Biochemistry laboratory reports: Filling in the introduction and discussion

Laboratory reports written in the style of a standard scientific article are commonly used to assess student learning in biochemistry laboratory courses. While most students can complete the Materials and Methods or Results sections successfully, many have difficulty with the Introduction and Discussion. They fail to place their data in a larger experimental context or to compare their results to those previously published. To address this issue in a laboratory course focusing on l-lactate dehydrogenase, a new exercise was introduced that was designed 1) to provide more background information about l-lactate dehydrogenase; 2) to give students additional experience in using PubMed and Web of Science to locate specific papers about l-lactate dehydrogenase; 3) to introduce the major bioinformatics databases at the National Center for Biological Information, ExPASy (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics), BRENDA (Braunschweig Enzyme Database), and the Protein Data Bank; 4) to allow students to recover detailed information about l-lactate dehydrogenases; and 5) to provide practice in reading a research article that is similar to what they do in the lab. The students completed a data sheet summarizing these activities and then prepared three laboratory reports. The lab reports improved over the course of the semester and were qualitatively better than in past years. The materials developed for this laboratory course can be adapted to similar projects that use another protein as a model system. They could also be modified for use in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences or research projects for undergraduate or graduate students. © 2018 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 46(6):619-622, 2018.