Designing laboratory exercises for the undergraduate molecular biology/biochemistry student: Techniques and ethical implications involved in personalized medicine

✍ Scribed by Kenneth M. Weinlander; David J. Hall

• Publisher: The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 497 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1470-8175
• DOI: 10.1002/bmb.20366

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Personalized medicine refers to medical care that involves genetically screening patients for their likelihood to develop various disorders. Commercial genome screening only involves identifying a consumer's genotype for a few single nucleotide polymorphisms. A phenotype (such as an illness) is greatly influenced by three factors: genes, gene expression levels, and the environment. The information supplied by personal genomics companies only involves genes and as such is not always indicative of a particular phenotype. Here, we propose a method for developing modular undergraduate laboratories that examine each contributing factor for a single gene. Although each module is suitable as an individual laboratory exercise, every module may be used in the same class to examine a single phenotype of interest, give students a more complete understanding of how a phenotype is produced and allow students to understand the science behind personalized medicine.