Point of View: Teaching troubleshooting skills to graduate students

McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, United States
Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Graduate Program, University of Texas at Austin, United States

Sep 17, 2024

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.100761

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2 figures, 1 table and 1 additional file

Figures

Figure 1

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How Pipettes and Problem Solving works.

The leader presents a scenario in which a hypothetical experiment has produced unexpected results. Graduate students ask questions about the experimental setup and the results. The students then discuss the scenario and potential experiments that might help to isolate the problem that has caused the unexpected results. Once they have reached a consensus on a suitable experiment, the leader reveals the results of their proposed experiment. Based on these results, the students try to figure out the source of the problem that is leading to the unexpected results. If they are correct, the exercise is over. If they are wrong, the cycle can be repeated. Elements of luck or chance can be introduced by rolling dice to determine, for example, any time or budget constraints on the proposed experiments. The Pipettes and Problem Solving logo (top right) was designed by students.

Figure 2

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Asking the right questions.

The aim of Pipettes and Problem Solving is to teach graduate students how to troubleshoot experiments that are giving unexpected results. To achieve this goal students are encouraged to ask questions that will help them to design experiments that will help them to identify the source of the problem (first column). They are not allowed to guess the problem, or to suggest ways of working around the problem (second column).

Tables

Table 1

Resources for the eight scenarios listed in this table are provided in Supplementary file 1.

The following is provided for each scenario: background information; a description of the scenario; the protocol for the experiment that produced the unexpected result; the results of the experiment; information on the source of the error; background information that can be used to answer questions; references; and example slides that can be used in real meetings.

Scenario	Key words	1/2/mundane
MTT assay	Mammalian cell biology; cytotoxicity; analytical chemistry	1
Membrane surface charge	Synthetic biology; bioelectronics; imaging electrochemical devices	2
Streptavidin-conjugation assay	Antibody; molecular biology; biochemistry; immunology	1
Golden gate cloning	Cloning; Golden Gate assembly; PCR; primers; synthetic biology	2
Recombinant quorum sensing expression and activity verification	quorum sensing; synthetic biology; plasmid cloning structural biology	2
Gibson cloning troubles	Synthetic biology; Gibson assembly; genetic engineering	Mundane
T cell cytokine release ELISA	Mammalian cell biology; T cell activation; cytokine release	1
Metabolite tracking by aqueous FTIR spectroscopy	Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy; analytical chemistry; synthetic biology	1

Additional files

Supplementary file 1 Resources for the eight scenarios listed in Table 1 (zip file). For each scenario there is a Word file that contains the following: background information; a description of the scenario; the protocol for the experiment that produced the unexpected result; the results of the experiment; information on the source of the error; background information that can be used to answer questions; and references. There is also a PowerPoint file for each scenario that contains example slides that can be used in real meetings. There are also templates for the Word and PowerPoint files.: https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/100761/elife-100761-supp1-v1.zip
Download elife-100761-supp1-v1.zip