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Biologist Bonnie Bassler looks at a petri dish with one of the 250 middle and high school students recently on campus for the molecular biology department's first TIGER (Topics in Genetic Engineering Research) Talk. For more about the program, see the story on page 7. |
"I never thought I'd be that excited about bacteria!" said Alison Toback, a senior at Cherokee High School in Marlton, N.J.
Bassler's lecture was the molecular biology department's first TIGER (Topics in Genetic Engineering Research) Talk, a series of lectures that follow up on the department's summer workshops in which secondary school teachers learn techniques of modern molecular biology. Workshop alumni from 17 New Jersey schools, including one middle school, returned with their students for Bassler's talk.
Bassler captivated the students with a description of her research, which began more than 10 years ago with an effort to understand cell-to-cell communication in an obscure species of glow-in-the-dark bacteria and has led to work on new antibiotic drugs. "She took a concept that was so complex and made it very exciting," said Mina Ghobrial, a senior at Lenape High School in Medford, N.J.
After Bassler's talk, students took turns going into the teaching labs of the Lewis Thomas Lab-oratory to swab some of Bassler's bacteria into petri dishes, which they could take home. Bassler told the students to wait several days and watch for the bacteria to glow. The bacteria begin to glow only after they have multiplied into a dense population. Three graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow helped guide the students through the five-minute process.
Many of the high school students had taken advanced placement biology classes and had handled bacteria in the lab before, but said it was exciting to see the very organism that Bassler studies. "That fact it glows in the dark is really cool," said Brett Pentz of Lenape High School.
The next TIGER Talk is scheduled for May 8 and will feature biologist Fred Hughson.
November 25, 2002
Vol. 92, No. 11
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Contents
Page one
•Gossman expresses gratitude through book on WWII rescue
•University to 'redouble' diversity efforts with dialogue
Inside
•Personal involvement provides inside view
•Enthusiasm for biology is contagious
People
•Healy named director of public safety
•Taylor to step down as dean of the faculty; search committee formed
•New associate, assistant professors appointed to faculty
•People, spotlight, retirements, briefs
•Obituaries
Sections
•Nassau Notes
•By the numbers
•Calendar of events
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