(436e) Complex Biological Concepts In A Hands On Laboratory Course For Engineers

Meaningful biological experiments often require elaborate biological preparation techniques and significant time investment that preclude untrained engineering students to address relevant problems in a laboratory setting. While biologists typically focus on the structural components of a cell, the engineering interest is usually related to the dynamics of a cell system since the kinetics determines the process design. A good example for this is cell growth and the heterogeneity of a cell population in a growing culture. We have developed a cell preparation system that carries out the labor intensive cell preparation task in an automated way at frequent sampling intervals and injects the prepared cell samples into a flow cytometer. With this device samples can be withdrawn from a reactor and prepared for analysis by untrained persons in a highly reproducible way. We have implemented this device for a laboratory course for undergraduate chemical engineering students that are not specifically trained in biological techniques. The students were able to generate detailed data on growing cell cultures within the time frame of a typical Unit Operations laboratory experiment. They were able to focus their data analysis on the growth dynamics and how it is affected by culture heterogeneity due to the operation of the cell cycle and due to genetic instabilities. The approach is very valuable as laboratory experiments can be carried out that were impossible before. Students get exposed to complex biological concepts in a hands-on laboratory environment that complement the bioengineering lecture courses. It is planned to develop additional laboratory experiments on cellular dynamics for undergraduate students using this platform.