Happy 208th birthday Darwin!

Darwin Day 2017

Born Charles Robert Darwin on Feb. 12, 1809, he just turned 208th if he were still alive.
Charles Darwin was one of the most influential naturalists whose work is still considered one of the best, truly a classic, of all time.

The whole month of February is celebrated as Darwin month, proof of how important he is. Every biology student, teacher, researcher, and educator should find inspiration from his works. Not only are his papers proof of his ingenuity but more importantly of the scientific attitude and passion that he greatly exemplified.


Celebrations around the world listed in this link: https://ncse.com/ncse-events


BSCS has a comprehensive collection of teacher and student materials on Darwin's life, work and on studying evolution which can be accessed from this link: https://bscs.org/celebrating-darwin-day-feb-12-2017


Get to know more about him through the Wikipedia entry on his life and work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin  and  read his papers from: http://darwin-online.org.uk/


His Theory on the Origin of Species is captured in a short film from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute website: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/origin-species-making-theory?utm_source=BioInteractive+News&utm_campaign=251450aa2e-BioInteractive_News_Vol_212_11_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_98b2f5c6ba-251450aa2e-69202269

DNA and the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology

Teaching about the Alphabet of our Identify

Source: http://www.unacknowledged.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DNA.jpg

One of the most memorable professors that had a positive impact on me was Dr. June Faith Escara-Wilke. I can still vividly remember her American accent, although she is a Filipin, Tagalog was not her first language. Even before she taught in UPLB, she was already a professor of Molecular Biology in the US . One of the concerns of her students was that her American accent added difficulty in understanding the lesson; nevertheless, upon knowing our difficulty Dr. Wilke tried her best to speak in Filipino once in a while which was a great relief to us. In the 90’s, the field of molecular biology and biotechnology was still in its germinal stage in the Philippines. But despite the absence of sophisticated laboratory instruments, Dr. Wilke was able to inspire us to appreciate DNA. I must admit I’ve never heard about it in high school and so as the rest of my classmates, I suppose. We used to have a joke about taking Genetics as a major because it was really specializing in imagination. We imagine the DNA,RNA and protein. We view the chromosomes under the microscope but we imagine the processes that happens such as the transposons or the changing loci of the “jumping genes”. Dr. Wilke was a game changer - she actually one of the few professors who made use of popular magazines and even brought her own gadgets to our lecture class. When I was an undergrad, Molecular Biology was only a lecture class and there was no sophisticated biotechnology laboratory yet. Dr. Wilke brought samples of DNA, a hand-held UV light, protective glass, gloves, etc. The use of informative text such as the National Geographic and Time Magazine instead of textbook was not a common practice back then. But reading such material actually inspired me to read more classic papers. 

As an undergraduate Biology major, my very first encounter with the central dogma was during a lecture on replication (I think in my Biodiversity class). Imagine a lecturer who uses only chalk and occasional handwritten transparencies. It was really an effort to understand such an abstract concept. Back then, it would have been better if there was a brief historical background to help the students see the bigger picture. 

A brief history of DNA research leading to the PCR experiment can be downloaded from this link: https://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/bme215/Spring10/Reading%20Materials/Polymerase%20chain%20reaction.pdf