AP Bio Students Genetically Engineer E. coli

"I LOVE this lab!! I feel like a real scientist!"

And who wouldn't while genetically engineering E. coli!

Ms. Hennessey's AP Biology class recently finished a unit on DNA and genetic engineering and are moving on to study natural selection. They transitioned between these units with an inquiry-based lab in which they genetically engineered E. coli to pick up plasmid DNA that contained genes with antibiotic resistance to either ampicillin or kanamycin.

Making the lab even more exciting, one of the plasmid DNA contained the gene for a glowing protein, so the bacteria glowed in the dark!

The students did not know which plasmid they had until the day after the lab when their cultures had incubated for approximately 24 hours.