Course Format
Lecture: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session
Lab: 2 sessions / week; one 3-hour session, one 4-hour session
Prerequisites
- 7.01x Introductory Biology (7.012, 7.013, 7.014, 7.015, or 7.016)
- 7.002 Fundamentals of Experimental Molecular Biology
Course Description
7.003 is an experimental biology course. You will spend most of your time in the teaching laboratory practicing fundamental techniques in molecular biology, genetics and cell biology. In addition to learning how to accurately and safely perform these techniques, we want to help you understand how and why they work and what scientific questions they can address. The goal is for you to be able to design your own experiments to perform by the end of the semester. Our focus is on helping you integrate factual knowledge with an understanding of experimental design and data analysis—skills that will be important should you take a more advanced level lab course, later pursue a UROP, or go on to graduate or medical school.
In this course, you will be working on the model organism, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (budding yeast). You will be performing a mutagenesis screen to isolate mutants defective in the yeast mating pathway. You will then work to characterize these mutants and identify the disrupted genes involved. Through lectures and daily lab questions related to each lab session, you will learn the biology behind the experiments that you will carry out in the laboratory and will also be exposed to techniques beyond the scope of this course.
Please note: The on-campus version of 7.003 contains a Scientific Communication (SciComm) section, which is not represented here.
Laboratory Notebooks and Manuals
Maintaining an updated record of your daily work in the lab is an essential component of research. Therefore, each student is required to maintain an electronic laboratory notebook using the LabArchives platform.
Each student will need a lab manual for 7.003. The manual contains the experiments and background information for the course and is required to perform the lab and prepare each day’s laboratory notebook entry. A digital PDF copy of the Spring 2022 lab manual is available in the Lab Manual section.
Grading Information
A student’s final grade in 7.003 is determined based on their performance in three general areas: laboratory work and assignments; problem sets; and SciComm. These areas contribute to the final grade as follows:
| Activities | Percentages |
|---|---|
|
Laboratory Performance:
|
Total of 50% |
| Problem Sets | 15% |
| [Scientific Communication, not represented on OCW] | [35%] |
Laboratory Performance (50% of overall grade)
Laboratory Notebooks (40% of overall grade)
One important goal of 7.003 is to teach students how to keep a lab notebook. Maintaining a complete and accurate written record of your experiments and results is crucial for when you (or others) need to repeat what you’ve done or troubleshoot experiments when things go wrong. Lab notebooks are also an excellent place to keep track of the rationale for all your experiments and to organize your data analysis. In addition, lab notebooks serve as a record to support data that is published in the scientific literature or used in a grant or patent.
As described below, certain sections of the notebook must be completed prior to coming to the lab each day, and other sections must be completed by the beginning of the next laboratory period.
- Pre-Lab: Submitted via LabArchives by 1:00 PM that lab day:
1. Aims - Post-Lab: Submitted via LabArchives by 1:00 PM on the following lab day:
1. Data and Observations
2. Summary and Conclusions
Notebook entries must be submitted by 1:00 PM to receive full credit. Notebook entries submitted late on the same day they are due will be deducted points depending on the assignment and how late it is returned.
Post-lab notebook entries can be revised and re-submitted for a regrade to earn full credit for the missed points. The deadlines for submitting a regrade for each post-lab notebook entry are listed in the Calendar section.
Lab Participation Grade (10% of overall grade)
The daily lab participation grade will be based on the following categories:
- Preparation and organization
- Participation and effort towards lab work
- Participation and effort towards in-lab questions (ILQs)
- Safety
Each day in the lab, you will be evaluated on how you work in the lab. We will be evaluating whether you are prepared and on time for lab; whether you are organized, effective, and productive at the bench; whether you make an effort to answer daily in-lab questions and participate in lab discussions; and whether you work safely in the lab. Points will be deducted from a student’s safety score for violations of laboratory safety protocols, such as wearing open-toed shoes, eating/drinking/disposing of food trash in the lab, or improper disposal of hazardous chemicals. We take safety very seriously in the teaching laboratories and expect you to do the same. It is your responsibility to read, understand, and practice the guidelines described in the Lab Safety Guidelines during the training lab orientation and in the online general biosafety training course.
Problem Sets (15% of overall grade)
There will be two problem set assignments during the semester. Questions on the problem sets will cover material related to topics and experiments discussed in lecture and lab class. The due dates for these two problem sets are listed in the Calendar.
Problem sets can be revised and re-submitted for a regrade to earn partial credit for the missed points. The deadlines for submitting a regrade for each problem set are also listed in the Calendar.
Attendance Policy
Learning in 7.003 is very active, whether it is completing experiments in the teaching lab or discussing scientific writing in SciComm. Thus, most of these experiences cannot be replicated outside of the lab/classroom setting. For this reason, attendance at all laboratory, lectures, and SciComm sections is required. Occasionally, an extraordinary circumstance may arise (illness, family emergency) that requires you to miss laboratory or SciComm. If you know that you will need to miss a lab session, you should contact a lab instructor to make arrangements to make up any missed work if possible.
Lab sessions are scheduled to run from 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm or 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm each day. On most days, all lab experiments can be completed by 5:00 pm or earlier, provided that you are organized and work efficiently in the lab. Due to the unpredictable nature of lab work, however, experiments may often take longer than expected to complete. In addition, there are several busier lab days during the term that may last up to or slightly past 5:00 pm. Therefore, please plan on being present for the full lab session each day when scheduling your travel plans and other activities during the semester, as there is no way to know for sure ahead of time whether a lab day may end early or not. Leaving lab early before the day’s experiments are completed will result in deductions from your lab participation grade.
Students who miss a lab session and do not make up the missed work will receive zero points for that day’s lab participation grade (unless they have a Dean’s note to excuse their absence). Note that students with an excused absence are still responsible for completing and submitting any missed lab notebook entries before the following lab session. The teaching staff will work with students to help them get any data and observations from any experiments they missed.
Laboratory Safety
The teaching laboratories are regulated by the same local, state, and federal regulations as MIT’s research laboratories. Students will receive safety instruction throughout the semester and are expected to follow the instructions of the staff on matters of safety and waste disposal. In addition, students are responsible for knowing the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for hazardous chemicals used in the laboratory as part of the preparation for the laboratory each day. Students who have questions or concerns about laboratory safety should bring them to the attention of the lab instructors. See the Lab Resources section for complete details and information.
Acknowledgements
Dr. Cheung and Dr. Chu were the lab instructors and creators of the lab materials for the course. The faculty lecturers for the course were Prof. Thomas Schwartz, Prof. Lindsay Case, and Prof. Hadley Sikes.
The course instructors wish also to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Ayce Yesilaltay.
