This section contains a few of my favourite assignments from this course. I thought one of the best parts about this course was the in-class group activities. I really enjoyed working with my peers to analyze articles and discuss results from papers. Some of my favourite assignments from this course were group assignments. I had a lot of fun working with my group to complete these assignments, I thought we worked really well together.
Here are some of my favourite assignments from this course:
1. “If I was a developmental biologist/geneticist…” Assignment
If I was a Developmental Biologist Assignment
2. Group Worksheet on Mao, Schuler & Berenbaum’s study: A dietary phytochemical alters caste-associated gene expression in honey bees.
Group Worksheet on Mao, Schuler & Berenbaum’s Bee Study
3. Putting it all together: The Bee Case Study Worksheet
4. Quiz #2
One of the reasons why I wanted to include Quiz #2 among my favourite assignments of this course is because I really enjoyed doing it! On the quiz we were asked to describe, analyze and interpret a data figure. I really enjoyed the style of questions we were asked on the quiz. We answered similar questions in class as groups and I thought we were well prepared to take this quiz.
5. Pre-reading Assignment on Chiesa et al.‘s study: The KCNQ1OT1 imprinting control region and non-coding RNA: new properties derived from the study of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and Silver-Russel syndrome cases.
I really liked this pre-reading assignment because the paper was on clinical research and I enjoy reading clinical research papers because they highlight the impact of molecular biology research. In this case, the authors of this paper studied the link between imprinted lncRNAs and Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) and Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS). Specifically, authors studied the methylation pattern of the imprinting control region that regulates expression of KCNQ1OT1 in patients with BWS and SRS.
For the pre-reading assignment we had to answer the following question: what can you deduce about BWS from the pedigree shown in the article?
My response to the pre-reading question was: based on the BWS patient pedrigee from the Chiesa et al.study, we can deduce that the mode of inheritance of BWS does not follow Mendelian inheritance patterns.
6. Group Worksheet on Chiesa et al.‘s study: The KCNQ1OT1 imprinting control region and non-coding RNA: new properties derived from the study of Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and Silver-Russel syndrome cases.
Group Worksheet on Chiesa et al.’s Study
7. Techniques Infographic