20.109(F12): Oral presentation of research proposal

From Course Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search


20.109(F12): Laboratory Fundamentals of Biological Engineering

20.109(F12) homepage landscape.jpg

Home        People        Schedule Fall 2012        Assignments        Lab Basics        OWW Basics       
DNA Engineering        System Engineering        Biomaterials Engineering              

You and your partner should prepare a 12 minute powerpoint talk that describes the research question you have identified, how you propose to study the question and what you hope to learn. A general outline your research proposal presentation is:

  • a brief project overview
  • sufficient background information for everyone to understand your proposal
  • a statement of the research problem and goals
  • project details and methods
  • predicted outcomes if everything goes according to plan and if nothing does
  • needed resources to complete the work
  • societal impact if all goes well

On the day you present your team should print out and bring four copies of your powerpoint slides. Black and white is fine and you can print more than one slide per page if you like. You should also write and print out your "talking points" into the comments box of each of the slides you'll present. These are speaking notes for your presentation. They should include the words you'll use to describe each slide and the transitions you've planned between them. For example from last year's presentations, one slide's talking points were:
As you can see from this image, taken from a review on hydrocarbon metabolism in marine bacteria, the alcanivorax species is the first to grow in population after an oil spill, and its growth correlates with a decrease in aliphatic hydrcarbons.

  • After most alkanes have been degraded, the Cycloclaticus species blooms while aromatic hydrocarbon levels decrease
  • One thing to note is that as soon as they have done their job, both species return to their normal population levels.
  • One problem with using Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus to clean oil spills, however is that they can only be found in specific locations

The next slide (transition statement) began: To remedy this, we decided to look into other bacteria into which we could move the hydrocarbon metabolic pathways

You will be graded on the integrated success of your presentation: concepts, slides, talking points, and presentation.