• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.268-278
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to develop the paper model of protein synthesis process in order for students to learn more effectively the protein synthesis, and to examine learning effects of instruction using it in high school biology. For this study, 117 students of 12th grade were sampled from a high school in Daejeon metropolitan city. The students were divided into two groups; the control group(n=58) were taught the protein synthesis by explanation-based traditional teaching method, and the experimental group(=59) were taught them by using protein synthesis model. Instruction using the model of protein synthesis process was more effective in improving the students' academic achievements and motivating interests in their learning than the traditional intruction. The class using the models can be another effective teaching method to teach students abstract and complicated concepts like protein synthesis process.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.71-115
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• 2017

In 1953, theoretical physicist George Gamow attempted to explain the process of protein synthesis by hypothesizing that the base sequence of DNA encodes a protein's amino acid sequence and, in response, proposed the nucleic acid-protein information transfer model, which he dubbed the "diamond code." After expressing interest in discussing the daring hypothesis, contemporary biologists, including James Watson, Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, and Gunther Stent, were soon invited to join the RNA Tie Club, an informal research group that would also count biologists and various researchers in physics, mathematics, and computer engineering among its members. In examining the club's formation, growth, and decline in multidisciplinary research on deciphering the genetic code in the 1950s, this paper first investigates whether Gamow's idiosyncratic approach could be adopted as a collaborative research forum among contemporary biologists. Second, it explores how the RNA Tie Club's research agenda could have been expanded to other relevant research topics needing multidisciplinary approach? Third, it asks why and how the RNA Tie Club dissolved in the late 1950s. In answering those questions, this paper shows that analyses on the intersymbol correlation of the overlapping code functioned to integrate diverse approaches, including sequence decoding and statistical analysis, in research on the genetic code. As those analyses reveal, the peculiar approaches of the RNA Tie Club could be regarded as a useful method for biological research. The paper also concludes that the RNA Tie Club dissolved in the late 1950s due to the disappearance of the collaborative research agenda when the overlapping code hypothesis was abandoned.