Biotechnology, War, and Breaking through Limitations
An Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Action Learning Lab
by Marla Chae, Greater Lawrence Technical School
STEAM Life Sciences Unit 1 - How do we breakthrough limitations created by war?
How do we innovate, adapt, and change to counteract limitations?
How do we overcome conflict and how is research and innovation accelerated due to large-scale conflict?
This STEAM unit explores how we break through limitations created by war. In Life Sciences and Biotechnology, students will explore the evolution of drug discovery and production as a result of the necessities of war, specifically WWI and WWII. Students will gain an understanding of human organ systems through experiments under the biomanufacturing umbrella. Comparisons with current events in Syria and the limitations to medicine production, import and overall availability exists as the backdrop to the learning in the labs.
The project kicks off with an exploration of bioreactors, how they are constructed, what they do, analogies found in nature, and how a bioreactor might be created from found items in war-torn Syria (e.g. bombed buildings in Damascus). This session is co-taught by teacher/coaches in Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science.
Students then begin to explore how medications are made, both through the use of single-celled organisms via bioreactors as well as by chemical synthesis in the lab. In both small groups and individually, students experience drug discovery and development through research and labs that look at how medications are absorbed, how they reach their target organs/cells, and how they are then metabolized and excreted. They will look at and experiment with innovations of the chemical synthesis of aspirin.
Co-taught Mechanical Engineering and Life Sciences labs will be focused on designing novel ways of building a bioreactor, while Biotechnology labs will focus on traditional in-lab bioreactors. In Computer Science, coding will be used to set up Arduinos to control delivery of needed elements to the bioreactors.
Two field trips are scheduled - one to Pfizer early in the project to examine different bioreactors from benchtop up to 500 Liter sizes. The second field trip is near the end of the project and is focused on protein purification with the drug-development company Eisai in Andover.
At the near endpoint in the project, all 4 disciplines - Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Computer Science and Engineering - and the respective teacher/coaches will come together to co-teach a lab focused on putting together the student-designed bioreactors and to begin troubleshooting any issues. There may be an element of redesign and re-testing, following the engineering design, with the goal being working units that can grow single-celled organisms -whether algae, yeast, or bacteria - that have some element of Arduino-powered automation.
The students will have many exhibition elements from this project to choose to display - the novel bioreactors, the automated element, Aspirin synthesis innovation, analysis of cell growth in the bioreactors, and various reports and experimental results around the medication they choose to study.
How do we innovate, adapt, and change to counteract limitations?
How do we overcome conflict and how is research and innovation accelerated due to large-scale conflict?
This STEAM unit explores how we break through limitations created by war. In Life Sciences and Biotechnology, students will explore the evolution of drug discovery and production as a result of the necessities of war, specifically WWI and WWII. Students will gain an understanding of human organ systems through experiments under the biomanufacturing umbrella. Comparisons with current events in Syria and the limitations to medicine production, import and overall availability exists as the backdrop to the learning in the labs.
The project kicks off with an exploration of bioreactors, how they are constructed, what they do, analogies found in nature, and how a bioreactor might be created from found items in war-torn Syria (e.g. bombed buildings in Damascus). This session is co-taught by teacher/coaches in Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science.
Students then begin to explore how medications are made, both through the use of single-celled organisms via bioreactors as well as by chemical synthesis in the lab. In both small groups and individually, students experience drug discovery and development through research and labs that look at how medications are absorbed, how they reach their target organs/cells, and how they are then metabolized and excreted. They will look at and experiment with innovations of the chemical synthesis of aspirin.
Co-taught Mechanical Engineering and Life Sciences labs will be focused on designing novel ways of building a bioreactor, while Biotechnology labs will focus on traditional in-lab bioreactors. In Computer Science, coding will be used to set up Arduinos to control delivery of needed elements to the bioreactors.
Two field trips are scheduled - one to Pfizer early in the project to examine different bioreactors from benchtop up to 500 Liter sizes. The second field trip is near the end of the project and is focused on protein purification with the drug-development company Eisai in Andover.
At the near endpoint in the project, all 4 disciplines - Life Sciences, Biotechnology, Computer Science and Engineering - and the respective teacher/coaches will come together to co-teach a lab focused on putting together the student-designed bioreactors and to begin troubleshooting any issues. There may be an element of redesign and re-testing, following the engineering design, with the goal being working units that can grow single-celled organisms -whether algae, yeast, or bacteria - that have some element of Arduino-powered automation.
The students will have many exhibition elements from this project to choose to display - the novel bioreactors, the automated element, Aspirin synthesis innovation, analysis of cell growth in the bioreactors, and various reports and experimental results around the medication they choose to study.