Assignments

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:

  1. What was the aim and significance of the presented study?
  2. Is the background information specific to the paper's overall topic sufficient? Explain.
  3. Describe the key experiment(s) and controls carried out in the study. Are there experiments missing that may have strengthened the paper?
  4. Did the results connect and support aim of study? (i.e. did they accomplish what they wanted to accomplish?) Explain.
  5. 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.

  1. 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)?
  2. 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.)
  3. 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.