A 13‐week research‐based biochemistry laboratory curriculum

Here, we present a 13‐week research‐based biochemistry laboratory curriculum designed to provide the students with the experience of engaging in original research while introducing foundational biochemistry laboratory techniques. The laboratory experience has been developed around the directed evolution of an enzyme chosen by the instructor, with mutations designed by the students. Ideal enzymes for this curriculum are able to be structurally modeled, solubly expressed, and monitored for activity by UV/Vis spectroscopy, and an example curriculum for haloalkane dehalogenase is given. Unique to this curriculum is a successful implementation of saturation mutagenesis and high‐throughput screening of enzyme function, along with bioinformatics analysis, homology modeling, structural analysis, protein expression and purification, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and enzyme kinetics. Each of these techniques is carried out using a novel student‐designed mutant library or enzyme variant unique to the lab team and, importantly, not described previously in the literature. Use of a well‐established set of protocols promotes student data quality. Publication may result from the original student‐generated hypotheses and data, either from the class as a whole or individual students that continue their independent projects upon course completion. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(5):437–448, 2017.