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Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)

Stem cells hold great promise in the treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to dementia. However, as rapidly as the field of stem cell biology has emerged, heated political debate has followed, scrutinizing the ethical implications of stem cell use. It is therefore imperative to promote scientifi...

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Autores principales: Srougi, Melissa C., Thomas-Swanik, Jackie, Chan, John D., Marchant, Jonathan S., Carson, Susan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society of Microbiology 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4004734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24839511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v15i1.692
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author Srougi, Melissa C.
Thomas-Swanik, Jackie
Chan, John D.
Marchant, Jonathan S.
Carson, Susan
author_facet Srougi, Melissa C.
Thomas-Swanik, Jackie
Chan, John D.
Marchant, Jonathan S.
Carson, Susan
author_sort Srougi, Melissa C.
collection PubMed
description Stem cells hold great promise in the treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to dementia. However, as rapidly as the field of stem cell biology has emerged, heated political debate has followed, scrutinizing the ethical implications of stem cell use. It is therefore imperative to promote scientific literacy by educating students about stem cell biology. Yet, there is a definite lack of material to engage students in this subject at the basic science level. Therefore, we have developed and implemented a hands-on introductory laboratory module that introduces students to stem cell biology and can be easily incorporated into existing curricula. Students learn about stem cell biology using an in vivo planarian model system in which they down-regulate two genes important in stem cell differentiation using RNA interference and then observe the regenerative phenotype. The module was piloted at the high school, community college, and university levels. Here, we report that introductory biology students enrolled at a community college were able to demonstrate gains in learning after completion of a one-hour lecture and four 45-minute laboratory sessions over the course of three weeks. These gains in learning outcomes were objectively evaluated both before and after its execution using a student quiz and experimental results. Furthermore, students’ self-assessments revealed increases in perceived knowledge as well as a general interest in stem cells. Therefore, these data suggest that this module is a simple, useful way to engage and to teach students about stem cell biology.
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spelling pubmed-40047342014-05-17 Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†) Srougi, Melissa C. Thomas-Swanik, Jackie Chan, John D. Marchant, Jonathan S. Carson, Susan J Microbiol Biol Educ Curriculum Stem cells hold great promise in the treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to dementia. However, as rapidly as the field of stem cell biology has emerged, heated political debate has followed, scrutinizing the ethical implications of stem cell use. It is therefore imperative to promote scientific literacy by educating students about stem cell biology. Yet, there is a definite lack of material to engage students in this subject at the basic science level. Therefore, we have developed and implemented a hands-on introductory laboratory module that introduces students to stem cell biology and can be easily incorporated into existing curricula. Students learn about stem cell biology using an in vivo planarian model system in which they down-regulate two genes important in stem cell differentiation using RNA interference and then observe the regenerative phenotype. The module was piloted at the high school, community college, and university levels. Here, we report that introductory biology students enrolled at a community college were able to demonstrate gains in learning after completion of a one-hour lecture and four 45-minute laboratory sessions over the course of three weeks. These gains in learning outcomes were objectively evaluated both before and after its execution using a student quiz and experimental results. Furthermore, students’ self-assessments revealed increases in perceived knowledge as well as a general interest in stem cells. Therefore, these data suggest that this module is a simple, useful way to engage and to teach students about stem cell biology. American Society of Microbiology 2014-05-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4004734/ /pubmed/24839511 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v15i1.692 Text en ©2014 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – Share Alike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use and distribution, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Curriculum
Srougi, Melissa C.
Thomas-Swanik, Jackie
Chan, John D.
Marchant, Jonathan S.
Carson, Susan
Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title_full Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title_fullStr Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title_full_unstemmed Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title_short Making Heads or Tails: Planarian Stem Cells in the Classroom(†)
title_sort making heads or tails: planarian stem cells in the classroom(†)
topic Curriculum
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4004734/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24839511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v15i1.692
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