Cat burglars, yeast races, and other hypothesis-driven bioscience practicals

• Introduction
• Part I. Yeast races
• Part II. Plasmid identification
• Part III. Testing the five-second rule
• Part IV. Visualising defence gene expression in plants
• Part V. Testing antimicrobial compounds from natural products
• Part VI. mtDNA RFLP to catch a cat burglar
• Part VIII. Principles of gene editing
• Safety information
• Acknowledgements

This book is aimed at fellow academics teaching biosciences students (probably in the first or second year of an undergraduate degree). It contains materials from eight different sets of practicals that colleagues have developed here at the University of Sheffield, concerning different areas of molecular and cellular biology. The experiments all span a few lab sessions, and are a step away from “cookbook” style labs with defined instructions and a certain outcome; each one contains significant elements of experimental planning. The standard lab session in our School is three hours long, with students working in pairs.

Each section contains the following: some background information and scientific context; student-facing documents; technical information, including materials needed and any extra protocols; and additional resources that might be helpful such as references.