The Soldier’s Unexpected Gift An Introduction to Genital Ulcer Diseases By C. Dinitra White and the Malaria Group

The Purpose Introduce students to microorganisms that cause sexually transmitted diseases (STD), specifically genital ulcer diseases (GUD), through the case study approach Give students tools to test ideas that they develop from the case study and through literature review GET THE STUDENTS TALKING ABOUT STDs, making informed decisions MAKE IT REAL…

What is the Target Audience? Who : Upper-level high school students College students Church/Community groups Possible courses : Intro. Biology Gen. Biology Gen. Microbiology Clinical Microbiology Gen. Immunology Bioinformatics Health (high school) Sex Education Epidemiology Ethics

The Plan…Part 1 Students will work in pairs The Soldier’s Unexpected Gift (Case It! STD case) will be read aloud as a group.

The Case… The Soldier’s Unexpected Gift

Robert the Young Soldier… Robert Jr. is a 22 year old soldier who very recently returned to his hometown in the Midwestern region of the United States Lucky for Robert, his assignment in Asia ended just in time to return to Old School University to complete a degree in Science and Mathematics Education.

The Story Continues… To celebrate his return, Robert’s girlfriend Jenna, a foreign exchange student, gathered lots of food, alcohol, and party favors for a night of celebration with friends. Several days later, the director of Old School University’s student health department issued an alert to the university president and the local department of health to report a dramatic increase in the number of GUD cases on campus.

The Story Continues… There were lots of rumors about an outbreak of HIV or Gonorrhea on campus, however no official warnings were released by the university.

Three days after the party, Robert became very worried upon noticing an unusual, inflamed ‘bump’ on his penis during a shower. However, he resisted a trip to student health… he hoped it would simply go away. Two days later, the bump began bleeding. Immediately, Robert called Jenna and urged her to go with him to the student health facility to be tested for what he thought may be HIV. The Story Continues…

Next, students will be allowed to develop a list of ‘what they know and what they would like to know’ about the case. All ideas will be shared with the class. Students will then be asked to research specific questions and return to class prepared to discuss their findings. The Plan…Part 1 Continued

The Plan…Part 2 **Students will use the Case It! Multiplex PCR tool to determine whether Robert, Jenna, and other students on campus are currently infected with microbes known to cause GUD. **What is Multiplex PCR? –The use of multiple primers to test for two or more target sequences at once in a sample

What will they test? Control sample represents actual DNA sequences from five sexually transmittable microorganisms –Haemophilus ducreyi (Chancroid) –Herpes Simplex Virus-2 (Herpes) –Neisseria gonorrheae (Gonorrhea) –Chlamydia trichomatis serovar D (Trich) –Treponema pallidum (Syphilis)

What will they test? Student samples may or may not contain representative DNA from these microorganisms Use the Multiplex PCR primers to amplify regions of DNA within each microorganism present in the sample

Syphilis Herpes Chancroid Common Names Gonorrhea Trich Gel Loading Key 1.Positive Control 2.College Student #1 3.Solider (Robert) 4.College Student #2 5.Jenna

Suggestions for Follow up… **STD wet lab exercise when possible: PCR segments of DNA that can represent the different microorganisms OR…Enzyme Restriction Digest of plasmid DNA from various samples using 1-3 different enzymes to develop a representative ‘DNA finger print’ for the microbes (great when real sample material is unavailable)

Suggestions for Follow up… Have students develop their own scenarios and role play as patient and counselor, friend to friend, parent to child Have students do more literature reviews on STDs and prepare a document to share with others Obtain sequences for other pathogenic microorganisms using Biology Workbench ( and The Institute for Genome Research ( Students will use Biology Workbench or Case It! to further examine the sequences

More ideas??