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Move Over, CSI: Top Lab for
BC Bio Students
Professor Dan Eshel (Ph. D. - Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University) is an accomplished biologist who has taught at BC since 1993 and, as the deputy chair of the Biology Department, is responsible for the consortial doctoral program in Biology at BC.
In order to enhance the number of advanced biology majors, Professor Eshel has begun teaching a new laboratory course in DNA technology that he decided to run in his own professional biology research lab. Given the unique environment and setting, Professor Eshel can only take ten students per class.
“This professional laboratory will give them a taste of how things are done in real life,” Eshel says. “And in the real world, you may not always get what you want.”
His studies on the mechanisms that regulate the activities of microtubules in cell division have a great importance in cancer research. This project has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2002.” (Before that year, funding was provided by the American Cancer Society.)
Part of the money for this lab offering comes from Compact CUNY funds, which granted the program about $25,000 to buy essential equipment. Students also get to use lab equipment usually dedicated to Professor Eshel’s research projects.
According to Eshel, the students need to master different applications such as forensic analysis, diagnose of diseases and drug design. For example, students have to use the PCR method to test if food was genetically modified. They also simulate a crime scene and from molecular analysis of the samples they pick up they have to tell the story of the crime.
Says Riza Seit-Khalil, a chemistry major now majoring in biology:
“I was looking forward to take this class. It’s fascinating. I even changed majors. I wanted to do genetics but I ended up taking so many of the prereqs that I was able to switch to a bio major.”
Because this is the first time this class was taught and access was granted to the professor’s lab, there was little screening. But in the future, strict screening will be conducted, as the competition to take this class promises to be tight.
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S. American Study Program Participants Return with Memories, ‘Insights’
Students returning from a winter intersession study program to Argentina and Uruguay landed in the northern hemisphere filled with sharp insights into the art, politics, history and literature of those two South American lands.
The trip was sponsored by the Brooklyn College Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies and led by Professor Mark McMeley of the Brooklyn College History Department. Among the student travelers who accompanied him to earn three hours of credit were Jalal Moeen, Eldan Salic, Nicole Lebenson and Christina Rivera, all of whom spoke to Monday Morning recently.
“For me,” said Moeen, “it was one part the call of adventure. But also it was compelling to learn about the culture of other parts of the world.”
The program allowed the group to spend three weeks in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, two of South America’s most sophisticated and exciting capital cities during the height of the southern hemisphere’s summer season. Among other sights, the students were able to explore the spectacular treasures of the new Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires and absorb the exuberant musical comparsas of Montevideo’s Carnaval.
Lebenson added: “I had taken a class with Professor McMeley before and wanted to learn more about Latin America. I also wanted to go to the Pampas.”
Salic said: “I had heard about these types of programs the school makes available to students and I thought visiting South America was a very enticing project.”
In between visits to cultural and historic sites in the two countries, said Moeen, “we read ‘Martin Fierro,’ the long epic poem about the Argentinian gaucho in the Pampas. That’s part of who they are, their identity.”
Added Lebenson: “A lot of the reading we did during those days was about the Argentine and Uruguayan identities.”
Rivera said: “My favorite was Silvina Ocampo,” one of the most important writers of the twenty-first century.
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