12th International Symposium on Bioluminescence & Chemiluminescence

Symposium abstracts:

Bioluminescence as an educational tool

Gitelson, I., Kratasyuk, V.

Institute of Biophysics SB RAS, Research-Education Center, Krasnoyarsk State University, (supported by the CRDF, USA, and the Ministry of Education of Russia)

Bioluminescent assay is one of the most efficient but yet insufficiently used tools of enlightenment and education. Biophysically speaking, bioluminescence is emission of visible light quanta, resulting from the oxidation of specific substrates (the collective notion of "luciferins") by oxygen, involving specific enzymes, collectively called "luciferases". If the emitting system is extracted from the organism as genes or enzymes, they can be used to visualize many biological processes that run hidden in genomes, cells, organisms, and ecosystems. The didactic value of bioluminescence is that it can be used to transform many biological processes into light. This opens a wide opportunity to observe them visually or measure them with photometric instruments.

The paper will give a systematic review showing various applications of bioluminescence in teaching biology.

To realize and use the potential of bioluminescence in education and enlightenment, the luminometer must become as widely used at school as are the microscope and the computer.

This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in Luminescence: Copyright 2001 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd (Wiley website)