Introduction to the project work

The project for this course will be the foundation for the exam. It should be carried out in groups of 4 people (or 3-5 in case an odd number of students have signed up for the course). Fundamentally the project is very open-ended, but should include several methods from the course.

For the project, you should select at least one of your favorites genes (YFG) and analyze it in a context meaningful to your work and/or to one of the two topics we covered: diagnostics and therapeutics. The successful project makes use of at least 5 of the web services or databases to analyze YFG in a meaningful way. The tools may serve to collective answer a single questions (e.g. the CAR target evaluation “pipeline” or multiple sub questions). You may use additional web services or databases not covered in this course. Feel free to pitch ideas to me and I can perhaps help you identify web services or databases for the specific task you want to do.

The report

The report should be 10-12 pages long. It should consist of a summary (max 1 page), introduction to the biological case you are addressing, materials and methods (containing descriptions of how what happens under the hood of the web services you use - approx 1/2 page per web service), a results and discussion section with the biological conclusions you can draw, and a conclusion. The successful report demonstrates a good overview of what can be achieved with the web services and databases presented in the course, succinctly presents how the web services work/what the databases contain and how they were assembled (where the data comes from). The output from the web services used is critically analyzed and conclusions are drawn with weaknesses and limitations of the tools and databases in mind.

The presentation

The presentation should be approximately 20 minutes long, should touch on all the aspects of your report, and be done as a group. The successful presentation communicates your methods and main findings in an interesting way and demonstrates that you all contributed to, and understand the contents of the successful report. Other participants may view the presentations

The exam

Each presentation is followed by approximately 20 minutes of conversation and questions to individual members of the group. Other participants may view the discussions, but only examiners may ask questions.