Students examine the structure and function of the human eye, learning some amazing features about our eyes, which provide us with sight and an understanding of our surroundings. Students also learn about some common eye problems and the biomedical devices and medical procedures that resolve or help to lessen the effects of these vision deficiencies, including vision correction surgery.

Guest lecture recorded July 28, 2020 with Professor Richard Sherwood, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Molecular cloning is essential to research in genetics and cell biology. In this webinar, Dr. Sherwood shares how his lab uses molecular cloning to power their work in genetics and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing.

Guest lecture recorded July 30, 2020 by Dr. Jessica Whited, Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. Dr. Whited studies limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders, with the ultimate goal of discovering how to regenerate limbs in patients. In this webinar, Dr. Whited discusses how her work involves using Cas9-mediated gene drives to generate axolotls with the desired genetic backgrounds.

Students reinforce their knowledge that DNA is the genetic material for all living things by modeling it using toothpicks and gumdrops that represent the four biochemicals (adenine, thiamine, guanine, and cytosine) that pair with each other in a specific pattern, making a double helix. They investigate specific DNA sequences that code for certain physical characteristics such as eye and hair color. Student teams trade DNA "strands" and de-code the genetic sequences to determine the physical characteristics (phenotype) displayed by the strands (genotype) from other groups. Students extend their knowledge to learn about DNA fingerprinting and recognizing DNA alterations that may result in genetic disorders.

As a class, students work through an example showing how DNA provides the "recipe" for making our body proteins. They see how the pattern of nucleotide bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine) forms the double helix ladder shape of DNA, and serves as the code for the steps required to make genes. They also learn some ways that engineers and scientists are applying their understanding of DNA in our world.

Recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to gain insight into how genes work. This concept is further developed in this article with an animated explanation, art gallery, audio/video interviews, biographies, and an interactive problem to solve. An exciting, interesting way to learn about rDNA!

Two French scientists describe the research they did to figure out how bacteria turn certain genes on and off. The topic is a little involved, but the animations should help you understand the process.

This article contains information on how DNA is repaired to prevent mutated damage from interrupting DNA processes.

This pathway introduces the design of guide RNAs to disrupt a macrophage gene with the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. Afterwards, a DNA cleavage assay is created to test how well the designed gRNAs work.

In this video module, students learn how scientists use genetic information from dogs to find out which gene (out of all 20,000 dog genes) is associated with any specific trait or disease of interest. This method involves comparing hundreds of dogs with the trait to hundreds of dogs not displaying the trait, and examining which position on the dog DNA is correlated with the trait. [34:17]

Learning about transcription and translation can be difficult but this animation helps make the processes less confusing. The animation is interactive and it also covers the overall importance of proteins.

Different mutations have different effects on the gene product, the protein. This scrollable explores the various types of genetic mutations CRISPR-Cas9 editing can induce in target DNA and their effects on the protein.

The application of Cas9-fusion proteins creates a greater cellular toolbox beyond gene disruption.

The topic of this video module is genetic basis for variation among humans. The main learning objective is that students will learn the genetic mechanisms that cause variation among humans (parents and children, brothers and sisters) and how to calculate the probability that two individuals will have an identical genetic makeup. [32:01]

An introduction to genetic engineering through hands-on and modeling activities that illustrate concepts, which will scaffold student understanding for lab activities to follow, especially focused on the use of bacteria. This unit features 5 lessons and 14 files. Lessons are aligned to NGSS.

This animation from NOVA: "Battle in the War on Cancer: Breast Cancer" describes how oncogenes cause cancer and how cancerous cells can spread throughout the body.

Introduction to how groups of organisms evolve and how natural selection can lead to evolution. [17:39]

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Learn about some examples of inheritance that do not follow Mendelian inheritance rules.

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Learn how the human body builds proteins.

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