Building Bridges: A Story of How Institutional Investment in Discipline-Based Education Research Enables...

Scientific discoveries often advance more rapidly than they are integrated into undergraduate instruction, leaving emerging fields like glycoscience largely absent from classroom curricula. At the University of Georgia, institutional investment in discipline-based education research (DBER) faculty has set the stage for collaboration between disciplinary scientists and DBER researchers to co-develop evidence-based teaching materials that align with how students learn. The NSF-funded BioFoundry: Glycoscience Research, Education, and Training (BioF:GREAT) serves as one example of this approach. Through curricular materials and public-facing resources, the education arm of BioF:GREAT aims to broaden access to glycoscience education. This brief communication highlights how initiatives like BioF:GREAT leverage collaboration with DBER scholars to integrate emerging scientific fields into biochemistry education in ways that are both scientifically current and pedagogically effective.