Junior Stephanie Davis does not have to worry about sitting through a boring lecture for her 9 a.m. class. Instead, she spends the class period grinding up plant leaves, purifying DNA and replicating plant cells.

This semester, Chapman is offering Biology 209, the first undergraduate laboratory class to teach the process of cloning a gene, according to Melissa Rowland-Goldsmith, assistant professor of biology. With the use of the Bio-Rad Cloning and Sequencing Explorer Kit, which provides chemicals and instructions for the experiment, and plant samples around campus like the wild California sunflower and the jacaranda tree, students determined the sequence of the gene GAPDH. This gene characterizes an enzyme involved in metabolism.

After learning of the kit through Bio-Rad Laboratories, Rowland-Goldsmith was eager to use it for the class because it had all the pieces needed to do the experiment, she said.

After nine weeks of extracting DNA, the results were sent on Nov. 3 to GenBank, a storehouse for genetic information at the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Md. GenBank will copy the DNA and send back the results in a few weeks.

“Not everyone gets to do this,” said Davis. “I’ve won science fairs and all that, but this is something you can’t compare to.”

The two plants were chosen because the GAPDH gene has never been cloned from them before, according to Rowland-Goldsmith and Anna Brownell, chairwoman of the biology department. At the beginning of the semester, students in the class were paired up and given the choice of which plant they wanted to analyze. Davis and her partner, sophomore biology major Veronica Gomez, chose to clone the gene from a leaf of the jacaranda tree.

Each week of the semester, the groups complete a different portion of the experiment. During the first week students were briefed on the process of the experiment, and in the second week they jumped into the cloning process, which included extracting the DNA.

“We’re not just doing a lab to say ‘we did this experiment today, tomorrow we’re going to do a different one,’” said Rowland-Goldsmith. “We are working on this non-stop.”

By grinding up the plant, students are able to extract the DNA. Through a gel analysis process that separates the molecules, students purified the DNA and put it into a vector, an agent that serves as a carrier and replication device, to transform the cells.

“[The students in this lab class] are guinea pigs. We are the first ones to utilize the kit, but we were willing to take the risk,” said Rowland-Goldsmith.

Sophomore Amanda Jacobsen, a psychobiology major, is taking Biology 209 as a requirement for her major. She thinks the research experience will also give her a better chance of getting into graduate school or medical school, she said.

“It would be something really good to put on a resume,” said Jacobsen. “It’s cool to be an undergraduate student and have your research published.”

Once the results are sent back to Chapman from GenBank in a few weeks, students will analyze the data on computer programs to identify the nucleotide sequence, which they hope will include the matching gene: GAPDH.

If they clone the right gene, they have the opportunity to have their work published in GenBank’s online plant database.

Having published work as an undergraduate will separate the students from the masses when being considered for graduate school, said Rowland-Goldsmith.

“The students are all so enthusiastic, which I think is the neatest part. They’re getting a real feel for what research is all about,” said Rowland-Goldsmith. “It’s something you don’t get in most classes because it’s generally not possible.”


Contact this reporter: caroline.stegner@thepantheronline.com