Courses:

Reading the Blueprint of Life: Transcription, Stem Cells and Differentiation >> Content Detail

Assignments

Course Requirements

Attendance and participation in all classes. Each Thursday before class (by 1:00 PM) each student will submit two questions or statements (one for each paper) via e-mail to the instructors. These questions or statements can be a criticism of an experiment, a proposed follow-up experiment to the work done, or simply a question about a technique used in the paper.
Based on the material covered in class, write a 2-page project proposal. This proposal will outline experiments to address a frontier problem in the field.
Oral presentation. Students will present 2 page research proposals (above) to the class. Each will be a 10-15 min slideshow presentation describing background, experiments and expected results.

Guidelines for Presentations (PDF)

~8 Slides Total
10 minutes Total (+ 5 mins of Questions at the End)
Title Slide
Introduction / Background (1-2 Slides)
- What is the relevant information we need to know to understand why you are proposing this research?
- What's your motivation?
- What is the gap in understanding you aim to fill?
- Example: For this week's papers, you would describe how
  - RAR fusion proteins result in leukemias that respond differently to treatment, or
  - MLL fusion proteins can cause leukemias, but the mechanism is unknown.
- Use figures.
Question You wish to Answer / Hypothesis to Test (1 Slide)
- State this clearly and succinctly.
- What precisely do you hope to accomplish with your proposed research?
- Similar to your specific aims in your written proposals.
Experimental Approach / System (1-2 Slides)
- Describe the system you will use and the experiments you will conduct to address your question of interest.
- Use figures.
Expected Results (2-3 Slides)
- What type of data will you get?
- How will you draw conclusions from the data?
- What are the possible / expected results you might obtain, and how do these fit into possible models?
- You can use mock figures to clarify possible outcomes.
Conclusions / What You Expect to Learn / Follow-up (1 Slide)
- If your research is successful, what do you hope to learn from it?
- How will this change our understanding of this problem, and how might one follow up on these results?