Assignments

Course Requirements

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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?