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1 class period
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Review the History of Insulin Videos. Ask students:
- What were some of the challenges that were faced when first creating insulin in the lab?
- Even after a method for creating pure insulin was developed, why were people still suffering and dying from diabetes?
- How did advances in technology, namely discoveries about DNA, help to mass produce insulin?
- Dog and cattle organs were initially used to produce insulin. What is primarily used today?
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In this virtual laboratory, students will work in pairs and use a Lab Bench tutorial to learn some basic tools of molecular biology and gain an understanding of some of the principles and techniques of genetic engineering. The Lab Bench activity will illustrate the use antibiotic-resistance plasmids to transform Escherichia coli.
In the second part of the virtual lab, students will stay in working pairs and be introduced to how this technique is used to have bacteria produce the human hormone insulin, and conduct an experiment in which they plate transformed bacteria, make predictions and analyze observations. If printers are readily available, students can utilize the virtual lab notebook and print it out to turn in at the end of the lab. If preferred, a paper copy of the lab notebook is provided in the student handouts.
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- Computers (students can work in pairs)
- Printer (optional)
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Using evidence from your virtual lab, describe how you could tell if your E.coli bacterial cells were transformed (i.e. the ampR gene was successfully incorporated into the E.coli DNA) |
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