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An Education Group for Curriculum Development
Summary: Graham Walker studies how cells respond to DNA damage as well as the biological interdependence of certain bacteria and plants. He will establish an education group—composed of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates—to focus on curricular development, including Web-based materials, for introductory biology.
Project Summary
Graham Walker will undertake a major new educational initiative by establishing an education group, conceptually analogous to his research group, which will focus on curriculum development. It will be composed primarily of postdoctoral fellows with aspirations to teach and do research, but it will also include graduate and undergraduate students. The initial focus of the education group will be on developing curricular materials for teaching introductory biology. The materials developed will include Web/Internet-based modules. The group will develop assignments that will give students the sense of discovery and excitement usually experienced only in advanced undergraduate labs or in undergraduate research. For example, the group might assign a small set of genes to each student at the beginning of the course and then have students use these genes in assignments on protein structure, enzymology, genetics, and evolution. In addition, the group will develop modules that underscore the relevance of the course material to real life, such as ones dealing with cancer, AIDS, and anthrax.
The education group will also develop take-home and recitation-section experiments. It will develop simple experiments, which can be done on desktops, that will give students some sense of the discovery of research projects. For example, such experiments could be based on the Ames test, on Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, on Wisconsin fast plants, on Bacillus subtilis sporulation, or on assaying Beano.
Research Summary
Dr. Walker’s lab has studied the SOS system of Escherichia coli, which has provided the paradigm for the study of DNA damage-induced response in other organisms, including humans. In its efforts to understand the molecular basis of UV and chemical mutagenesis, the lab has intensively studied UmuC, which proved to be the founding member of the Y family of translesion DNA polymerases that includes the human xeroderma pigmentosum variant protein. Dr. Walker’s studies of a set of bacterial mutator mutants led to the cloning and sequencing of mutS and mutL, defects in the human homologs that have been shown to result in a cancer susceptibility syndrome (hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer).
His lab has also studied the molecular mechanisms underlying establishment of the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis between Sinorhizobium meliloti and alfalfa. It has shown that symbiotically active forms of certain S. meliloti exopolysaccharides are necessary for the bacteria to invade the nodules they elicit on plants. His lab’s work has recently revealed highly intriguing molecular commonalities between S. meliloti symbiosis with plants and Brucella abortus chronic pathogenesis of mammals.
Last updated October 2006
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