Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38661409›Full record

ArticleJournal of microbiology & biology education2024

What are we missing in teaching the Luria-Delbrück experiment?

Qi Zheng

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of microbiology & biology education, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
0.6field-weighted citation impact, top 32% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Qi ZhengDepartment of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M School of Public Health, College Station, Texas, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3920-2059

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The importance of teaching the Luria-Delbrück experiment to biology students is increasingly recognized by educators, and improved pedagogical methods for teaching the classic experiment have been proposed and tested in the classroom. However, there are still obstacles that impede the proper teaching of the classic experiment. This note proposes two strategies to further improve the teaching of the classic experiment. The first strategy is to be frank with an inherent limitation of the classic experiment, and instructors should explain from a logical point of view why the classic experiment cannot be used to refute the possibility of directed mutation. The second strategy is to emphasize the pioneering work of Delbrück on developing the mutant distribution that enables researchers to estimate microbial mutation rates using data generated by fluctuation experiments, and instructors should shift their attention to the overlooked essential role of the mutant distribution.

Indexed as

fluctuation experimentmutation ratepartial platingrandom mutation

Identifiers

PMID38661409
PMCPMC11044624
OpenAlexW4390671402

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.