Tutorial, 12 hours. Requisites: Life Sciences 3, 4, and 23L, or 7A, 7B, and 23L, 3.0 premajor and/or major grade-point average, and at least one term of prior experience in same laboratory in which 196A research is to be conducted. Enforced corequisite: course 180A. Course 196A is enforced requisite to 196B. Designed for undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing inquiry-based and hypothesis-driven research experience in laboratory of departmental faculty mentor. Guided research course to be taken in conjunction with course 180A, followed by continuation research course 196B. Technical aspects vary depending on specific laboratory; however, all students learn how to apply scientific method: propose hypothesis, identify experiments to address hypothesis, perform experiments, and analyze results. How to record information from experimental activities into laboratory notebooks and to write research proposals. Letter grading.