Stanford/BIOE44(S11)

Spring 2011

Instructors: Drew Endy

TAs: Jeff Quinn, Claire Mazumdar, John Alabi, Baoqing Li

Lecture: Tu Th 11am-11:50a (Alway M114) Lab: Tu Th 1:15p-4pm (or 12:15p-3p, by arrangement only) (Grant Teaching Lab, Room S346)

Suggested Reference Text: At The Bench

Welcome to BIOE.44 For many of you this will be the first time in a research lab and for others it will not, but it is our goal to make this class a useful and fun introduction to experiments and techniques in biological engineering. There is not time enough to show you everything you’ll need to know if you go on to do research, but after taking this class you should feel confident and familiar with some fundamental experimental approaches and lab protocols. You will develop good habits at the bench, ones that will increase the likelihood of success in your work and ensure the health and safety of you and those around you. By the end of the semester, you should also be aware of good research practice, having had some experience with report writing, notebook keeping and publicly presenting your data. All of us involved in teaching BIOE.44 hope you will find it a satisfying challenge and an exciting experience that has lasting value.

Announcements

 * Protocols for the lab techniques covered on Thursday 7 April 2011 can be found below:
 * Endy:Making_a_long_term_stock_of_bacteria: these are glycerol stocks for the -80ºC freezer, used so that you can store a cell culture for a much later date. Note that we used 500µL of 60% glycerol and 500µL of bacterial culture instead of 1mL each, as stated in this protocol.
 * Agarose_gel_electrophoresis: used to separate and visualize DNA fragments of different length. Note that we use SafeView DNA stain, not Ethidium Bromide, and our loading dye was a mixture of bromophenol blue and Orange G.


 * Protocols for the lab techniques covered on Tuesday 5 April 2011 can be found below:
 * Transforming chemically competent cells and Bacterial transformation: the mechanism by which you force bacterial cells to take-up new DNA, such as the mixture of RFP- and GFP-containing plasmids we used.
 * Miniprep/Qiagen kit: a commercial kit/process for extracting and purifying plasmid DNA from a culture of cells for cloning, sequencing, or storing purposes.
 * Streak plates: inoculating an LB+Agar gel plate with a freezer stock of cells for culturing cells.


 * Complete your safety training today in lab today or before class Thursday 7 April.

Acknowledgment
Some of the materials and inspiration for Stanford BIOE.44 are borrowed or adapted from past years of BIOE.44 and also MIT's MIT 20.109. Thanks Isis, Kosh, and Natalie!