Full Agenda

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 

6:00 – 7:00 pm 

Dinner 

7:00 – 7:15 pm 

Welcome  

Amy Chang, ASM 

7:15 – 8:00 pm 

Institute Overview and Introductions 

Brad Goodner, Hiram College

8:00 – 9:00 pm 

What Is? What’s Possible? 

9:00 pm 

Adjournment 

Thursday, March 12, 2009 

8:00 – 8:45 am 

Breakfast 

8:45 – 9:00 am 

Introduction of the Day’s Events & Announcements  

9:00 – 11:00 am 

Introduction to BLAST 

How the Algorithm Works 

Tie BLAST to Basic Gene Structures and to Evolutionary Change 

Cheryl Kerfeld, Joint Genome Institute 

11:00 am –  

12:00 pm 

Mini-assignment #1  

At the completion of this session, participants will:  

1.     Understand the basics of how an E-value is calculated  

2.     Be familiar with how to manipulate experimental parameters in a BLAST search  

3.     Be able to interpret BLAST results and use them to illustrate concepts in the curriculum 

Noon – 1:15 pm 

Lunch 

1:15 – 3:00 pm 

Gene Structure & Organization 

Start Codons 

Operons 

Synteny 

Brad Goodner, Hiram College

3:00 – 3:30 pm 

Overview of Gene Annotation 

3:30 – 5:45 pm 

Mini-assignment #2  

At the completion of this session, participants will:  

1.     Know how to move beyond a BLAST search to confirm a full-length gene 

2.     Confirm or change the position of a start codon 

3.     Predict possible operons and regulatory features 

5:45 – 6:15 pm 

ASM Faculty Development Program 

Kelly Gull, ASM  

6:15 – 7:15 pm 

Dinner 

7:15 – 9:00 pm 

Projects to Address Teaching Challenges 

9:00 pm 

Adjournment 

Friday, March 13, 2009 

8:00 – 8:45 am 

Breakfast 

8:45 – 9:00 am 

Introduction of the Day’s Events & Announcements  

9:00 – 11:00 am 

Protein Sequence & Structure 

Hydrophobicity  

Pfams & Other Weak Patterns 

Structure 

Kathleen Scott, University of South Florida 

11:00 am –  

12:00 pm 

Mini-assignment #3 

At the completion of this session, participants will: 

1.     be familiar with the basics of protein evolution 

2.     be able to identify motifs in amino acid sequences using a variety of web-available bioinformatics tools 

3.     be able to align sequences and search the alignment to ensure that all conserved regions are correctly juxtaposed in the alignment 

Noon – 1:00 pm 

Lunch 

1:00 – 2:00 pm 

Evolutionary Analysis 

Sam Donovan, University of Pittsburgh  

2:00 - 3:45 pm 

Mini-assignment #4 

At the completion of this session, participants will: 

1.     be familiar with the basics of phylogenetic tree interpretation 

2.     be able to identify and avoid common tree reading misconceptions 

3.     be able to use a variety of web-available tools to build phylogenetic trees from molecular sequence data.  

3:45 – 4:00 pm 

Break 

4:00 – 7:00 pm 

Group Work on Teaching Challenges 

Dinner on Your Own 

Saturday, March 14, 2009 

7:30 – 8:30 am 

Presentation Uploads 

8:00 – 8:30 am 

Breakfast 

8:30 – 11:15 am 

Participant Presentations  

11:15 am – 12:00 pm  

Evaluations, Reflections, and Closing remarks 

Noon 

Adjournment