Fly-CURE
The Fly-CURE program is a genetics-focused Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) that provides undergraduate students with hands-on research experiences within a course at participating institutions. Through the Fly-CURE, undergraduate students map and characterize novel mutants isolated from a genetic screen in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Fly-CURE can be implanted in a variety of courses from introductory non-major courses to upper-level required courses.
The Fly-CURE has a significant impact on students’ efficacy with research methods, sense of belonging to the scientific research community and interest in pursuing additional research experiences (Merkle et al., 2023).
Fly-CURE has recently expanded from a genetics-focused laboratory course to 4 new courses: Bioinformatics, Behavioral Genetics, Developmental Biology, and Molecular Biology.
Watch the video below for an introduction to Fly-CURE from founder Dr. Jacob Kagey
Funding Sources
- NSF 22-522 Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education; Project Title: RCN-UBE: Connecting Curriculum: A Fly-CURE Network; Award Number: 2316218
- NSF 19-601 Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources; Project Title: A Multi-institutional Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience in Genetics; Award Number: 2021146