Educational
Biotech Adventure
Biotech-Adventure is a fun and educational web site developed by Oklahoma State University. The site presents the basics, techniques and application of biotechnology in a way that is both fun and educational. In addition, it also allows teachers to download all illustrations, animations and text for use in the classroom. The site is designed to target junior high and high school age students. It covers biotechnology in three segments. A basic section gives the information behind biotechnology using illustrations and animation. Second is the techniques section that gives the students specific information on the techniques and equipment used in current biotechnology. Third are video clips showing how biotechnology is actually being used in everyday life. The site has a "high" side and a "low" side to accommodate different speed connections. On the high side are also a number of entertaining animations to make the site more fun for the students. The fourth section of the site is designed as a resource for teachers, where they can download all the materials from the web site and incorporate it into their own teaching curriculum.
Sea Urchin Embryology
The drama of fertilization and development is explored by laboratory modules using sea urchin eggs and a web site developed by teachers and Stanford University researchers.
Breakthroughs in Bioscience
A series of illustrated essays that explain recent breakthroughs in biomedical research and how they are important to society.
Mammalian Reproductive Genetics Database
Mammalian Reproductive Genetics (MRG) is a user-supported on-line database that collects and disseminates information on mammalian reproductive genetics. The goal of the database is to capture and organize information in ways that existing general-purpose databases such as GeneBank, Unigene, and The Jackson Lab currently do not. The site will eventually include all the major systems relevant to male and female mammalian reproduction: the hypothalamic/pituitary/gonadal axis, gamete differentiation, and non-gonadal reproductive tissues. The MRG currently contains phenotypic and expression information for hundreds of murine genes.
This website is an attempt to gather and catalog information on mammalian reproductive genetics. The funding for the creation and maintenance of this site comes from The Specialized Cooperative Centers Program in Reproduction Research (SCCPRR) of the Reproductive Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Our mission is to capture and organize the information in this field in ways that existing general purpose databases such as GeneBank, Unigene, and The Jackson Lab currently do not. We hope to encompass the entire genetic process of reproduction. The site will eventually include all the major systems relevant to mammalian reproduction: the hypothalamic/pituitary/gonadal axis, gamete differentiation, and secondary reproductive organs. We intend to focus initially on mammalian reproductive genetics, but eventually hope to integrate other vertebrate and nonvertebrate systems. The website will contain databases of all existing mutants, gene expression patterns and regulatory information, gene array data, links to the primary literature, and a protein linkage map of the spermatozoan.
Progress Educational Trust
Reproductive and genetic technologies are very much in the public eye. From in vitro fertilization (IVF) to genetic testing to cloning, they are rarely out of the news. But the reception is not always sympathetic. Some think that these technologies are ethically unacceptable; others fear that their use will spin out of control.
Progress Educational Trust believes that reproductive and genetic technologies have much to offer. The development of IVF has already led to the birth of thousands of babies across the world. Genetic testing, carried out before or during pregnancy, has offered parents the chance to have children free from a particular genetic disease.
Assisted reproduction and genetics offer an alternative to those who are unable - because of infertility or because they have a genetic disease in their family - to consider normal methods of having children.
Progress Educational Trust also believes that the public should be involved in discussion about such issues. When legislators come to make policy regarding reproductive and genetic technologies, they need to understand what the public thinks of them and why. Measuring public opinion, however, is only the first step. Progress Educational Trust also aims to influence public opinion by stimulating informed discussion of the legal, social and ethical implications of everything from Dolly the sheep to sperm donation.
Warner Lab
The overall aim of this laboratory is to understand the parameters that define the health of preimplantation embryos by using genetic, immunological, and imaging methods. The preimplantation period of development starts at the moment of fertilization and continues until implantation of the embryo into the uterine wall, a process that takes 5 days in the mouse and 6 days in humans. During the preimplantation period the embryos are free floating in the reproductive tract. This makes it possible to remove the embryos from their mothers and subject them to well-controlled experimental protocols. We use the mouse as a model system with the long-range goal of using results from our experiments on mice to develop methods to identify healthy human embryos created in in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics.
Biomedical Research Education Trust
An organization based in the UK, the mission of BRET is to provide information about the humane and responsible use of animals in research. They have an excellent section on the necessity of animal research throughout the history of medicine, giving detailed and very readable information on how animal research has impacted treatments of specific diseases. There is also a lot of data on the number of animals used for biomedical research, as compared with those used for food, destroyed in shelters, etc. and a good discussion of alternatives to animal research, in terms of why they're not always available.
Kids 4 Research
This fun and educational site provides information about science and research in general, aimed at K-12 students, and includes a section on animal research. There are games, art activities and learning tools, as well as sections for parents and teachers. Enjoyable and valuable information for kids of all ages!!
OSERA Kids
A service of the Ohio Scientific Education & Research Association, this site you can be a Super Scientist and explore the human body or take an Awesome Adventure to the zoo or outer space…
Biologists Discover AMAZING Things
An internet poster and educational items showing how the most unexpected animal models can contribute to human medicine. What do armadillos have to do with leprosy? Did you know about poisonous snakes and blood pressure?
John J. Parrish - Reproductive Physiology Course
Helpful lab exercises.
Biology Links
Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine
Many other aspects of reproductive biology and its abnormalities affecting human fertility are currently being studied at the Institute. Among them, we have prioritized the areas of egg production and hormonal stimulation, increasing the efficiency of embryo selection procedures by improved culture conditions and blastocyst transfer (also aimed to reduce the incidence of multiple pregnancies), implantation, male infertility and genetics.
Human Development
Human Development (BIO380F) focuses on the stages from sex cell formation through embryogenesis. It is essentially an introductory developmental biology course that primarily covers the fundamental principles of human development. However, lower animals will be discussed where they more appropriately reveal a specific event or process. The course begins with the origin of the germ cells progressing to the formation of sperm and eggs (gametogenesis) in the testes and ovaries respectively. Fertilization is covered with attention paid to contraception and in vitro reproductive technologies. The study of early development begins with cleavage and blastocyst formation followed by the morphogenetic movements of gastrulation and neurulation. After the primary germ layers and the neural tube has been laid down, the process of organogenesis is detailed with particular attention to a select group of tissues and organs including the brain, the eye and the limb. During these lectures students will learn about determination, induction, cell differentiation, pattern & polarity, and morphogenesis. Cellular interactions, extracellular matrix and differentiation factors will all be discussed. Causes of abnormal development and their modes of action are also discussed. The course ends with an analysis of limb development and regeneration. Throughout the course current news items will be used to bring home the immediacy of the topics under discussion.
Comparative Placentation
This volume of animal placentas was created to assist with the examination and evaluation of the many different types of mammalian placentas. It is primarily directed to the veterinary pathologist, the zoo veterinarians and others who have an interest in understanding the bewildering variety of placental forms.
The Ultimate Ungulate
Ungulates, or hoofed mammals, comprise one of the most successful and diverse groups of large mammals alive today, having colonized nearly every habitat on all continents except Antarctica and Australia. All ungulates are mammals (belonging to the Class Mammalia) - a group of warm-blooded (endothermic) animals distinguished from other organisms by the presence of milk-producing skin glands. The mammary glands, for which the Class Mammalia is named, are specific to mammals - no other group of animals possess them. Over twenty other characters are used to diagnose mammals, including the presence of hair and three middle ear bones. All mammals, and thus all ungulates, belong to the Kingdom Animalia and to the Phylum Chordata (Subphylum Vertebrata).
Science, Medicine, and Animals
Science, Medicine, and Animals discusses how animals have been and continue to be an important component of biomedical research. It addresses the history of animal research and what it looks like today, and gives an overview of some of the medical advances that would not have been possible without animal models. Finally, it looks at the regulations and oversight governing animal use, as well as efforts to use animals more humanely and efficiently.
Cell Biology and Cancer
Introduction to the major biological concepts related to the development and impact of cancer.
Wikipedia:Biology
Animal Diversity Web (ADW)
Animal Diversity Web (ADW) is an online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology at the University of Michigan