Authors of original unit: John M. Sabo, Jamie L. Lynch, and Deanna M. Raineri

Partner Projects: Biology Student Workbench

Grade Level: High school chemistry teachers

Subject Areas: SARS

The purpose of this unit is two-fold. Firstly, you will learn how to use tools in the Biology Workbench to search databases for DNA and protein sequences, and to align and manipulate these sequences. The Biology Workbench is a suite of bioinformatics tools that was initially designed for researchers. To help you master this comprehensive program, we have outlined the basic tools of the Workbench in the following tutorial. Secondly, you will learn about the molecular biology of a group of interesting diseases.

Intended for high school chemistry teachers, who wish to use computational tools in the classroom. Also suitable for introductory college chemistry. It could also be used directly by students for self-study.

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Introduction: Background information on Prion

Part 1: Opening An Account, Starting a new Session and Importing Sequences from Protein Databases

Part 2: Searching for Mutant Prion Sequences

Part 3: Comparing the Cruetzfeldt- Jakob Mutant Prion Sequence with the Wildtype Sequence

Part 4: Prediction of Secondary Structure

Part 5: Hydropathy Plot of Protein Sequences