title: Designing laboratory exercises for the undergraduate molecular biology/biochemistry student: Techniques and ethical implications involved in personalized medicine.
abstract: Personalized medicine refers to medical care that involves genetically screening patients for their likelihood to develop various disorders. Commercial genome screening only involves identifying a consumer's genotype for a few single nucleotide polymorphisms. A phenotype (such as an illness) is greatly influenced by three factors: genes, gene expression levels, and the environment. The information supplied by personal genomics companies only involves genes and as such is not always indicative of a particular phenotype. Here, we propose a method for developing modular undergraduate laboratories that examine each contributing factor for a single gene. Although each module is suitable as an individual laboratory exercise, every module may be used in the same class to examine a single phenotype of interest, give students a more complete understanding of how a phenotype is produced and allow students to understand the science behind personalized medicine.
authors.affiliation: Chemistry Department, Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin 54911.
authors.forename: Kenneth M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Weinlander
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Hall