This essay highlights recommendations to make academic biology more inclusive of LGBTQ+ individuals. These recommendations are drawn from the literature and the collective experience of the 26-member author team.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)majors do not retain transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students and cisgender students at similar rates. This article explores TGNC retention in STEM majors and describes factors that contribute to differential retention of cisgender and TGNC students.

In this study, we assessed the impact of providing students with short video clips highlighting the relevance of material they are learning in the genetics classroom to their everyday lives. These interesting but non–learning objective oriented clips, referred to as “seductive details,” have been studied extensively in laboratory contexts. In laboratory studies, seductive details have been shown to actually decrease learning, leading some to recommend that any information not directly pertaining to academic learning outcomes be removed from education materials. We aimed to uncover effects of seductive details in an actual college course, in a manner divorced from the confounding variation introduced by instructor-level differences in personality and lecture styles. Our results show that, in a flipped-classroom environment, seductive details do not harm students’ content attainment, interest, or perceived learning, but they are memorable. Students with high background knowledge of genetics reported greater learning after watching videos containing seductive details than students who watched equivalent videos without seductive details, but there was no difference in quiz scores between the groups. These results contradict some of the major effects observed throughout decades of studies conducted in artificial psychology laboratory environments and highlight possible affective benefits of instructors using seductive details.

Student self-beliefs regarding intelligence and ability have been shown to correspond to achievement and persistence in an academic domain. Specifically, previous research has suggested that a growth mindsetor the belief that intelligence is malleable and can increase with effort-is associated with student success. Locus of control is a related but distinct self-belief regarding personal agency over various academic and nonacademic outcomes and has also been associated with study skills and academic persistence. However, academic interventions targeting student mindsets and loci of control have remained relatively underexplored, specifically in the context of undergraduate STEM education. Here, we describe the development and assessment of an intervention encouraging students to adopt a growth mindset and internal locus of control. This five-part intervention is administered entirely online and is therefore independent of individual instructor variability. We administered the intervention in five introductory biology courses and show that the intervention was successful in impacting student mindsets and loci of control across various demographics.

Burkholderia pseudomallei(Bp) andBurkholderia mallei(Bm) are Tier-1 Select Agents that cause melioidosis and glanders, respectively. These are highly lethal human infections with limited therapeutic options. Intercellular spread is a hallmark ofBurkholderiapathogenesis, and its prominent ties to virulence make it an attractive therapeutic target. We developed a high-throughput cell-based phenotypic assay and screened ∼220,000 small molecules for their ability to disrupt intercellular spread byBurkholderia thailandensis, a closely related BSL-2 surrogate. We identified 268 hits, and cross-species validation found 32 hits that also disrupt intercellular spread byBpand/orBm. Among these were a fluoroquinolone analog, which we named burkfloxacin (BFX), which potently inhibits growth of intracellularBurkholderia, and flucytosine (5-FC), an FDA-approved antifungal drug. We found that 5-FC blocks the intracellular life cycle at the point of type VI secretion system 5 (T6SS-5)-mediated cell–cell spread. Bacterial conversion of 5-FC to 5-fluorouracil and subsequently to fluorouridine monophosphate is required for potent and selective activity against intracellularBurkholderia. In a murine model of fulminant respiratory melioidosis, treatment with BFX or 5-FC was significantly more effective than ceftazidime, the current antibiotic of choice, for improving survival and decreasing bacterial counts in major organs. Our results demonstrate the utility of cell-based phenotypic screening for Select Agent drug discovery and warrant the advancement of BFX and 5-FC as candidate therapeutics for melioidosis in humans.