All Learning Centers Start here: Medical Terminology, rung 1 of 7Seven short rungs on decoding medical words. Built for Human Body Systems, and the skill you use on every research paper and clinical document you read for your project.Four-course case studyMeasles: More Than a RashBI lens: Data integrity, audience, and product design.
Biotechnology for Health (Biomedical Innovations): Learning Centers
56 centers · 8 units
Launch
Apply PPE and read an SDSChoose the right protective gear and pull the safety facts you need from a chemical's safety sheet before you start lab work.Set up a design notebook and portfolioOrganize a design notebook so a problem, its criteria, and its constraints are easy to find and reuse in your innovation portfolio.Establish an evidence routineBuild a steady documentation cadence so every claim in your project is backed by a dated, recorded observation.Storing reagents and disposing of lab wasteDecide where a reagent is stored, how it is labeled, and which waste stream each item leaves in, using the SDS and the container label.
Unit 1
Map the stakeholders of an ERList everyone affected by an emergency-room design and name what each one actually needs.Analyze patient flow and systems constraintsTrace how patients move through an ER and find the constraint that slows the whole system down.Write a team contractAgree on roles, norms, and a decision rule before the ER design work starts so the team stays on track.Evaluate source credibility and biasJudge whether a source is trustworthy by checking who wrote it, when, and what evidence backs it.Cite prior artFind existing designs and ideas, then give credit with an accurate citation instead of claiming them as your own.Run a needs assessmentFind out what users actually need before designing, by gathering evidence about the gap between the current situation and the goal.Write a design briefTurn a messy ER problem into a clear design brief that lists what the design must do (criteria) and the limits it must stay inside (constraints).Model a floor plan + process flowMap how a patient moves through the ER step by step (the process flow) and use it to plan a floor plan and the staff each step needs.Log prototype revisionsKeep a clear record of each prototype change, why it was made, and what testing showed: so the design improves on purpose, one iteration at a time.
Unit 2
Revising a design from user feedbackTurn what testers actually struggled with into specific, testable design changes: instead of guessing.Designing a controlled studyBuild a fair test: one thing changed on purpose, everything else held steady, and a group to compare against.Defining the variables in an experimentLabel the three roles in any test: the one you change, the one you measure, and the ones you keep the same.Experimental vs. observational studyDecide whether a physiology study changed a condition on purpose (experimental) or just watched and recorded (observational).Computing the mean and standard deviationAdd up a small data set to find its mean (average), then measure how spread out the values are with the standard deviation.Choosing a sample sizeDecide how many people to include so results are trustworthy, and see why a t-test asks whether two group means differ more than chance.Choosing the right graph for the dataMatch the data type to the graph: bar for categories, line for change over time, scatter for two numeric variables.Spotting bias and measurement errorTell a slanted study (bias) from a noisy measurement (error), and random error from systematic error.Writing a CER that names its limitationsBuild a claim-evidence-reasoning argument that uses statistical significance and replication, and honestly states its limitations.
Unit 3
Defining a design problemTurn a vague complaint about patient care into a clear problem statement with measurable design criteria.Weighing tradeoffs and feasibilityCompare design options on cost, risk, and benefit to judge which one is actually feasible against the stated criteria.Planning a prototypeTurn chosen design criteria into a concrete prototype plan: what to build first, with what, and how to test it against the criteria.Conduct a literature reviewSearch, screen, and summarize what experts already published before you design a new device.Build a decision matrixScore design options against weighted criteria to choose the best one with evidence, not gut feeling.Define validation metricsSet measurable success criteria so you can prove a prototype actually works.
Unit 4
Map exposure pathwaysTrace how a toxin moves from its source to a person's body to decide who is actually exposed.Relate dose to responseRead a dose-response pattern to predict how the size of an exposure changes the body's reaction, including buildup over time.Assess public-health riskSeparate a pollutant's hazard from the real-world risk it poses by combining how harmful it is with how much people are exposed.Build a claim-supporting graphPick what to plot and read the trend so the graph actually backs the claim you are making.Identify outliers and errorSpot a data point that sits far from the others and read what error bars tell you about a measurement's spread.Separate correlation from causationTell 'two things move together' from 'one thing causes the other,' and spot a hidden third factor (confounder).Testing for an indicator organism instead of the pathogenUse coliform bacteria as a stand-in for waste reaching a water supply, and say exactly what a coliform result does and does not certify.Confirming a presumptive result with a second reactionTake a screening result that only suggests an organism, add an independent reaction that tests a different property, and keep the two readings apart when you report.Presence-absence testing versus countingDecide which question a microbiological method was built to answer, yes or no versus how many, and match the method to the decision you have to make.Telling contamination from a findingUse sterility checks to spot a signal that came from your own bench rather than from the sample, and decide what the run is still allowed to report.Holding a culture at the stated temperature for the stated windowChoose an incubation temperature and a length of hold, then explain why reading too early and reading too late each damage the result in a different way.Selective and differential mediaTell what a growth medium keeps out from what it makes visible, and read a plate knowing which organisms were never given a chance to appear on it.Counting colonies inside the countable windowDecide whether a plate can be counted at all, and say why a crowded plate and an almost bare plate both produce an untrustworthy number.
Unit 5
Build a line listTurn scattered case reports into one organized table: a line list: so you can spot who got sick, when, and who they were near.Compute incidence and prevalenceTell apart two key public-health numbers: how many NEW cases appear in a period (incidence) and how many people have the illness right now (prevalence).Design an interventionChoose a public-health action that fits the problem, and place it at the right prevention level: stopping illness before it starts, catching it early, or limiting harm after.
Unit 6
Plan a recombinant-DNA workflowPut the steps of building recombinant DNA in order: cut with an enzyme, join with ligase, carry it in a plasmid.Justify experimental controlsExplain why a transformation experiment needs a positive control that should grow and a negative control that should not.Predict cloning outcomesPredict which cells will grow after a cloning experiment using competent cells, ligation, and antibiotic selection.Run a transformation with selectionMove a plasmid into bacteria, then use a selective plate to tell which cells actually took it up.Interpret a gel against a ladderUse a DNA ladder of known sizes to estimate how big an unknown DNA band is from how far it traveled.Read a restriction digestCount cut sites on a piece of DNA and work out how many fragments a restriction enzyme will produce.
Unit 7
Maintain chain of custodyKeep an unbroken, signed handoff trail for every piece of evidence so it can be trusted later.Frame a research question + methodsTurn a broad interest into one specific, measurable, testable question and a method that can actually answer it.Audit a final portfolioCheck a finished project for completeness, proper consent, and honest data before it is submitted.
Optional and extra-credit practice
These practice packs stay connected to their WebXam domains, but can be assigned as optional or extra-credit work.
Target an audience and fit the message to themPick the specific group of people you want to reach (your audience) and shape the health message so it actually lands with them.Apply privacy and usability to a health productProtect people's private health information and make the product easy to understand and use.Make evidence-based recommendationsUse the data you collected to recommend an action, instead of guessing or going with opinion.