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Campus shutdowns during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic posed unique challenges to faculty and students engaged in laboratory courses. Formerly hands-on experiments had to be quickly pivoted to emergency remote learning. While some resources existed prior to this period, many currently available online modules and/or simulations focus on a single technique. The Biochemistry Authentic Scientific Inquiry Lab (BASIL) curriculum has, for several years, provided a robust, linked, holistic inquiry experience that allows students to make connections between multiple techniques, both computational in nature as well as wet-lab based. As a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE), this flexible, module-based curriculum allows students to generate original hypotheses based on analysis of proteins of unknown function. We have taught this curriculum as the upper-level laboratory course on our campuses and were obliged to transition to remote instruction at various points in the course sequence. We report on the experiences of faculty and students over the transition period in this course. Additionally, we report as a case study results of one of our campus’ ongoing discipline-based education research (DBER) on the BASIL curriculum prior to and during remote delivery.
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This content will become publicly available on June 13, 2026
Incorporation of NUPACK-Based Simulation into Classroom and Laboratory Teaching of Nucleic Acids Hybridization for Undergraduate Biochemistry
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional in-person teaching to remote and online learning, necessitating a more adaptable educational platform to serve the diverse needs of students. Transforming hands-on “wet lab” activities into virtual “dry lab” exercises can promote a more accessible and flexible learning environment, offering innovative methods to improve online teaching outcomes, incorporate interactive components, and provide student support. Here we describe our effort of utilizing NUPACK, a free cloud-based web application, to develop new educational modules on nucleic acids for teaching biochemistry lectures and laboratories. These modules include fundamental topics such as melting temperature, hybridization equilibrium, free energy, secondary folding structures of nucleic acids, and the thermal stability of single-nucleotide polymorphisms. The NUPACK-based DNA computational lab not only provides a hands-on learning experience to enhance students’ understanding of nucleic acid structures, hybridizations, and characteristics but also facilitated the transition to remote learning during the pandemic. Furthermore, these computation-assisted DNA experiments have been extended to engage local high school students at Rutgers UniversityCamden. This article summarizes the curriculum development and guidelines for the DNA computational lab, aiming to benefit the education of nucleic acids in biochemistry for a wider audience of educators and learners.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2141141
- PAR ID:
- 10600348
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Chemical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Chemical Education
- ISSN:
- 0021-9584
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Upper-Division Undergraduate, Biochemistry, Laboratory Instruction, Computer-Based Learning, Nucleic Acids/DNA/RNA
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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