Microbiology Laboratory BIOL 4101.001
Section 001: Tue, 4:00 – 6:50 pm Lab: BEP 132
Dr. Riqing Yu Office: HPR 118 Spring 2016
Laboratory description: In this lab course, you will learn basic microbiological laboratory skills in
culturing, isolation, and identification of bacteria (culture-based) from environmental or human samples.
After isolating the novel bacterial strains, you will have chance to practice a series of microbial
molecular biological techniques, including genomic DNA extraction, 16S rRNA gene amplification by
PCR, gel electrophoresis, DNA purification and sequencing, gene blasting and phylogenetic
/bioinformatic analysis. This lab will also provide training in enzyme activities and antibiotic disk assay.
Laboratory objectives: To learn basic microbial techniques and procedures that will benefit your future
studies or jobs in biomedical, industrial, environmental, and education careers; To learn how to design
and carry out novel microbial and environmental experiments; To learn how to write a scientific
laboratory report.
Lab manual: This Microbiology Laboratory Manual is optimally designed for use of students who are
concurrently taking a lecture class in Microbiology. A lab manual will be provided in the first week in
the lab upon purchase.
Grading: Each lab report or assignment will be 100 points-based (10% of the total score). Final grades
will be calculated as follows.
BIOL 4101
Lab reports 50%
Midterm exam 20%
Lab participation and liability 10%
Final exam 20%
Final grade scale
A: 90-100%
B: 80-89%
C: 70-79%
D: 60-69%
F: <59%
There will be no make-up labs. If you miss two or more labs without pre-notice and legitimate
absence reasons, 15% of total points will be deducted from your overall lab grade.
Lab reports: Each lab report will generally be 3-5 pages long and include graphs and/or tables. The
report will be in a simplified format of a journal article (Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results,
Discussion, and References Cited). Five labs will be designated for the report write-ups and will be due
a week after completion of the lab(s). You will need to turn in the lab report printout before the start of
next lab.
Cleanup as the lab liability: Before leaving the lab, you have the liability to clean up what you have
done, put away all waste, rinse any used glassware, disinfect unwanted cultures and the lab bench, etc.
Those are part of your experiment. Do not leave a mess, and do not expect someone else to clean up
after you. Leaving a mess will cause loss of your liability points.
Protection and safety:
