Biophysical Modeling of Excitable Cells - A New Approach to Undergraduate Computational Biology Curriculum Development

Abstract

As part of a broader effort of developing a comprehensive neuroscience curriculum, we implemented an interdisciplinary, one-semester, upper-level course called Biophysical Modeling of Excitable Cells (BMEC). The course exposes undergraduate students to broad areas of computational biology. It focuses on computational neuroscience (CNS), develops scientific literacy, promotes teamwork between biology, psychology, physics, and mathematics-oriented undergraduate students. This course also provides pedagogical experience for senior Ph.D. students from the Neuroscience Department at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). BMEC is a three contact hours per week lecture-based course that includes a set of computer-based activities designed to gradually increase the undergraduates’ ability to apply mathematics and computational concepts to solving biologically-relevant problems. The class brings together two different groups of students with very dissimilar and complementary backgrounds, i.e., biology or psychology and physics or mathematics oriented. The teamwork allows students with more substantial biology or psychology background to explain to physics or mathematics students the biological implications and instill realism into the computer modeling project they completed for this class. Simultaneously, students with substantial physics and mathematics backgrounds can apply techniques learned in specialized mathematics, physics, or computer science classes to generate mathematical hypotheses and implement them in computer codes.