Collectively Improving Our Teaching: Attempting Biology Department-wide Professional Development in Scientific Teaching.

Many efforts to improve science teaching in higher education focus on a few faculty members at an institution at a time, with limited published evidence on attempts to engage faculty across entire departments. We created a long-term, department-wide collaborative professional development program, Biology Faculty Explorations in Scientific Teaching (Biology FEST). Across 3 years of Biology FEST, 89% of the department's faculty completed a weeklong scientific teaching institute, and 83% of eligible instructors participated in additional semester-long follow-up programs.

Traversal of multilayered corneal epithelia by cytotoxic Pseudomonas aeruginosa requires the phospholipase domain of exoU.

Purpose: Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from microbial keratitis are invasive or cytotoxic toward mammalian cells, depending on their type III secreted toxins. Cytotoxic strains express ExoU, a phospholipase that contributes to corneal virulence. This study determined whether the ExoU phospholipase domain is required for P.