We often get asked whether Amino Labs is developing curriculum and courseware for use with our products and the answer is yes! We have many resources to help you learn or teach biotechnology.
Our first important resource is the Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book. This book was written with beginners in mind and is suitable both for a student and a teacher to use! You can learn more about Zero to Genetic Engineering Hero book here.
Our second important resource is our Google Classroom for Educators. In this classroom, you'll find links to video tutorials, virtual simulators, experiment instructions, quizzes and answer keys, discussion prompts and class exercises, and more. Visit this post to learn more about our Google Classroom for Educators.
To help you teach biotechnology in the classroom, we have a set of free beginner-friendly Lesson guides. Find them here.
Finally, we have our youtube channel. Our youtube channel includes experiment videos, overview of scientific content and more. Some of the videos include follow-up quizzes too! Explore our channel here.
We also did a review of online lectures that relate to DNA, biochemistry, and biotechnology and found some great resources. As you go through these resources, if you feel overwhelmed, that something was not covered, or was confusing, comment below or email us.
The first three steps are quick primers that help establish some vocabulary and the primary resources we recommend is OCW lecture series.
Step 1: The Foundation of Chemistry
Atoms, molecules, chemistry, and bonds are the basis of material existence. We and all biological things are made of and defined by chemistry.
Learning a little bit about chemistry will also build important vocabulary that is used in biology. As you’ll see, the main lecture series we recommend is biochemistry! The chemistry of biological systems. Check out this series on Chemistry:
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/atomic-structure-and-properties/introduction-to-the-atom/v/introduction-to-chemistry
Step 2: Introduction to Cells
Now that you have a foundation of chemistry, lets begin to look at cells. This short series includes discussions about the size and theory of cells.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/structure-of-a-cell/introduction-to-cells/v/scale-of-cells
Step 3: A little more about deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
This short series discusses DNA.
Note: that the discovery “inheritance” wasn’t due to the discovery of the structure of DNA, it was almost 10 years earlier by Avery-MacLeod-McCarty.
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/classical-genetics/molecular-basis-of-genetics-tutorial/v/dna-deoxyribonucleic-acid
Also check out: https://amino.bio/blogs/news/what-is-dna-1
Step 4: MIT OpenCourseware Undergraduate Biochemistry
This lecture series filmed around 2002 includes an accessible yet comprehensive account of the general principles that apply to biological systems. The entire course includes 35 lectures all of which are ~40 minutes long. Completing up to Lecture 18 is sufficient to provide context for the hands on activities Amino Labs offers. For this reason Lectures 1-18 are below:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-012-introduction-to-biology-fall-2004/video-lectures/lecture-1-introduction/
