Evolutionary Biology in the Real World
As a field, microbiology has often overlooked evolution as a core concept and process. Even in cases where it could and should be integrated, like antibiotic resistance, microbiologists tend to speak of the "development of resistance" rather than its evolution. This unexplored impact of evolution on medicine has become a call to arms for the science community. The goals of the new field of evolutionary medicine are to gain insights from evolution to inform personal and public medical practices, such as the management of antibiotic resistance and the treatment of modern environment-related illnesses. Trained as a bacteriologist, I have a first-hand appreciation for the challenges in bridging concepts and motivating new microbiologists to spend time learning population biology.
My goal is to unite evolutionary biology and microbiology education. Here at MSU's I've helped to teach an undergraduate laboratory course in microbial genetics, where I developed new methods to teach evolutionary thinking and practice. The core evolutionary concepts of variation, selection, and inheritance are encountered daily in microbiology, making it a natural forum in which to highlight and demonstrate evolution by natural selection. The course is taken by juniors and seniors planning future careers in which evolution may be applied, including in industry, medicine, and biological research. Incorporating evolution into preexisting course requirements is an efficient way to teach these contemporary concepts while making them more interesting to, and thus better understood by, the next generation of researchers and physicians.
Materials & travel for this project are supported by the MSU FAST program, with advising from Jim Smith (MSU Entomology & Lyman Briggs College) and support from welcoming course instructors Michael Bagdasarian and Kaz Kashefi.
My goal is to unite evolutionary biology and microbiology education. Here at MSU's I've helped to teach an undergraduate laboratory course in microbial genetics, where I developed new methods to teach evolutionary thinking and practice. The core evolutionary concepts of variation, selection, and inheritance are encountered daily in microbiology, making it a natural forum in which to highlight and demonstrate evolution by natural selection. The course is taken by juniors and seniors planning future careers in which evolution may be applied, including in industry, medicine, and biological research. Incorporating evolution into preexisting course requirements is an efficient way to teach these contemporary concepts while making them more interesting to, and thus better understood by, the next generation of researchers and physicians.
Materials & travel for this project are supported by the MSU FAST program, with advising from Jim Smith (MSU Entomology & Lyman Briggs College) and support from welcoming course instructors Michael Bagdasarian and Kaz Kashefi.