There will be 2 assignments required for this course:
Assignment 1
Due Week 7. Students will review and summarize an original research article in a report (4-pages max) on bacterial stress responses selected by the instructor. The following questions must be addressed in your review:
- What was the aim and significance of the presented study?
- Is the background information specific to the paper's overall topic sufficient? Explain.
- Describe the key experiment(s) and controls carried out in the study. Are there experiments missing that may have strengthened the paper?
- Did the results connect and support aim of study? (i.e. did they accomplish what they wanted to accomplish?) Explain.
- Explain how the authors view this study as being significant and novel to their field of research.
Assignment 2
Prepare a 15 minute oral presentation on the identification and fictional bacterium of your choosing in a stress response-like situation. For example, a bacterium that is able to dissolve wood, lives symbiotically in the fangs of vampires, used in Twinkie production.
- Explain how your bacterium (real/fictional) is a encountering an adverse environment in your scenario (high-acid, pollution, low-nutrients, initial conditions in food production)?
- What questions would you like to answer from studying the bacterium and its survival in adverse conditions? (morphology changes, resistance to certain chemicals, function/expression of genes, etc.)
- How can your finding benefit future your real/fictional world?
The instructor must approve the student's selected 'sci-fi' bacterium for the oral presentation by Week 11. Oral presentations will take place on Week 14.