3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Current Topics in Modern Biology Research will be devoted to in-depth analysis of recent primary literature covering emerging areas of research, i.e. “special topics” not covered in depth in our core graduate courses. The papers assigned will loosely align with the disciplines covered in the fall and spring core graduate courses in the CMDB Graduate Program. It will meet once a week for 2 hours. Current Topics will have two major components: First, all students will compose written critiques of the assigned papers, paying particular attention to the following questions: Is the premise of the paper firmly founded in prior research? Are the experiments rigorously controlled and unbiased in design and carried out according to best practices? Are the conclusions well supported by multiple lines of evidence with reproducible data and appropriate statistical analyses? Second, each paper will be presented by a team of two students, who will give an in-depth, seminar-style presentation of ~40 min. These presentations will also pay particular attention to the rigor and reproducibility criteria discussed above. The outcome of this course will provide CMDB graduate students and advanced undergraduates with extensive practice in scientific writing and speaking, and show students through critical analyses of papers examples of best practices in experimental design, execution, analyses, and interpretation in scientific data. This course is designed for CMDB graduate students and upper-level undergraduates who plan on pursuing graduate studies in a biology-related field. Pre-requisites for undergraduates include Genetics, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Biochemistry, and Developmental Biology.