News and information for staff members and the Madison community
Vol. II No. 4 - January 29, 2007
What happens when you combine a talented teacher team and a grant to support them? Not surprisingly, some very amazing things. This summer La Follette HS teachers Mike Brown (science) and Anne Stevens (cross categorical) received a grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research at the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center. The purpose of that research was to take a very sophisticated process and make it accessible to freshman biology students of all ability levels.
Last week I was fortunate to be able to witness, first hand, the results of their hard work. The students in their freshman classes each extracted their own mitochondrial DNA, the type of DNA found in energy converting cell structures outside the nucleus of the cell. This is the type of DNA that was used to identify remains at the World Trade Center. It is also used to trace our origins back to a group of individuals that anthropologists refer to as our "Mitochondrial Eve."
The students then used a process called Polymerase Chain Reaction to make over a billion copies of a small segment of that DNA. The Biotechnology Center took the student samples and ran them through a $1 million DNA sequencing machine so that each student could see his/her own sequence.
On the first day things seemed a little chaotic, but by the third day the students saw evidence, in the form of bands on gel, that they indeed had made multiple copies of that segment of their DNA. That day, I felt as if I was looking at laboratory technicians in a forensics lab.
Students are always interested to learn more about themselves, from the color of their eyes to whether they have a point of hair in the middle of their forehead, like Eddie Munster.
These students, however, got to see something about themselves that most of us may never see — a part of their DNA sequence.
Thanks, Mike and Anne!
See the local TV news report by clicking here.
Last Updated: Fri Feb 16 14:37:25 2007
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