BIO-6130 | Advanced Biotechnology_Lab 1
Description
This session extends the Lecture 1 Laboratory Orientation into a self-paced, interactive virtual lab. Rather than reading about safety procedures, equipment, and molecular structure, students actively perform simulated bench tasks — donning PPE, sorting waste streams, balancing a centrifuge rotor, programming a PCR cycle, running a gel, executing an aseptic transfer, and physically assembling nucleotides, base pairs, and the DNA double helix. The lab closes with a bank of topic-based quizzes and a completion certificate, giving students a low-stakes way to rehearse core lab competencies and molecular concepts before entering the physical laboratory.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this virtual lab, students will be able to apply core laboratory safety practices (PPE selection, waste sorting, emergency response), operate and explain the principles of key molecular biology equipment (micropipettes, centrifuges, thermocyclers, and gel electrophoresis), and perform correct aseptic technique while recognizing contamination risks; they will also be able to construct a nucleotide and phosphodiester-linked DNA strand, apply Watson–Crick base-pairing rules to explain the antiparallel double helix and its major/minor grooves, differentiate B-, A-, and Z-DNA conformations, relate GC content, sequence length, and ionic strength to melting temperature (Tm) and its role in techniques like PCR and hybridization, describe the hierarchical packaging of DNA into chromatin versus prokaryotic nucleoid organization, distinguish DNA from RNA chemically and structurally, assign the functional roles of mRNA, rRNA, tRNA, and non-coding RNAs within the central dogma, and explain how RNA secondary structures such as hairpins and stem-loops arise and function.