The SkillsCenter: Creating scalable research opportunities for STEM students.

Undergraduate students generally need laboratory skills and experience to be accepted into a position within an academic lab or a company. However, those settings are traditionally where students would develop that necessary expertise. We developed a laboratory course paradigm to equip students with the skills they need to access future opportunities.

From serendipity to therapy.

My postdoctoral training in the biosynthesis of plant polysaccharides at the University of California, Berkeley, led me, rather improbably, to study mucopolysaccharide storage disorders in the intramural program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I have traced the path from studies of mucopolysaccharide turnover in cultured cells to the development of therapy for patients. The key experiment started as an accident, i.e., the mixing of cells of different genotypes, resulting in correction of their biochemical defect. This serendipitous experiment led to identification of the enzyme deficiencies in the Hurler and Hunter syndromes, to an understanding of the biochemistry of lysosomal enzymes in general, and to the cell biology of receptor-mediated endocytosis and targeting to lysosomes. It paved the way for the development of enzyme replacement therapy with recombinant enzymes. I have also included studies performed after I moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), including a recent unexpected finding in a neurodegenerative mucopolysaccharide storage disease, the Sanfilippo syndrome, with implications for therapy.

Journey of a molecular biologist.

My journey into a research career began in fermentation biochemistry in an applied science department during the difficult post-World War II time in Japan. Subsequently, my desire to do research in basic science developed. I was fortunate to be a postdoctoral fellow in the United States during the early days of molecular biology. From 1957 to 1960, I worked with three pioneers of molecular biology, Sol Spiegelman, James Watson, and Seymour Benzer. These experiences helped me develop into a basic research scientist. My initial research projects at Osaka University, and subsequently at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, were on the mode of action of colicins as well as on mRNA and ribosomes. Following success in the reconstitution of ribosomal subunits, my efforts focused more on ribosomes, initially on the aspects of structure, function, and in vitro assembly, such as the construction of the 30S subunit assembly map. After this, my laboratory studied the regulation of the synthesis of ribosomes and ribosomal components in Escherichia coli. Our achievements included the discovery of translational feedback regulation of ribosomal protein synthesis and the identification of several repressor ribosomal proteins used in this regulation. In 1984, I moved to the University of California, Irvine, and initiated research on rRNA transcription by RNA polymerase I in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The use of yeast genetics combined with biochemistry allowed us to identify genes uniquely involved in rRNA synthesis and to elucidate the mechanism of initiation of transcription. This essay is a reflection on my life as a research scientist.

My life with nature.

After a childhood in Germany and being a youth in Grand Forks, North Dakota, I went to Harvard University, then to graduate school in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin. Then to Washington University and Stanford University for postdoctoral training in biochemistry and genetics. Then at the University of Wisconsin, as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Genetics, I initiated research on bacterial chemotaxis. Here, I review this research by me and by many, many others up to the present moment. During the past few years, I have been studying chemotaxis and related behavior in animals, namely in Drosophila fruit flies, and some of these results are presented here. My current thinking is described.

Leveraging systematic review practice for research skill development in an undergraduate science course: a case study.

Information literacy skills are an important part of research skills for undergraduate science students. This case study presents a novel approach to developing these types of research skills. By deconstructing the research process into separate steps, explicitly defining, and practicing the skills involved, students can progressively develop these skills and apply them. In this course, systematic reviews are used as exemplars for the research process. We align the Research Skills Development Framework with the steps of a systematic review and present specific skills and accompanying activities for each step. This workshop-based course emphasizes skill development and can help overcome assessments that rely solely on a final paper, with no record or evidence of the student research process, that could be created by a generative artificial intelligence tool.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study presents a novel approach to teaching undergraduate science students rigorous research skills with scaffolded systematic review practice.

The Invisible University Is COVID-19 Positive.

Within the ivory tower of academia, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic stands to disproportionately impact the invisible workforce of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs). Faced with university closures, hiring freezes, and a general lack of support and benefits, an entire generation of postdocs and their knowledge and skills may be lost to academia without intervention.

Postdocs' lab engagement predicts trajectories of PhD students' skill development.

The doctoral advisor-typically the principal investigator (PI)-is often characterized as a singular or primary mentor who guides students using a cognitive apprenticeship model. Alternatively, the "cascading mentorship" model describes the members of laboratories or research groups receiving mentorship from more senior laboratory members and providing it to more junior members (i.e., PIs mentor postdocs, postdocs mentor senior graduate students, senior students mentor junior students, etc.). Here we show that PIs' laboratory and mentoring activities do not significantly predict students' skill development trajectories, but the engagement of postdocs and senior graduate students in laboratory interactions do. We found that the cascading mentorship model accounts best for doctoral student skill development in a longitudinal study of 336 PhD students in the United States. Specifically, when postdocs and senior doctoral students actively participate in laboratory discussions, junior PhD students are over 4 times as likely to have positive skill development trajectories. Thus, postdocs disproportionately enhance the doctoral training enterprise, despite typically having no formal mentorship role. These findings also illustrate both the importance and the feasibility of identifying evidence-based practices in graduate education.

Advancing Undergraduate Laboratory Education Using Non-Model Insect Species.

Over the past decade, laboratory courses have made a fundamental shift to inquiry-based modules and authentic research experiences. In many cases, these research experiences emphasize addressing novel research questions. Insects are ideal for inquiry-based undergraduate laboratory courses because research on insects is not limited by regulatory, economic, and logistical constraints to the same degree as research on vertebrates. While novel research questions could be pursued with model insect species (e.g., Drosophila, Tribolium), the opportunities presented by non-model insects are much greater, as less is known about non-model species. We review the literature on the use of non-model insect species in laboratory education to provide a resource for faculty interested in developing new authentic inquiry-based laboratory modules using insects. Broader use of insects in undergraduate laboratory education will support the pedagogical goals of increased inquiry and resesarch experiences while at the same time fostering increased interest and research in entomology.

Uncovering protein-protein interactions through a team-based undergraduate biochemistry course.

How can we provide fertile ground for students to simultaneously explore a breadth of foundational knowledge, develop cross-disciplinary problem-solving skills, gain resiliency, and learn to work as a member of a team? One way is to integrate original research in the context of an undergraduate biochemistry course. In this Community Page, we discuss the development and execution of an interdisciplinary and cross-departmental undergraduate biochemistry laboratory course. We present a template for how a similar course can be replicated at other institutions and provide pedagogical and research results from a sample module in which we challenged our students to study the binding interface between 2 important biosynthetic proteins. Finally, we address the community and invite others to join us in making a larger impact on undergraduate education and the field of biochemistry by coordinating efforts to integrate research and teaching across campuses.