BIOL 109-110Y

BIOL 109-110Y, Introduction to Experimental Biology

Introduction to Experimental Biology is a team-taught year-long course, directed and led by Prof. Jen McMahon. In the last seven weeks of the course, students execute an independent project and communicate their findings, both written and orally.

The Petersen lab supports BIOL 110 projects in the following areas:

Figure 1: C. elegans movement behavior, adapted from Petersen et al. 2011 (read it here)

C. elegans genetics, pharmacology, and behavior

Students using C. elegans may perform live imaging, drug treatments, and movement analysis to answer questions about the nervous system, development, lifespan, and more.

Some recent student projects include:

Rescuing the basal slowing response through exogenous dopamine treatment in Cbn-cat-1 (Lauren Limbach and Samantha Hayes, 2018)
The Effect of Progesterones on the Lifespan and Egg Production of C. elegans (Jessica Meza and Zac LaRocca-Stravalle, 2018)
Pentylenetetrazol induces convulsive behavior in snf-11 mutant C. elegans (Ariel Neumann, Kristin Woodard, Natalie Bresnahan, 2018)
Voltage Variance as an Indicator of Seizure Prevalence in lis-1 Mutant C. elegans (Liam Berg and Heather McCabe, 2017)
Saccharin and Glucose Accelerate Aging and Shorten Lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans (Weichen Zhao and Ariela Papp, 2017)

Figure 2: Expression analysis of sox10 (A-B) and krox20 (C-D) in the PLLn (arrows) of WT and stl47 mutants, visualized with in situ hybridization. sox10 is retained at 72 hours post-fertilization (hpf), while krox20 is absent in mutants at 4 days post-fertilization (dpf). Adapted from Petersen et al. 2015 (read it here)

Zebrafish gene expression analysis

Students working with zebrafish perform in situ hybridization with fixed zebrafish larvae. Students investigate the expression patterns of critical glial development factors in both wild-type and mutant zebrafish larvae.

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