Achievement

The ChemGen IGERT program fosters collaborative teaching by faculty in distinct disciplines. This was accomplished through the ChemGen Design Studio course (CMDB/CEE220). In 2008 the course was taught to 12 PhD students, including five ChemGen IGERT fellows. Led by Cutler (chemical biologist) and Raikhel (cell biologist), participant faculty included Yang (chemical genomics), Pirrung (chemistry), Girke (cheminformatics), Lonardi (computer science-network analyses), Chang (modeling chemical-protein interactions), and Larive (analytical chemistry). A major task of the students was the design of a collaborative research project, NIH-style research proposal, and group presentation. The structure and pedagogical concepts developed in the ChemGen Design Studio were adopted in a course to be taught in the Plant Biology PhD graduate program beginning in Fall 2009. Our cross-discipline Combinatorial Chemistry and Chemical Genomics Course (CHEM231) were also taught.