Sparking creativity and innovation in a science teaching laboratory

Overview

Deborah Perlstein is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses at the interface of biology and chemistry. Her interdisciplinary research program focuses on understanding the fundamental chemistry underlying the biosynthesis and insertion of clusters of iron and sulfur into metal-requiring proteins. Since the metalloproteins receiving their metals from this pathway are required for life sustaining processes, inhibition of this metal trafficking pathway is detrimental to the cell and its dysregulation contributes to carcinogenesis and neurodegeneration. In pursuing her research interests, Professor Perlstein regularly works with researchers at all levels in their training, from freshman getting their first experiences with the scientific research process to postdoctoral fellows who are getting ready to launch their independent research careers.

Through her time working with undergraduates, Professor Perlstein has noticed that our STEM faculty are doing a wonderful job teaching important concepts and building foundational laboratory skills, but we are less successful teaching our students how to apply those concepts and skills to pursue their own scientific interests and ideas by tapping into their creativity and experiencing the scientific process firsthand. In this talk, Professor Perlstein will describe her advanced laboratory elective course, CH524: Chemical Biology laboratory. Through sustained exposure, CH524 students work to overcome their fear of failure and aversion to uncertainty as they work to successfully integrate foundational concepts and skills from their previous coursework to discover new scientific knowledge in a truly open-ended laboratory experience.