Projects

The course project is designed as a team effort for groups of approximately three students. Teams are expected to hand in a written report and present their work in a brief presentation to the class at the end of the term. The report is to be written entirely by the team. You should acknowledge other sources with proper citations.

The project will entail a detailed spec sheet summarizing various aspect of your chosen biological component.

Overall, we expect the following:

  • The spec sheet should be between 5–10 pages in length.
  • You can use the sample / template spec sheets posted on the course website as guide. Feel free to come up with your own spec sheet organization scheme as well. Extra points for creativity.
  • We are looking not only for breadth but also depth in your spec sheets. Some topics (not limited) to consider are:
    • Background / components / subcomponents
    • Structure and function / role relevant to biology and biomechanics
    • Tools used to study the biological component
    • Role in disease
    • Models used to study the biological components
    • Future Research / Applications
    • Interesting unanswered questions
    • Research groups and their web address working on this system
  • For each topic you consider, make sure to include figures and captions detailing important findings. We expect you to critically discuss the relevance (What does this figure show and why is it important?) of such figure and not simply copy a caption straight from the literature reference.
  • Be sure to cite your references. Feel free to use PubMed and Web of Science when doing your research. No Wikipedia references and use original sources (manuscripts and books, rather than websites or databases) wherever possible.