Robert Miintzuoh Kao

PULSE products and services have successfully supported undergraduate life science departments in their efforts to enhance student-centered pedagogies. They are also adaptable for departments in other STEM disciplines and the broader STEM community. This article describes an example of how PULSE can help departments respond to the need to incorporate workforce development skills into STEM education programs, to address economic mobility for students. This case study highlights the ability of PULSE to collaborate and synergize with existing and developing STEM initiatives, using recent examples in Puerto Rico and Philadelphia.

To facilitate its goal of fostering department transformation, the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) organizes some of its work into five geographic regions and leverages the expertise of the PULSE Fellows in each region. This article examines how these Regional Networks have driven department-level changes through outreach activities, use of the PULSE Rubrics as a diagnostic tool to help departments to advance the Vision and Change recommendations, and implementation of the PULSE framework to address local needs and challenges. We present impact data through Regional Network activities and identify commonalities in successes and challenges across all the geographic regions. Through reports from the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, and Midwest Great Plains, we highlight each Regional Network’s accomplishments in influencing the adoption of PULSE strategies to implement the Vision and Change recommendations to transform departments.

The impact of Covid‐19 pandemic has dramatically shifted the education landscape between recent college and university graduates and pathways to graduate degrees. In my perspective article, I wish to share the challenges, reflections, and a call‐to‐action framework in ways we can support and advocate for postbaccalaureate persons excluded because of their ethnicity of race, or from a structurally marginalized community or PEERS through the lens of mindfulness, humility, reflection, and deep listening. Through cross‐institutional community network support, culturally responsive mentoring of postbaccalaureate PEERS is one of the key dimensions in empowering communities toward health, environmental, and social justice.

Student-centered learning of biology concepts through hands-on tactile approaches is one of the important themes in inclusive and equitable STEM teaching. In our article, we describe the development of clay Velcro origami models for students to explore the molecular and cellular process of muscle fiber formation. We repurposed dollar store items and recyclable items used to construct a variety of textures in the clay Velcro model of early and late stages of muscle fiber formation. These hands-on activities are linked to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) on using a model to explore the cell and structure changes to form a multinucleated muscle fiber or the formation of a syncytium. Finally, we also illustrate how students can utilize the clay Velcro model to make predictions if key molecules in cell fusion do not work during the process of syncytial formation during muscle fiber development.

In-person undergraduate research experiences (UREs) promote students’ integration into careers in life science research. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted institutions hosting summer URE programs to offer them remotely, raising questions about whether undergraduates who participate in remote research can experience scientific integration. To address this, we investigated indicators of scientific integration for students who participated in remote life science URE programs in summer 2020. We found that these students experienced gains in their scientific self-efficacy and scientific identity similar to results reported for in-person UREs. We also found that these students perceived high benefits and low costs of doing research at the outset of their programs, and their perceptions did not change despite the remote circumstances. Yet, their perceptions differed by program, indicating that programs differentially affected students’ perceptions of the costs of doing research. Finally, we observed that students with prior research experience made greater gains in self-efficacy and identity, as well as in their perceptions of the alignment of their values with those of the scientific community, in comparison to students with no prior research experience. This finding suggests that additional programming may be needed for undergraduates with no prior experience to benefit from remote research.

Over the past decade, the development of three-dimensional mammalian cell organization—called human organoids—from stem cells has provided a framework for future clinical therapies. As human organoid research progresses, we also need to keep in mind the cross-cultural and ethical dimensions of human organoids research. Our review article aims to examine the ethical dimensions of cerebral human organoids and provide an ethical framework guide within human organoids research.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down undergraduate research programs across the U.S. Twenty-three sites offered remote undergraduate research programs in the life sciences during summer 2020. Given the unprecedented offering of remote research experiences, we carried out a study to describe and evaluate these programs. Using structured templates, we documented how programs were designed and implemented, including who participated. Through focus groups and surveys, we identified programmatic strengths and shortcomings as well as recommendations for improvements from the perspectives of participating students. Strengths included the quality of mentorship, opportunities for learning and professional development, and development of a sense of community. Weaknesses included limited cohort building, challenges with insufficient structure, and issues with technology. Although all programs had one or more activities related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice, these topics were largely absent from student reports even though programs coincided with a peak in national consciousness about racial inequities and structural racism. Our results provide evidence for designing remote REUs that are experienced favorably by students. Our results also indicate that remote REUs are sufficiently positive to further investigate their affordances and constraints, including the potential to scale up offerings, with minimal concern about disenfranchising students.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has taken center stage in infectious disease research. Since the first reports to the World Health Organization (WHO) in winter 2019, we know that the infectious agent was a virus of the coronavirus family, named SARS-CoV-2 (the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) causes a respiratory disease in Covid-19 and attacks lung cells due to the presence of many conserved receptor entries, namely Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2. In our instant update review article, we highlight the prevalence and genetic diversity of bats as they are the potential natural reservoir and link SARS-CoV-2 to other coronaviruses through the circulation in bats in Southeast Asia. Furthermore, we present the important ethical dilemmas to consider regarding human challenge studies as well as the effectiveness of herd immunity and personal protective equipment (PPE) for SARS-CoV-2. Lastly, we review the advances in the development of medical treatments and possible vaccines available to fight the virus.

Engaging undergraduates in the mechanisms of post-translational modifications lies at the heart of molecular and cell biology education. An important challenge for science educators is developing inclusive and equitable approaches and hands-on demonstrations to clarify post-translational modification mechanisms, such as the protein-splicing mechanism called split inteins. Here, we describe step-by-step assembly of recycled materials to help clarify the molecular action of split inteins in inclusive classroom teaching settings.

Erythritol is a dietary sweetener that is used for low-calorie or diabetic diets. Although safe for human consumption, erythritol is lethal to certain Dipteran pests, but insecticidal effects of erythritol on phloem-feeding insects have yet to be examined. Our goal was to determine whether erythritol has insecticidal activity against pear psylla, Cacopsylla pyricola (Foerster) (Hemiptera: Psyllidae). We first demonstrated that ingestion of erythritol solutions compared with water by pear psylla caused reduced feeding, impaired motor functions, and reduced survival time of adults. We then tested whether foliar treatment of pear leaves with erythritol was also lethal to pear psylla. Foliar treatment of erythritol led to reduced 3-d survival of pear psylla nymphs and adults, and reduced rates of oviposition by pear psylla adults. Psylla adults also preferred to settle on untreated leaves than on erythritol-treated leaves in preference assays. Finally, we conducted field experiments to test whether applications of erythritol provided pear trees with protection against pear psylla under natural field conditions. Those experiments showed a reduction in pear psylla nymphs on erythritol-treated trees compared with untreated trees, but only if the erythritol was completely dissolved into solution by heating. Laboratory trials confirmed the importance of heating. Results of our experiments demonstrate that erythritol is insecticidal to pear psylla nymphs and adults and provide the first report that erythritol is lethal to a phloem-feeding insect. These findings suggest that erythritol may provide a new safe and effective tool for the management of pear psylla.