Authentic Research-based Practicals
Despite its importance, authentic research experience remains difficult to scale in undergraduate education. This project addresses that challenge by embedding real biomedical discovery into a large-scale laboratory practical, where students actively contribute to an ongoing research dataset while acquiring core experimental skills.
Students from Biomedical Sciences, Medicine, and Care Healthcare & Society programs at Utrecht University are presented with a toolbox of cancer and immune cell models, immune checkpoint reagents, and four laboratory techniques — flow cytometry, western blot, qPCR, and immunohistochemistry. From this toolbox, students independently formulate their own research question, choosing a combination of cell model, checkpoint target, and technique that is unique in the literature or confirms earlier findings. With hundreds of possible combinations, each student group has the opportunity to contribute genuinely novel data on immune checkpoint expression across widely used research cell lines — building a collectively generated, ever-growing discovery database.
Grounded in self-determination theory and research-based education principles, the practical fosters student autonomy, relatedness to biomedical research, and hands-on technical competence — while advancing science at the same time.
Selected references
Dual targeting of CD155/TIGIT and PD-L1/PD-1 immune checkpoints potentiates NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity in medulloblastoma. Neuro Oncology Advances 2025
