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The Grant Exercise What is a grant? A grant is a proposal to somebody or an institution requesting that they give you money to pursue your project. It's like asking to get paid to do your IS! For any of you who envision a career in academic science (or even in biotechnology to a certain extent), it is essential that you be able to write effective grants. For the rest of you, writing a grant is very similar to what you might be asked to do for any job that requires that you write a report as to what you have been doing and what is important to do next. For several on-line sources for "how to write a grant" click here. For a tip sheet on how to critique a peer's grant click here. The lessons you learn here will directly benefit you when you begin to write your Junior IS proposal. In addition, this year, with the help of the Head Science Librarian, Donna Jacobs, I have added an information literacy component that will help you learn how to find and sort through various types of information including both publications and genetic information. Click here for a grant-specific syllabus (what is due when). |
Getting startedYou will need to develop skill in two areas: searching the scientific literature and bioinformatics. We have constructed this course so that you will develop skills in both of these areas one piece at a time but often in tandem. Donna Jacobs and I have constructed an informative tutorial that will teach you how to locate relevant information concerning a scientific topic of interest. We have also constructed a tutorial that will teach you the basics in how to locate and process relevant information of another sort - biological information.
Exercise 1. You will obtain a DNA/protein sequence from GenBank. You will need to annotate the sequence.
Exercise 2. You will
locate all the related sequences in Paramecium and create a mini-database. This
will require using a few simple Boolean searching routines in Genbank
(AND). You
will need both the amino acid sequences and the nucleotide sequences. You
will construct an alignment of all the Paramecium PP2B nucleotide
and amino acid sequences (separately). Exercise 4. The purpose of this assignment is to identify homologs and relevant papers using Entrez. First you will identify related sequences in other species, especially , yeast, mammals, and other model systems (C. elegans, Drosophila, Protozoa, and zebra fish). This will require a Blast search of the database using the amino acid sequence of one of the PP2B sequences from Paramecium. Using this collection, you will construct a simple table listing the 20 other sequences from other species you have found (Genbank number), the species, and any clues about their function (based upon references in Genbank file. You will use this analysis to gain clues as to the function of the Paramecium genes in assignment 4. Exercise 5. Identifying function. You will be asked how you might identify the function of these PP2B genes in Paramecium. You will start with what you found in exercise 4 above and then will conduct a focused search using standard information literacy techniques. Based on a quick read of the abstracts you have obtained and careful reading of one PP2B review article, you will write a brief two page summary of possible functions for PP2B in Paramecium. Donna Jacobs has prepared a detailed set of guidelines for how you are to prepare your references. I expect you to provide references for all written assignments in this class as described in these guidelines. Exercise 6. The first draft will be your first attempt at writing a grant proposal. The hypothesis will be derived from what you have learned about Paramecium and from your previous work. The material you have written in Exercises 4 and 5 should be in the grant. |