July 25-29, 2011, 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM, MIT

"Microbial communities: Cheese, poop and other stories."

The 2011 Teacher Workshop was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The workshop was hosted by the Department of Biology at MIT.

FACULTY LECTURES

Monday, July 25:
Prof. Benjamin Wolf, Harvard FAS Center for Systems Biology —

“Cutting the Cheese: Dissecting Cheese Rind Microbial Communities.”

Tuesday, July 26
Prof. Ed Delong, MIT Departments of Civil & Environmental and Biological Engineering —

“Exploring the marine microbial world: genomes to biomes.”

Wednesday, July 27
Prof. Ashley Earl, The Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard —

“Extracellular signals dictate cell fate in biofilms."

Thursday, July 28
Prof. Heather Paxson, MIT Department of Anthropology —

“Farmstead and artisanal cheese production in America."

Prof. Eric Alm, MIT Departments of Civil & Environmental and Biological Engineering —

"The Human Microbiome"

Monday, July 29
Prof. Tanja Bosak, MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences —

“Life between the two Snowballs.”

LABORATORY COURSES - CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Dr. Mandana Sassanfar and Dr. Celeste Peterson

• Making cheese

• Isolating and identification of bacteria from cheese samples

• Functional assays: Lactose fermentation, swarming, biofilm formation

• Milk Coagulation, milk proteins, and Chymosin activity assay

• Compound and Fluorescence Microscopy

• Quorum sensing              

Hands-on activities inspired by this

workshop are available for download as pdf files:

• Biofilm Lesson with Student Worksheet
• Flourescent Reporter Proteins
• Quorum Sensing Activity

A large display of imported and domestic cheeses

2011 Workshop participants

Making cheese from raw milk

Bacterium isolated from cheese    Swarming assay

Lactose fermentation assay   Proteins in milk (SDS PAGE)

Lecture by Ashley Earl