Have a Happy and Bioluminescent 4th of July!

You know, I keep meaning to post more often to this blog.  But, as John Lennon famously observed, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  So I will try to do better.  I have several interesting posts cooking, to keep readers up to date.  Hard to say how often people read these posts, but they have some value for me at least (in getting my thoughts down and events remembered).  Thus, onward and upward...

But today is the 4th of July, a mixture of holiday and history.  Many Americans celebrate with fellowship, food, and fireworks.  With the help of some of my summer research students, we created our own "fireworks" of a more biological nature, using our favorite bioluminescent bacterium, Photobacterium leignothi.  Since I recently dropped and damaged my "regular" camera (a Canon G12), I am doing my best with my wife's camera.  The more I think about the relationship between science and art, and how much I enjoy thinking about images (microbiological or otherwise), the more I think I need to upgrade my camera.  

Yes, yes, after I hit the lottery...

Anyway, this is the best I could do this morning using the great plates my students "painted" with a bacterial culture yesterday afternoon.

 Have a happy, safe, and restful 4th of July, everyone!  That goes for your microbiota as well as your eukaryotic cells.  

After all, we each and every one of us are "anthology" organisms, made up of a vast and various community of living things.  But I hope that "all of you individually" agree with me that microbial supremacy is both wonderful and here to stay!

Freshman Biology and Creativity!

Teaching is often its own reward, but also has its compensatory challenges.  The two main courses I teach (introduction to cell and molecular biology for freshman biology majors, and microbiology for junior and senior biology majors) have different audiences, different challenges, and different joys.

I know that helping students to engage the topics in class through "different eyes" and different strategies can help improve retention and outcomes (meaning exams, on one level).  One method to accomplish that is to encourage students to approach concepts from class based on their interests, using their own skill sets.  I find that most students have impressive talents and special interests that we just don't find out about within the context of a crowded introductory course.  

Nothing motivates students quite like points (he said, cynically), so I often offer "extra credit" for "creative" projects in some of my classes.  This has created some wonderful products in the past, as can be seen in my freshman course last Spring here, and my microbiology course last Fall here.

This Spring, I offered my freshman biology students the same "deal."  They had to talk about their project with me first, to get verbal approval.  Then I needed them to write a one page proposal, to lay out the basic parameters and concept of the project.  I did both of these things to keep students from doing something overwhelmingly last minute (which is in my opinion non-optimal in two ways:  last minute efforts are generally underwhelming, and I also worry that the project might take away from their studies in general).  

The results in the past have been gratifying (as seen in the prior links), and this Spring was no different.  Here are some examples of what these students can do, when they are in the "driver's seat" of their studying and preparations for final exams.  Also note that, for every project, the act of putting these projects together helps students with concepts central to my introductory course. This approach helps the students in an enjoyable and positive manner.

It works.

First, a "piratical" approach to a dihybrid cross that would make Mendel smile.  I hope.

I also had two students who were interested in what I had presented about endosymbiosis, and followed up with Elysia, the chloroplast harvesting sea slug.  In their hands, this topic became a children's book, as you can see from the following two sample pages.

Several students became fascinated by mitosis and meiosis (and well they should!).  One student "cross-stitched" her version of mitosis (very "crafty" as my late mother would have said) as can be seen here. 

Another created a flip book (I am still trying to create a YouTube video to demonstrate, but cannot get the angle quite correct) showing meiosis in action.

Another student created a fun "mini-comic book" about Mendel as her project.  The student pointed out to me, correctly, that the founder of genetics was born "Johann" and only took "Gregor" as a friar in his religious order. 

There was a great deal of creative writing that appeared in this year's "creative projects" offering. Here is a poem about "mitochondrial love" and central metabolism.

  
Another student created an ode to a phospholipid that I think emphasizes some important points.

One student came up with a charming idea I had not anticipated. She told me that she loved the idea of "visual puns" involving biology.  This student created a series of cartoons that mix humor and first year biology pretty well. 

For example, a "Barr Body" takes on a whole new meaning in this student's artistic vision:

 And don't get me started about cell phones in class:

Another student had a more traditional artistic bent, and created this lovely piece of art on canvas that I will hang in my office or laboratory:

I'm not usually surprised by student choices with this kind of assignment, but one student created a "bingo" game that one can use to create a dihybrid Punnett Square.  That is certainly one approach to creating a random selection of alleles during gamete formation!  She included lots of apparatus and instructions.  I can't wait to try it out! 

Another rather shy student wrote a fun poem about the ribosome, that emphases the basic structure and function.

One student asked to do something more "short story"-"creative writing" for her project.  In particular, she wanted to write about Rosalind Franklin.  What the student produced is a ghost story with a slapstick edge.  Here is an excerpt:

Another student had quite an interest in 1930s Gothic literature, such as that of H.P. Lovecraft.  For her project the student produced an analysis---1930s style---of some rather odd families in the H.P. Lovecraft universe, complete with pedigree analysis.  

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn  

Which brings us to some more...theatrical...extra credit productions.  First, three of my students decide to rap a bit about mitosis:
  

Here is their lyric sheet, exactly as they presented it to me.

Another student tried her hand at also being raptastic about mitosis, as you can hear in this audio file:

I don't know how to add an overall cover image, so this is the only way I could determine to upload audio to this blog!  Apologies for the kludge-y approach.  Here are the lyrics to the rap, anyway:

And finally, two students with traditional musical talents put together a pretty fun parody, and do their best to emote for the camera...about mitosis.

Well, I hope that the "creative extra credit" project had some positive aspects for the students.  I know that I was impressed by skills and interests among the students, aspects of them about which I was unaware! And if this kind of project helps the students prepare for their final exam next week, all the better.

I will leave the students with a microbial "good luck" wish, as you can see:

And I recorded this on the last day of class.  I like to think they were clapping because they enjoyed some of the class, not simply that it was over!

I hope you enjoyed this post, as well.  I'll keep trying to merge their creative sides with their studious sides in my classes, never fear!  Give it a try in your classrooms, educators---the students always surprise and impress me!

Art and Biology Work Well Together!

Well, my freshman-level Biology 111 course ("The Unity of Life") is now officially over at the University of Puget Sound, leaving only the final exam. Gulp. As usual for the class, there were high points and points that...well...could have gone better.  But isn't that true of most things in life?

As I plan out the cumulative final exam (double gulp!) and begin thinking about summer research with students, and my classes in the Fall (still far away, but the glittering battlements of those challenges are visible across the summer months before me), I like to reflect a bit about the semester past.

One thing that I particularly enjoyed this semester was working a bit with Katie McKissick, better known of as "Beatrice the Biologist."  Katie is a teacher/artist/science enthusiast, and we share a similar quirky sense of humor (I don't know that she would find that observation a compliment, by the way...sorry, Katie!).

Katie's artwork is awesome (and I don't often employ that unfortunately overused word), and you should check it out for its mixture of humor, accuracy, and ability to provoke some pretty deep thinking.

During the past semester, I was able to commission a bit of artwork from Katie, twice.  You see, I am trying to soften her up as a possible illustrator for a book project I have in mind (I'm thinking of calling this future endeavor "Matters Microbial" after the famous mathematics book, or even "Microbial Supremacy"). Not that she needs my help in that whole book-writing area, incidentally:  do check out her insanely great (miss you, Steve Jobs) book "What's In Your Genes?" that mixes good information with her own unique artwork.  Here is a peek of Katie's view of genetics, and her book.

A must read for genetics fans.

Getting back to Biology 111, I first commissioned Katie to create a piece of artwork demonstrating that students---even while gently dozing in class---are actually quite busy on a molecular level. Heck, they are veritable overachievers, as Katie puts it!

She wrote about the artwork on her blog, here.  

I don't know about you, but I intend to use the phrase "It's ATP go time!" often because of this cartoon.  I like this more than the more often seen "On a cellular level, we are all quite busy" meme, because it really does employ some concepts from class directly!  So there is education in the artwork, which makes Katie's cartoons of genuine pedagogical value, I think.

One of my big interests in biology is how we are more communities of organisms rather than simply one creature.  Just as the poet John Donne wrote that "No man is an island," I am with Thomas Miller, as seen in this slide from one of my microbiology lectures.

Indeed, we are metaorganisms or superorganisms, as Margaret McFall-Ngai and her collaborators suggest:  collections of myriad organisms that make up the "whole" that we visualize as "the" organism.  We are "crowdsourced" organisms, in a manner of speaking.

In any even, I have become extremely interested in how parasites and symbionts can alter the behavior of their hosts, often in outlandishly cool ways.  Here is a very serious book on the topic, and here is a nice overview with great examples.  Now, this topic will be the focus of a freshman writing seminar I am teaching next Fall (triple gulp), but I find it really grabs student attention.  

In Biology 111, I reminded students how mitochondria and chloroplasts were once bacteria, and how eukaryotic cells and symbionts have shaped one another over evolutionary time. But I do hint at the students that some microbes alter the behavior of their hosts.  

Because it is beyond cool. That's just how I roll:  I cannot help but enthuse over the weird and wonderful in biology, and I do not apologize for my excitement over those things!

So with some communication, and some back and forth, Katie came up with the following:

Katie blogged about this illustration here.

The cartoon brings up the question: who is in control?  As I often tell my long-suffering microbiology students, there are about ten times more bacterial cells in and on you than...well, you.  So who is speaking?  Doc Martin or the microbial aspects of that metaorganism?!  Microbial Democracy Now:  One Cell, One Vote!  It's not science fiction; the numerical superiority of microbes is fact.  

And the idea of behavior of an insect controlled by a nematode worm is accepted fact.  And the idea of worms' behavior controlled by a bacterium also a fact (and the study of weird and wonderful Wolbachia is SO worth your time, by the way---Seth Bordenstein's lab is a great place to start).  And the concept of a bacteriophage altering how the bacterium works is true, as well.  What's next?  IS elements inside the bacteriophage DNA?

So IS elements control phage, phage controls bacteria, bacteria control worms, worms control insect...  

It makes you wonder if any of our behavior is controlled by parasites?  And perhaps it is!

In any event, my interactions with Katie over the past semester remind me of the emergent properties that occur when science and art mix:  both benefit.  I hope that my students felt that way.  Ditto Katie. 

So, educators:  try to use artistic approaches in the classroom or in your laboratory.   I know that I have some new insights and approaches, courtesy of this synergy.  Thanks, Katie!

Happy Birthday to my Brother, Jack...

I have to say "happy birthday" to my big brother Jack, though I am sadly a couple of days late. Like the saying goes: time does not fly; it flees. Jack Sevard Martin, Jr's birthday is May 1st (which is amusing, as my brother has ever been the Cold Warrior). May 1st used to be celebrated with parades and tanks and missile launchers from the Eastern Bloc.  

Now, we can celebrate my brother!

Growing up, I always doubted myself.  That was courtesy of my late and much missed mother's psychological Amishness; she was always so worried that her sons would be egotistical.  The result was that I am extremely uncomfortable with self-promotion of any form.  And my path through academia has not been, um,  simple and smooth. 

My brother Jack never doubted me. Ever. Perhaps he projected his own hopes and dreams onto me, but that didn't matter. My brother never---not once---said anything to take me down a peg, and always thought better of me than the more mundane reality. This isn't all bad. I believe it encouraged me to rise above whatever I was doing, to try to do better. No matter the reverses or difficulties, my brother's belief in and support of me was constant and unyielding. To this day, I want to be the person Jack sees when he looks at me.

My brother also insisted I learn more than my teachers required in school. Much more. It was my brother who taught me history, not my teachers in elementary school, junior high school, or high school. My brother bought me Prescott's "The Conquest of Mexico" to teach me not just history, but how Americans in the 19th Century viewed history and the world. We went over the journals of Captain Cook and his expeditions together.  My brother had me read Orwell and Churchill and Sun-Tzu and Huxley.  And he discussed these works with me, often.  

Let's not leave out his love of Gothic literature, ranging from Poe to H.P. Lovecraft; from Stephen King to Algernon Blackwood.  I still have the books he bought for me by these and other authors.

From my brother and his teaching, I learned about the bravery of Lincoln, the biting wit of Disraeli, and the perfidy of Wilson (seriously, look up Woodrow Wilson's record---I never heard any of that in school). From Jack, I learned about  Tamerlane and Genghis Khan and Shaka Zulu and William Wallace. My brother nurtured my interest in space and in science with books, discussion, and historical and political viewpoints.

He was teacher and brother and confidant. No one could ask for a better brother.  Jack is six years older than I am, but he was much more than my big brother.

This next bit says it all, though Jack claims not to remember it in his innate modesty.

I was 21 years old, a senior at UCLA, applying to graduate school. I didn't have a stellar GPA, and felt I couldn't get into a Big Name school. What would my brother know about that? He had been a political science/economics major, with a degree in law. Anyway, we went to dinner, and Jack asked me where I was applying to Ph.D. programs. I told him.

"What about Stanford or Harvard?" he asked me.

"C'mon, Jack, I'm not that good."

Jack steepled his fingers, sounding a bit like the character Niles from the old television show "Frasier."

"So you think you suck, right?" he asked.

"Well..." I replied.

"But if you are all that bad, what do you know about who they will accept or not?"

I hemmed, I hawed. I protested about the cost.

"Okay," he said, producing a checkbook. "How much?"

So with my pedestrian GPA, modest research background from Winston Salser's lab at UCLA, and an admittedly pretty good set of GRE scores, I applied to ten schools.  Jack insisted I apply to three "safety schools" where I felt I had a shot, three "next level" schools to aspire toward, and four "better than me" schools (where I felt I had little chance of being admitted).

I got into all them, and ended up choosing between Stanford and Yale. I will never forget the look of pride of my father's face when I showed him the list of acceptances, but I will also never forget my brother Jack's half-smug expression to me of "I told you so."

I owe all that to my brother Jack.

Whenever things were good, Jack celebrated with me. When things were bad, he supported me and helped me explore a way out of my difficulties. Jack never, ever gave up on me, and always believed in me. When he faced horrible reverses (the death of his much-missed wife Sonia, endless trouble at work), he never dumped on me. Jack was always most concerned about me. I honestly think that I have the better end of our relationship as brothers. And I'm not complaining. 

 I can talk with my brother Jack about anything.

I can never repay my brother for his love and support. But I can recognize him for those traits, and point out that anyone who wishes him ill will have to go through me...and I am not easy to push aside.  The world needs many Jack S. Martin, Jr.s. I would argue, in fact, that they need more of him than need more of me!

No one could have a better or more loyal friend. And I got to experience Jack as his little brother!  Here is a photograph taken of us together, in November of 2013, during his last visit.

Happy birthday, Jack.  Talk with you soon, big brother.

Happy Birthday to a Great Microbiologist and a Microbial Hero™!

Just a short post, in honor of the great Moselio Schaechter's birthday today.  

If you don't know Elio, here is a short and interesting recent newspaper article that gives a nice "snapshot" of the gentleman.  

Elio is the person in charge of the American Society for Microbiology's insightful, informative, and indispensable blog about all the microbial wonders surrounding and within us, which is called "Small Things Considered."  If you don't follow this ASM-sponsored blog, you really should.  I discover things I did not know pretty much twice a week. The blog is a continuing and grand resource for me, and for my students; a microbial feast and festival of unsolvable "thought questions" (Elio's thought provoking and delightful "Talmudic Questions"), late breaking discoveries, reviews of emerging techniques and concepts, and historical perspectives.  It is easily as valuable (if not more so) than any textbook.

Elio is a remarkable person, in a wide variety of ways.  You can read a bit about his impressive scientific biography here.  He has also written about his life, which is very much worth the reading, here.  Born in Italy, raised in Ecuador, and trained in microbiology in the United States, Elio is one of a kind.  He was the first to determine that the rickettsia were bacteria by observing them divide and characterizing their cell wall.  He later studied bacterial physiology in Denmark, and spent much of his subsequent research career studying bacterial growth and cell division.  Elio spent many years at chairing the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University before retiring to San Diego (where he is more active than many academics).  In his copious free time™, he received numerous awards for excellence in teaching, was President of the American Society for Microbiology, consulted with media types, wrote textbooks, worked with the American Academy of Microbiology, and nurtured his interests in mushrooms and hiking.  

I become tired just thinking about all of that, but Elio is nothing if not elegant and energetic in his enthusiasms.

I wrote to Elio quite a few years ago, admiring the weird and wonderful presentations of Matters Microbial™ (as I call them) on the "Small Things Considered" website.  His response was to ask me to write some essays of my own for the blog.  And in fact Elio (along with the delightful and insightful Merry Youle) helped me become an "Associate Blogger" at "Small Things Considered" for a few years.  I very much enjoyed writing what I did, and continue to do so from time to time.  I certainly learned a great deal from that association.

Elio has been a unwavering beacon of positivity and supportive words during both good times and bad in my life, which is remarkable given that I have only met him a few times.  That said, he looms large in my life.  I cannot easily express my gratitude, so I do so here.

Most of all, I found that Elio's insights in the development of microbiology have had a great deal of influence on me.  I recommend this essay of his, from a 2009 issue of "Microbe," as an illustration of what I mean: "Paradigm Shifts, Paradigm Drifts." My microbiology students read that essay during the first week of class, and it shapes the structure of my course. 

So in summary, I had found some intellectual common cause with Elio and his merry band.  I do my best to promote his attitudes about Overwhelming Microbial Goodness™ regarding Matters Microbial (yes, some day I would like to write a book with that title).  In conversation on Twitter one day with Jonathan Eisen, I was struck by his comment about having "Microbial Heroes."  I have mentioned some of my Microbial Heroes™in the past on this blog, including Carl Woese and Abigail Salyers.  

I can think of perhaps fourteen microbiologists who have had a large impact on my life, and I will be writing about them on this blog.  Certainly Moselio Schaechter merits inclusion in my list of Microbial Heroes!  He certainly has had a great impact on the way I think about and teach microbiology to undergraduate students.

My artistic mathematician wife, Dr. Jennifer J. Quinn, decided to help me "immortalize" my Microbial Heroes with the childhood art-project favorite of "shrinky dinks."  Jenny took a photograph of Elio from the internet, created her artistic interpretation on the plastic, and shrank it. Here is the process.  

And like my other Microbial Heroes, Elio is in my office, hopefully to inspire me from my enthusiasms wane for Matters Microbial.

The carved stone I have written about before.  It is from Pliny the Elder, and the quotation runs: "Nature is to be found in Her entirety nowhere more than in Her smallest creatures." I can think of few scientific disciplines that more perfectly delineate that sentiment than the microbial sciences.

Thank you, Elio, for all of the support and kind words.  You remain an inspiration to me in so many ways.  My very, very best wishes to you and your family, and happy birthday!  I hope to see you in Boston at the ASM General Meeting.

Readers, who are your Microbial Heroes?  Why did you choose them?

Remembering Carl Woese: A Memorial Issue of RNA Biology

I have written before here about the centrality of the late Carl Woese to microbiology in particular...and I would argue to the whole of biology as a field.  His loss in late 2012 made me deeply thoughtful as well as sad.  True, the world has become a much smaller place without Carl Woese, but what a career!  What range and what a mind! I only met him twice, but I wished that I could have gotten to just listen to him more.  

I called what I learned from his articles and essays "The Wisdom of Brother Carl" in discussions with students.  We are all related, after all!

As readers of this blog are aware, I teach all of my students (freshman and senior courses) about Carl Woese and his role in biology.  Many freshmen come to my classes not really knowing much about the archaea (or thinking that they are solely "extremophiles," if I am lucky).  That gives me a useful wedge to introduce Woese, and his diverse contributions to science, and his approach to research and the profession of science.  

Obviously, my long-suffering microbiology students know---and emphatically so---how I feel about the contributions of Carol Woese.  

I show them images of the scientist painted on a Petri dish using bioluminescent bacteria (artwork by my wife, Dr. Jennifer J. Quinn).

Or I rave about my "wool sculpture" of the man with his Big Tree, the game-changer that altered how most of us look at the interrelatedness of life (the stone plaque reads, via Pliny the Elder, that nature is to be found in Her entirety nowhere more than in Her smallest creatures).  The artwork is by Amy Wright, and her Etsy shop is here.

And more recently, Woese is part of my "Microbial Heroes™" theme, as a "shrinky dink" in my office window (artwork again by my wife Dr. Jennifer J. Quinn).

The students have replied in costume from time to time, as you can see from a recent Hallowe'en lecture day.

Student respect for Carl Woese in my classes can appear in unusual guises.  Such as in video format, in a music parody (the "Blurred Lines" refers not to Robin Thicke's interpretation, but to phylogenetic interrelatedness).

So, yes, Carl Woese is and will always be an integral part of my curriculum.  The great Norm Pace asked me to write an essay about the role Woese has in my undergraduate classroom, and I was honored to have it included in a memorial issue of RNA Biology.

My essay, and the whole issue, is Open Access. and available here. Please take this opportunity to read many well-written perspectives by some awfully famous authors.  Reading it, I learned a great deal about Carl Woese the man, as well as the impact of his science on many lives from this issue.

Rilke wrote that Death is large, and leaves quite a hole behind. This is particularly true of Carl Woese.

Many, many thanks to Norm Pace for giving me the opportunity to express how I feel about Carl Woese to a larger audience than I could have reached otherwise.

Rest in Peace, Brother Carl.  You will not be forgotten.

Introducing Freshman to Transformation and Gene Regulation

In my current position at the University of Puget Sound, I generally see freshman students in my Biology 111 ("The Unity of Life") course, as well as juniors and seniors in my Biology 350 ("Microbiology") course.  I would prefer to call the latter "Microbial Diversity," because that is the actual thrust and overarching theme of the course, but I have been told that such a title might confuse medical school admissions boards.  Um.

Someday.

Many of my freshman have not had much in the way of biology, and some concepts that are basic to future courses in the major are vital.  Among them are transformation, antibiotic resistance, and gene regulation.

In the laboratory portion of Biology 111, we use the famous pGLO plasmid, which contains a transcriptional fusion between the araBAD promoter and green fluorescence protein (GFP).  Thus, when the araBAD promoter is "active," GFP is made.  And GFP is a wonderful thing for students to observe, due to its lovely color and the fact is is clearly evident with inexpensive UV "flashlights."

The restriction map of pGLO is pretty straightforward.

From:  http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/eschmid/Lab7-B1.jpg

Here is a photo I took of E. coli containing pGLO on a plate containing ampicillin (encoded by the plasmid) and the sugar L-arabinose.

It's interesting to discuss this process with students.  The concept that the bacterium that takes up the plasmid DNA by transformation will then express the genes carried by the plasmid can sometimes take a bit of getting used to for students.  But it is a strong foundation to base other concepts upon.  I often say that the role of an introductory course is to create a "tree" of connected concepts on which branches and leaves can be placed later, in future courses.  So it is with transformation and plasmids and drug resistances.

What I adore showing students is what happens later.  One of the problems with ampicillin resistance in the molecular biology lab is that it is usually mediated by the secreted enzyme beta-lactamase, which cleaves the beta-lactam ring of penicillin-like drugs such as ampicillin.  This in turn means that the concentration of ampicillin surrounding the transformant colonies decreases.  So far, so good.

One of the things that I emphasize to students is that only a small proportion of the bacterial cells can successfully take up and express the plasmid DNA (compared to the cells that do not).  And more importantly, that many antibiotics actually don't kill bacteria...but simply keep them from growing.  Thus, with time, a transformation plate using ampicillin resistance can look like this.

I really am proud of this photo; it looks lovely to me.  

The glowing central colonies (the original transformants, containing pGLO) have degraded much of the ampicillin surrounding them, allowing nontransformed cells to eventually grow.  These are the famous "satellite colonies" that bedevil many molecular biologists who leave their plates out for the weekend before picking transformants!  I have them pick a big colony, streak it out, and show that it both glows on arabinose medium and is ampicillin resistant.  What amazes them is that the satellite colonies (that do not glow) are sensitive to ampicillin when tested the same way!

This is a fabulous concept question for final exams!  It really illustrates the central concepts involved, and involves critical thinking.

Most of the time, people who use pGLO ignore the fact that it is essentially a reporter gene construct:  linking GFP synthesis to the activity of the araBAD promoter of the arabinose operon of E. coli.  

So I have a couple of issues I like to show students, as illustrated from a lecture slide below.

The difference between D and L arabinose seem minor in terms of shape; like the difference between a right and left glove.  Yet the regulatory system does not recognize D-arabinose!  I illustrate this by having students shake hands normally, and then with both of their right hands.  Recognition is shape.  

D and L arabinose are enantiomers of one another, and this is a good way to illustrate that "mirror images" of the same chemical can have quite different effects.  Molecular shape---recognition---is all about that.  And it is highly relevant to organic chemistry and pharmacology, as enantiomers of certain drugs can act quite differently from one another.

This idea is central to my course.  Heck, I even give it a fake name:  stericity.  Molecular shape confers functionality.  Alter that shape, and the functionality is altered, too.

Finally, when discussing gene regulation and operons, the idea of multiple levels of control sometimes confuses students (perhaps not yours; I can only discuss my own experiences in the classroom and laboratory).   So I try to get students to think about the arabinose operon (because of the connection to pGLO, actually).

From:  https://www.bio.cmu.edu/courses/03441/AraGal/AraOverview.jpg

I like to use the pGLO system to illustrate catabolite repression. Illustrations from a textbook are perfectly accurate, but can be confusing to some students.  Getting the students to think about the cell "preferring" to use glucose over arabinose might help.  Here is how textbooks show this "choice" issue.

From:  https://www.bio.cmu.edu/courses/03441/AraGal/AraExpression.jpg

But that can seem confusing.  So I try to take things back to the pGLO system.  Once again, from a lecture slide I made.

Now the material in textbooks about CAP and cAMP and glucose and lactose can make more sense.  First, I try to get students to call CAP (the catabolite activator protein) by another name:  CRP or the cAMP receptor protein.  I show the structures of L-arabinose and glucose, and ask which is easier for a cell to "use" and why they would think so.  Then I discuss the role that cAMP has as a "signal" of glucose availability. 

And sure enough, on the combination plate (glucose + arabinose), GFP is turned off in the presence of glucose.  Over the next week, guess what?  GFP gets turn on and is visible on the combination plate.  It's great to ask the students why (as the glucose is used up, cAMP levels rise, which form a complex with CRP, assisting in activation of the araBAD promoter).

I have also been known to put pGLO into E. coli deletion mutants in the crp and cya (adenylate cyclase) genes...to show the role of that system in gene regulation---putting it all together.

To summarize, it is very possible to use this humble plasmid to illustrate many central concepts in molecular biology and bacterial genetics.  And because of the fluorescence of GFP, it is the kind of thing that students enjoy, and remember.

Now, if only I had similar constructs between araBAD and RFP or YFP.  Maybe someday.  For now, I know that this works well for my freshmen.