remuneration.

• Extra Work and Dedication

• Funding, Funding, Funding.

• Support from Administration

• The “noise”……

• ???

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Our Collaborators

USDA – ARS, Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, AZ TAMUCC, Corpus Christi, TX InCell, San Antonio, TX Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CA Corpus Christi Water Department, CC, TX National Natural Toxins Research Center TAMUK, Kingsville, TXBoise State University, Boise, IDTexas A&M Agri-Life Research Service, Corpus Christi, TXUniversity of North Texas, Denton, TXUniversity Hospital Hamburg, GermanyMD Anderson Cancer Center, UT-Houston, TX Diagnostic BioSystems, Inc., CABioo Scientific, Austin, TX