MSOE receives $1.3 million NIH grant
| Published: 07/19/2012 |
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The Center for BioMolecular Modeling (CBM) at Milwaukee School of Engineering has been awarded a five-year, $1.3 million Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support a project entitled Teachers FIRST (From Interesting Research to Scientific Teaching).
Teachers FIRST is a professional development program for high school science teachers that is focused on the emerging fields of genomics and personalized medicine. CBM staff will work closely with high school teachers to develop innovative instructional materials that will engage their students in an active, inquiry-driven exploration of these new fields of science. In addition, the project will train participating teachers to measure the impact of using the instructional materials on their students’ learning, i.e., to use the scientific teaching approach to classroom instruction.
Building on the success of previous CBM projects, the Teachers FIRST instructional materials will include both physical models and molecular animations of proteins that play key roles in the research being conducted. These tools will help teachers tell their students stories of “interesting research” currently being carried out in biomolecular research laboratories. In addition, the cellular context in which the proteins function will be illustrated in unique cellular landscapes created by molecular artist David Goodsell, of Scripps Research Institute.
“Interesting research” currently being conducted in active biomolecular research laboratories that will be featured in Teachers FIRST materials includes:
- The use of zinc finger nucleuses (ZFNs) to engineer human genomes.
- The generation of a universal flu vaccine, directed against the influenza virus hemagglutinin protein.
- Variation in drug metabolism by cytochrome p450 enzymes: a story of personalized medicine.
This is the third in a series of major NIH SEPA awards to the CBM. Previous projects have focused on the development of innovative instructional materials related to basic concepts of molecular structure and function in two student-enrichment programs, each of which is currently being disseminated at the national level: The SMART Team program (Students Modeling A Research Topic) matches teams of high school students and their teacher with a local research lab; and The Science Olympiad Protein Modeling event, which was developed by the CBM as a large-scale way to introduce high school students to basic concepts of protein structure and function.
MSOE is an independent, non-profit university with about 2,500 students. MSOE offers 18 bachelor’s degrees and nine master’s degrees in the engineering, engineering technology, building and infrastructure engineering, health-related engineering, computer, business and nursing fields. The university has a national academic reputation; longstanding ties to business and industry; dedicated professors with real-world experience; and extremely high placement rates and the highest starting salaries of any