Department of Education grant awarded to Dr. Melissa Kosinski-Collins

As a former T.A. for Introduction to Biology Lab, the core Biology course required of all undergraduate Biology and Pre-med majors, I remember the challenges of trying to help 25 students all try to load their DNA samples onto one gel.  Then there was the subsequent Great Trek to the Gel Doc which was housed up a flight of stairs in a space only large enough to permit groups of 4 students to see what was going on.  Yes, Science is tough– but limited equipment should not be the main reason for this.

Thanks to Dr. Melissa Kosinski-Collins‘ efforts in applying for and receiving a grant from the Department of Education, future students of Intro Bio Lab will have access to their own Gel Doc, specrophotometers, new incubators, a fluorimeter, and perhaps most impressively an atomic force microscope.  And all of this housed in beautiful new teaching labspace  in the Shapiro Science Center.

The official title of the grant is “Key to the university program: Equipment for development of an interdisciplinary research experience into the undergraduate science laboratory.”