Murder by HIV

Michele Shuster

Naowarat Cheeptham

Laura Regassa

Outreach Program

Adaptable for different grade levels– High school– Middle school

National Science Standards

Life Science– Grade 5-8

Reproduction and heredity Populations and ecosystems Diversity, adaptation, and organisms

– Grade 9-12 Molecular basis of heredity Biological evolution

Science and Technology (Gr 5-12)– Understanding about science and technology

Learning objectives

Virology focused on HIV Molecular evolution Bioinformatics

– sequence comparison and tree construction

Critical thinking and analytical skills Practical application of skills to address

societal issues Foster a positive attitude towards science

HIV Activity

Case study: Hospital in Louisiana

Students provided HIV reverse transcriptase sequences– Original infected patient– Nurse/victim– State-wide HIV cases– Random US cases

Activities

Multiple sequence alignment: MUSCLE Tree building: MUSCLE

Determination of guilt or other possibilities

What we have left to do …

Analyze nucleotide alignments/trees– Choose final data sets

Generate introductory/background materials– Biology info– Crime scene evidence & context

Generate assessment tool