An Interview with Robert Lue, Ph.D.
Director of Life Sciences Education
Professor of the Practice of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Q: What are the overall goals of the two concentrations (Biochemical Sciences and Biology), and how have they changed in the last several years?

A: The primary goals of both Biology and Biochemical Sciences as undergraduate concentrations are to give students a broad introduction to the life sciences.   Both concentrations very much believe in the interdisciplinary nature of life sciences education so, even though they have slightly different emphases, they both try to expose students to aspects of the biology that form connections with other disciplines such as mathematics and chemistry. So to a significant degree they are interested in giving a 21 st century view of what the life sciences are all about. What has changed in the last five, if not ten, years is that the degree of integration that's possible across the various fields is much greater now than in the past. We have all heard a great deal about how important it is to be interdisciplinary in terms of your thinking in the life sciences. At the undergraduate level this is also very true. So, while traditionally both Biochemical Sciences and Biology have included a strong formation in, for example, organic chemistry, introductory physics and math, those components are becoming increasingly important in both concentrations.   Whether or not you study the molecular details of how a transcription factor works or you're more interested in gene flow in a population over time, both of these seemingly disparate issues in biology do require a significant background in and understanding of other fields.

Q: How has the addition of new equipment, technology and facilities affected the undergraduate programs?

A: One thing that we have really tried to do in the undergraduate curriculum is to provide students with a clear sense of what new technology can offer them.   One of the advantages of being at Harvard and having facilities like the Bauer Center for Genomic Research is that we can access those resources, which include equipment as well as expertise, to develop undergraduate exercises and lab projects that are remarkably cutting edge.   Our undergraduates get to directly apply research techniques that perhaps at many schools they would never even have the opportunity to see.   So, for example, in our sophomore courses we have students working with research-grade fluorescence microscopes that you would expect to find only in a cutting edge lab.   To accomodate large introductory courses, Harvard funded the construction of a fluorescence microscopy facility specifically for undergraduates, that would be the envy of any cell biology department.   This kind of sustained effort to make sure that our undergraduates have access to the latest technology is a very important part of the curriculum.   It's vital that our students not only understand the fundamental principles that are most current but also that they understand the underlying research that gave rise to those hypotheses.

Q: How much do the undergraduates get to work within the context of an actual lab, i.e. the lab of a faculty member?

A: There are two ways that students are exposed to what faculty are actually doing in their labs. First, in the courses that have lab components, typically the exercises and projects which are developed, are very much based on or connected with the research interests of the faculty. For example, in our sophomore cell biology course there are lab projects that explore aspects of cell signaling, which is a major focus of Ray Erikson's research.   At the same time, we've recently developed new programs that will allow a larger number of undergraduates to directly participate in ongoing projects in faculty labs.   Traditionally, only those students that are doing thesis research projects would join a faculty member's lab and really participate in what he or she is doing. We are trying to expand the possibility of such exposure to more undergraduates through a new program, launched this spring, for undergraduate research in molecular and cellular biology. This program includes a new kind of course (MCB 100)* where, instead of undergraduates being a minority in a faculty member's lab, each term we will create an entire large lab group that is staffed exclusively by undergraduates.   A group of faculty then oversees the lab and sets ongoing projects in their research groups that take place in this new undergraduate research space.   It's a new way of allowing faculty to involve larger numbers of undergraduates in ongoing projects, but at the same time allowing that to happen in a space, and with a support infrastructure, that is defined for that purpose.   It's a significant opportunity to alter the dynamic and range of possibilities that our students have for working on faculty projects.

Q: Is this true for both Biochemical Sciences and Biology?

A: Yes.   Actually, it's not just true for our concentrators.   Down the road our hope is that this program will serve not only concentrators in Biochemical Sciences and Biology but non-science concentrators as well. We feel its important for non-science concentrators to have a real intuitive sense of what biology and experimental research is about so they can be better equiped in the future to make choices that involve the life sciences. The hope is that we can work with faculty members to define specific projects that would work as an introduction to biology, so that a concentrator in English would have the opportunity to get hands-on experience doing a project in biology that would give them an insight into science that couldn't be obtained from a lecture course.

Q: What does a non-science concentrator, say an English major, learn from taking a science course or two?

A: Mostly it's the process of testing hypotheses.   No matter what you end up doing after college or what your concentration might be while here at Harvard, there is no question that the process of building a scientific hypothesis, of intellectually pushing and pulling on it, of changing it based on experimental data and then trying to see how you can design an experiment that will either prove or disprove it, is incredibly valuable.   It's a different way for students to tackle an idea intellectually through the testing of that idea experimentally.   That's the sort of mental exercise that is valuable in all fields, but in science there is almost no way to really experience it fully other than actually doing it in the lab.   I think that's something of great value to everyone.

Q: How has the growth of the field of genomics and the presence of CGR changed the curriculum?

A: One of the challenges for the undergraduate life sciences curriculum is that, although there have been many dramatic changes over the last decade or two, the introductory curriculum has remained roughly the same for 30 years.   What this means is that to keep things up to date there's been a real pressure to squeeze more and more into exactly the same courses.   So in the year 2000 MCB faculty decided to launch an overall review of the introductory curriculum.   This led to a complete revamping, in collaboration with OEB, of all the introductory courses, and that was when a new biological sciences sequence of courses was born.   One issue that was at the forefront was the emergence of genomics, as a very important way of understanding biological systems that needed to be integrated into the introductory curriculum. There had to be some way to make sure that the introductory courses appropriately represented genomics and allowed students to understand how genomics and proteomics could dramatically alter their view of the life sciences.   Consequently, genomics has been integrated across the curriculum, beginning with the freshmen course in the biological sciences.   Bio Sci 50, which is jointly administered by MCB and OEB, introduces freshmen not just to genetics and its problem-solving orientation but also to genomics as well.   So, as students progress with courses in either MCB or in OEB, they have more of a systems-wide perspective.

Q: Thoughts on the future?

A: The curriculum is continuing to evolve.   The revamping is not complete, it's in fact just beginning. For example, we have launched new courses that try to integrate biology and mathematics more effectively. We've launched courses that take more of a systems-wide view of neurobiology.   The renaissance in the life sciences curriculum is really in its infancy, and there is no question that as new interdisciplinary perspectives emerge across the various fields, we will see that reflected in both introductory courses and 100-level courses.   So it's a very exciting time to be teaching in the life sciences, because not only is the lecture content dramatically changing and growing, but the experimental or applied components are changing as well.   Thus, part of the challenge is to make sure that the curriculum, both in terms of lecture content and lab/applied content, really keeps up to date.   Not only do faculty have to think about what they're teaching in the classroom, but I think as a department we need to think about how to make sure that we continue to mobilize the necessary resources and maintain an infrastructure that will sustain the evolution of the curriculum over time.

* For more information about MCB 100, read this article in the Harvard Crimson.

Interview by Brian Gottesman. Photo by Jeffry Pike, Havard Division of Continuing Education.