Inquiry-based Learning of Proteomics and Metabolomics

Given the rapid development of data-driven experimental procedures within the life sciences, it is important to equip students with proper skills and knowledge on how to obtain and interpret complex data. While laboratory exercises have for a long time been well established as a teaching method for life sciences, we consider there is room for improvement in how laboratory exercises are conducted. Hence, we designed a laboratory exercise course in which students at the graduate level in the European education system (M.Sc.) are challenged to pose their own biological question and write their own laboratory protocol for a proteomic study to investigate their hypothesis. Here, students are supported in their task with lectures and seminars that take them through the required details on experimental sample preparation, analysis with LC-MS, and proteomic data evaluation of biological function and relevance. According to student interviews, the inquiry-based learning concept we used here provided a deeper understanding of the laboratory protocols they wrote, according to which they eventually performed their own experiments.