CELL AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
 

SCHEDULE

We will usually begin at 9:00 daily, although lab work may require you to come in as early as 8:30. We will be done by 11:15 each morning. We will begin most afternoons at 12:30 and be done by 3:00. Tests will be in the morning. You are expected to have read the text material before the lecture (lecture notes). The overall lab schedule is attached to the lab handout. We will be moving back and forth between lecture and lab often; please do not dawdle. The text for this course is Cell and Molecular Biology, 5th Ed., by G. Karp.   We will cover chapters 1-6, 8, 11, 13, and perhaps some of 15 of the text. There will also be a small number of supplementary reading assignments (these are all on the K: (assignments) drive; some are also here) that I will provide. The daily questions will also be posted to the K: drive, in their own folder. You may submit answers in written form or by email. Daily questions are due before the start of lecture each day.

THE LAB REPORT

This report should be patterned after research articles that appear in scientific journals. Be sure to follow the links; they will give you some hints about writing your report. As you will discover, research articles consist of: 1) an introduction, which lays out the questions to be answered and considers their significance - use this section to tell why anyone would be interested in these questions; 2) a section on material and methods which describes how the work was done - don't include all the detail found in the manual, but be sure to include the detail not found in the manual (such as gel loads and restriction enzymes used); 3) a description of how the methods are supposed to work (i.e., why you did what you did) and the presentation of the results, including (but don't limit yourself to) figures and tables - be careful in your use of significant figures; and 4) discussion of the results and conclusions to be drawn. This last section is a chance to critique your own work. Put the results together into a coherent whole; comment on the expected as against the actual results. Don't use platitudes (like, "we learned a lot", or "our poor results were due to human error"). Be specific, not general. The lab report is to be no more than 12 pages of normal typewritten double-spaced text (excluding figures and tables). The introduction will be worth 20%, the methods section, 20%, the results, 30% and the discussion, 30%. Remember, plagiarism may result in a zero for this assignment (see the Compass). The rough draft is due the third Tuesday of the block and should contain a completed introduction, a mostly complete methods section, and a partial results section.

 
THE CRITIQUES

You are required to choose two research articles from scientific journals (no earlier than 2000) and critique them. The articles can be in any area of cellular and/or molecular biology. I suggest that you look through the following journals in order to find research on a relevant topic: Cell, Developmental Biology, Development, Journal of Cell Biology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Heredity, Nature, Plant Physiology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Genetics, or any other scientific journal to which you have access. I recommend that you clear the article with me, first, and read the article at least twice before you decide to use it for your critique.

The idea of the critique is to read a research article critically; to discover what question(s) the researchers were attempting to answer, what techniques they used to obtain the answer(s), and to evaluate how successful they were in answering the question(s). Choose three or four of the central experiments reported in the paper and discuss their design and how they do or do not contribute to the conclusion the authors are attempting to draw.

Your first task will be to understand the purpose of the paper. Are the authors testing a hypothesis or model? If so, what is it? There will be competing or alternative hypotheses or models that they will try to eliminate. Frequently, these are not clearly identified. Rather, it is left to the reader to understand them from the experiments and controls that are done. You should also take this general approach when examining individual experiments. Why was it done? What alternatives were they trying to eliminate? Once you have understood these bases for their work, you need to try to understand and explain their experimental design and methodology. Do they adequately test the hypothesis and possible alternative explanations (pay special attention to controls)?  Should they have considered other alternative hypotheses?

Some papers are not easily interpreted as hypothesis testing. Frequently, the researchers are gathering data on which to base a hypothesis. In this case, rather than beginning with a hypothesis, the authors begin with a set of questions about the system of interest, questions that have definite, usually quantitative answers. Here, your job is to critique the significance of their questions, the experimental design and methodology used to answer them, and whether the results of these experiments gave or can give useful answers.

Do not comment on whether or not you enjoyed the paper, or found it well written; stick to an analysis of the science. It may be necessary for you to read related papers (for instance, references) in order to understand the article. It is not necessary for you describe in detail every experiment in the article. Some of them may not be directly related to the main focus of the work. Some may be more important or central to their point. Concentrate on these. It is usually best to center your critique on the figures/tables that are most important. It is not necessary to launch an attack on the authors' work. Sometimes no weakness will be apparent to you; other times, your criticisms might be very mild. Please avoid direct quotations from the article. Use your own words and express your own ideas. Remember that good writing includes a clear and informative introduction and a coherent conclusion.