This project was prepared as part of a BioQUEST faculty development workshop entitled Implementing Bioinformatics in Introductory Undergraduate Biology Courses:
Exploring Microbiology, Molecular Data and Visualization at San Diego Supercomputing Center in January 2007. The BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium is committed to the reform of undergraduate biology instruction through an emphasis on engaging students in realistic scientific practices. This approach is sometimes characterized as an inquiry driven approach and is captured in BioQUEST's three P's (problem-posing, problem-solving, and peer-persuasion). As part of this workshop groups of faculty were encouraged to initiate innovative curricular projects. We are sharing these works in progress in the hope that they will stimulate further exploration, collaboration and development. Please see the following links for additional information:

Upcoming events               BEDROCK Problem Spaces

Possible Audiences:

This activity can be adopted to any undergraduate course in cell and molecular biology, genetics, microbiology or developmental biology.  

Project Materials:

EST sequences from the Loblolly Pine Embryogenesis Project (see attachments)
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)BLAST tool  

Future Directions:

Once students have identified various ESTs they can investigate them further by finding homologs to their ESTs and looking at phylogeny of these putative genes and investigating the structure of the gene products.