370 Developmental Biology Laboratory
Syllabus for Spring 2010
Instructor: Dr. James Berry 107 Dorsheimer Lab and Greenhouse (camjob@buffalo.edu)
Lab Supervisor: Eileen Sylves Hochstetter 233
Lab Assistant: Dennis Pietras, who may be virtually anywhere.
Teaching assistants: To be assigned
Laboratory Sessions: Hochstetter 212
Tuesday 2:00 - 4:50
Wednesday 1:00 - 3:50
Recitation: NSC 222. Friday 1:00 – 1:50
Recitations will cover information on upcoming labs, and present other lab-related topics
that will be on the exams, but that may not be covered directly in lab. Exam questions will be
taken from the material covered in the recitation lectures, as well as from the labs themselves.
Attendance at Recitation is mandatory, and a sign up sheet will be available at the beginning
of each session. Students will be penalized 5% of the points available for the final grade for the
second and each subsequent unexcused absence.
Midterm and final exams will be given during recitation on 2/26/10 and 4/23/10.
Attendance Policy:
You must attend each laboratory session and arrive on time. You may miss one,
with a valid medical excuse. If you miss 2 or more labs, you may receive an F for the
course.
Only valid medical excuses will be accepted for missing a recitation, exam, or lab. If you
miss an exam with a valid medical excuse, Dr. Berry (not your TA) must be notified within 24
hours of the exam. Send him an e-mail at camjob@buffalo.edu. All medical excuses must be
accompanied by a signed doctor's excuse with the doctor's phone number. All excuses will be
checked.
There WILL BE NO LABS THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES (January 12 and 13).
There WILL be a recitation during the first week of classes, on Friday January 15.
List of Planned Experiments:
1. Genetic, environmental, and hormonal control of plant development
Protein gel analysis, observations of hormonal effects on apical dominance, light
regulation of gene expression, hormonal suppression/activation of leaf
development
2. Tumorigenesis in tobacco
infection of leaves with virulent Agrobacterium, demonstration of hormone
independence
in transformed, tumorigenic plant cells
3. Stable expression of reporter genes in tobacco
Stable transformation of tobacco using Agrobacterium
B-glucuronidase assays
4. Analysis of enhancer-trap/GFP expression lines of Arabidopsis
Green fluorescent protein, tissue-specific expression, fluorescent microscopy
PCR amplification of GFP transgene from genomic DNA
5. Regeneration of Planeria, modification of development
Sectioning to observe positional effects on regeneration, effects of RNAi and
chemicals
on developmental patterns
6. Development in a vertebrate animal system
Zebrafish embryo staging
LiCl modification of wnt signaling
Cartilage staining
7. MicroRNAs and viral-induced changes in plant development
Correlate microRNA processing with disease symptoms
8. Confocal microscopy
There is no lab manual. Experimental protocols will be available on line at least a week
before the scheduled lab. You are required to print them out and bring them with you to
lab. This will be checked by the teaching assistants.
The labs are three hours long. Occasionally, you may finish before the end of the
session. If that happens, you may leave only with the permission of your teaching assistant.
There may also be times when the lab runs longer than three hours. Make every effort to stay
until the experiment is finished. There are several occasions when observations must be made on
experimental organisms grown overnight or longer, or experimental procedures must be
continued after an incubation period. In those cases, you are responsible for coming in outside of
regular lab hours and performing the next steps of the experiments. These additional
observations or manipulations generally require less than thirty minutes.
Exams:
Two exams will be given during the course of the semester, a midterm (2/26/10) and a
final (4/23/10). The midterm will focus on material from the first half of the course, and the
final will focus on material from the second half. Thus, the final will not be cumulative,
although it may require some basic knowledge from the first part of the course.
Quizzes:
Five or six unannounced quizzes will be given during the course of the semester. The
quizzes may cover what will be performed during that day’s laboratory, or may concern what
was done in the weeks previous laboratory exercise. Quizzes will be given at the beginning of a
laboratory session, and may not be on the same week or cover the same material in both lab
sections.
Lab Reports and other assignments:
The students will be required to prepare one full-length laboratory report. This will cover
laboratory 1, described above.
For all lab assignments, students will prepare an ongoing laboratory notebook on their
computers, using Word or comparable program. This will document the progress of each
experiment being conducted in the lab, and will contain a description of the experimental
protocols, data collected, and any digital images (with appropriate labeling) obtained during each
laboratory session. The notebook is to be organized according to each experiment, rather than
kept in a diary format. At the end of each week (Friday by 5:00 pm), the lab notebook document
will be emailed to the TA for grading. Grades will be based on completeness, organization, and
up to date status.
Grading:
Grades will be assigned based on the student’s performance on the exams, laboratory
reports, and laboratory bench work. The relative weight of these will be as follows:
Exams and quizzes - 40%, lab report and lab book - 50%, evaluation of bench work - 10%
Disability Accommodations:
If you are registered with the Office of Disability Services and have a diagnosed
disability which will make it difficult for you to carry out the course work as outlined or requires
accommodations such as recruiting note takers, readers, or extended time on exams, please
advise Dr. Berry during the first week of the course. Arrangements for reasonable
accommodations will be made.
Breakage fee:
You will be using some very expensive equipment for these laboratory exercises. If you
break something due to carelessness or not following directions, you may be charged the
replacement cost of the item.