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Physiology instructors often are faced with the challenge of providing informative and educationally stimulating laboratories while trying to design them in such a way that encourages students to be actively involved in their own learning. With many laboratory experiments designed with simplicity and efficiency as the primary focus, it is sometimes difficult to design in-class experiments that are able to meet all of the above criteria. This article describes an approach being used at Michigan State University to help make the undergraduate laboratory exercise more "minds on," taking elements from each of the four instruction techniques for teaching physiology labs (expository, inquiry, discovery, and problem based.) In this new model, students use information provided to them in a prelaboratory lecture about the topic of study and then must formulate a hypothesis, answering guided prompts from the lecture to form a hypothesis about the outcome of the upcoming experiments and then turn in this hypothesis to the instructor as well as write it in their weekly homework. By turning in a copy of the hypothesis before they perform the experiment, this ensures that students do not alter their hypothesis after seeing the results of the pooled class data. Not being able to alter the hypothesis is a critical component to the success of this laboratory model. Not only does this prevent students from altering their hypothesis to match the "correct" or "expected" results, but it also reinforces the idea that wrong ideas and expectations are not "incorrect" but rather offer opportunities for better understanding. In semesters that did not use this method of turning in the hypothesis, problems arose with students often making incorrect predictions about the laboratory and feeling the need to change their hypothesis to match their observed results in their weekly homework after the experiment had been completed. Adding a hypothesis-generating exercise to each laboratory experiment is a mentally stimulating exercise that forces students to become involved in the laboratory they are performing. This participation forces engagement and critical thinking from the student and allows for immediate confirmation or rejection of their proposed hypothesis upon completion of the laboratory when the pooled class data is displayed. The addition of a hypothesis generation activity increases student investment in laboratory experiments and helped lead to a commitment to quality for in class data partly due to this prediction and immediate feedback. Through these elements and changes to the laboratory environment, curiosity and enthusiasm are fostered and a better learning environment and a more productive classroom are created.

In the last several decades, there has been a shift in the mindset of research structure from classical "systems or integrative biology" to more molecular focused "-omics" study. A recent topic of debate in physiological societies has been whether or not the "-omic" revolution has delivered in its promises in both clinical medicine and advancing the field of physiology. More importantly, the question arises as to whether a return to "systems biology" and/or "integrative biology" is necessary to form translational connections between laboratories and clinics and be able to use the new information to directly impact healthcare. The purpose of the present study was to assess the perspectives on the discipline of physiology from undergraduate physiology majors by determining their preference for areas of study between "-omic"-type lessons and systems-based course work. Seventy-nine millennial undergraduate students (45 male students and 34 female students) were asked to provide a free response answer on where their interests specifically lie along the continuum of molecular to integrative. This set of students is representative of a varied curriculum taking classes that stress "-omic"-type education (cellular/molecular biology) as well as integrative systems biology. The class in which this survey was administered is titled "Capstone Laboratory in Physiology" and is a senior-level course often taken by students in their last semester of undergraduate studies. Approximately 80% of these students state a career plan in healthcare with the majority being premedicine. Student responses were initially broken down into the following three categories: preference for integrative or systems physiology, molecular or "-omics" physiology, or indifferent between the two/enjoy both equally.

Michigan State University's senior-level undergraduate physiology capstone laboratory uses a simple exercise termed "Physiology in the News," to help students explore the current research within the field of physiology while also learning to communicate science in lay terms. "Physiology in the News" is an activity that charges the students with finding, for themselves, press release information on where the field of physiology is today. This paper describes how this activity provides physiology students with several important skills required to be active and articulate physiologists, and encourages students to be well-informed scientific citizens and keep current on all areas of physiology.

Experimental cell therapies for skeletal muscle conditions have shown little success, primarily because they use committed myogenic progenitors rather than true muscle stem cells, known as satellite cells. Here we present a method to generate in vitro-derived satellite cells (idSCs) from skeletal muscle tissue. When transplanted in small numbers into mouse muscle, mouse idSCs fuse into myofibers, repopulate the satellite cell niche, self-renew, support multiple rounds of muscle regeneration and improve force production on par with freshly isolated satellite cells in damaged skeletal muscle. We compared the epigenomic and transcriptional signatures between idSCs, myoblasts and satellite cells and used these signatures to identify core signaling pathways and genes that confer idSC functionality. Finally, from human muscle biopsies, we successfully generated satellite cell-like cells in vitro. After further development, idSCs may provide a scalable source of cells for the treatment of genetic muscle disorders, trauma-induced muscle damage and age-related muscle weakness., (© 2024. The Author(s).)