An important component of the BNNT program is the education and outreach. Through an integrated effort of research and education on both the undergraduate and graduate level, the BNNT program aims at promoting nanoscience and nanotechnology on Ohio University campus. The following courses on nanosciences are currently offered by faculty members in the BNNT. Lab research opportunities are available by consulting individual professors in the program.

• Phys 131
  Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
  
  
• Chem 456 and Chem 457
  Physical Chemistry lab
  
  
• Chem 760
  Nano electronic materials

Dr. Ido Braslavsky, Dr. Jennifer Hines, and Dr. David Tees are currently working on developing a new laboratory course in biophysics aimed at advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students. This course will enable students with little or no background in biology (or those with little exposure to physical probes and techniques) to explore concepts and techniques that are needed for research at the interface between the physical and biological sciences, and to examine how nanoscale properties of biomaterials lead to microscale physiological behavior.

Biophysics uses concepts and techniques from physics to model biological phenomena and to understand how organisms can self-assemble complex structures and processes from simple organic ingredients. In order to facilitate biophysical research, there is a need to foster the skills and understanding required for productive interaction between physical scientists, biologists, and engineers. These skills will be increasingly required for graduate and professional work in academia or in industry. The proposed lab course will provide hands-on experience for students that will facilitate their future work with BNTI researchers. Students will benefit from a course that exposes them to methods used in biophysical research, including basic molecular biology techniques, video microscopy, microfluidics, and micromanipulation. Physics students and engineers will benefit from exposure to the basic molecular biology techniques, while chemistry students, who already have some experience with these techniques, will benefit from exposure to the biophysical methods.

Students will work in groups on multi-week projects in cell and molecular biophysics using state-of-the-art equipment. Projects will include video microscopy studies of Brownian motion, bacterial motion, microfluidics, Optical Trapping, and fluorescence microscopy studies of the mechanical properties of DNA and the behavior of molecular motors. A classroom component will also be included to review the concepts to be investigated in the experiments and to present results.. Communication will be a central component of the course by having students present their results or develop a website based on their experiment. The datasets developed as part of this course will be used as active learning exercises in courses at Ohio University and shared with other researchers across the U.S. and around the world, through the course website.

This project is currently moving forward with the first steps of purchasing the equipment and developing the experiments for the course well underway. The aim is to have a project ready for use in Physics undergraduate labs in Winter Quarter 2007.