Ashland microbiologist presents on integrating research and teaching at national conference

Paul Hyman, Assistant Professor in the Biology/Toxicology department, gave a talk and presented a poster entitled “Integrating Teaching and Research: Mutant Identification and Characterization for Host Range Study” at the 20th Evergreen International Phage Meeting. The meeting was held in August in Olympia, Washington.

Ashland University students Rachel Farley and Nathaniel Green were co-authors on the presentations, which described a series of classroom lab exercises and a related student research project that Dr. Hyman has developed. The class exercises allow Biology students to identify bacteria containing particular classes of mutations and identify a specific mutation by sequencing the gene. These bacteria are later used in a student research project. In addition to using the bacteria to study pathogen evolution, the research students are identifying ways that improve the classroom exercise. The two settings, classroom and research lab, thus both support each other and allow all of the students to contribute to a single research program.