ABE Blog
From classroom success stories and student projects to biotech trends and lab tips, the ABE blog highlights the people, ideas, and innovations that shape biotechnology education. Have a story to share? Submit it through our ABE Story Submission Form.
ABE Australia Teacher Builds Bead Model to Help Students Visualize Plasmids
August 11, 2026
Susan Senior, an ABE Master Teacher Fellow in New South Wales, Australia, noticed her Year 12 students were struggling to grasp how plasmids work. “They just weren’t understanding how the plasmids would come apart and go back together,” she recalled. While the ABE laboratory kit includes a paper modeling activity, her students found the process…
Overcoming Obstacles in Pursuit of Innovative Medicine
November 12, 2019
For Cen Xu (above, far left), the scientific discovery process is all about problem-solving and finding answers to the unknown. As Amgen’s scientific…
An Evolving View of Biology Education
October 28, 2019
In Michele Patrick’s nearly 30-year teaching career, one of the most transformative events has been teaching biotechnology at Porterville High School…
Plating Tips and Tricks
October 11, 2019
Plating is a crucial skill in biotechnology; doing it properly helps ensure better results and reduces the risk of contamination. Because students…
Seeking Scalability and Solutions Across ABE Sites
October 7, 2019
Any global education effort must be universal enough to teach students the core skills and knowledge in demand around the world, while also being…
Bioinformatics Resources from ABE
October 1, 2019
Technology has brought about some radical changes in the ways in which science is practiced. What first seemed nearly impossible—sequencing the…
Pivotal Moments on a Path to Biotechnology
September 9, 2019
A series of moments have shaped Rithik Kumar’s path to biotechnology. There was learning about nature from his parents who were avid gardeners. There…
Gel Electrophoresis: Do’s and Don’ts
September 6, 2019
Gel electrophoresis is an important verification step in ABE's Foundations of Biotech labs. It allows students to determine the size of a product by…
Bringing Biotech Out of the Textbooks and Into the Real World in Rhode Island
August 8, 2019
Julie Pankowicz’s students engaging in an ABE activity Julie Pankowicz started teaching high school biology right out of undergraduate school when…