Final Project

Overview:

Your final project for this course is to write an article and give a presentation on a therapeutic approach to cancer. Examples include the biochemistry of cancer chemotherapy, mathematical modeling of cancer growth and treatment, long-term consequences of chemotherapy, gene therapy for cancer, tailoring therapies to patient genetics, etc. Use your knowledge from topics we’ve covered to explain the molecular basis for the treatment. And, of course, we’d like you to focus on genetics to the extent that it fits your topic.

Cancer treatments or preventatives that are simply empirical and not grounded in basic research are not suitable topics. Some examples of topics that are not suitable include:

• “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning: Preventative Therapy & HNPCC”
• “Eat Your Broccoli! The Role of Sulforaphane in the Fight Against Cancer”
• “Green Tea and Cancer”

When you have an idea for a project, please run it by one of the professors, either in person or by e-mail. We want to avoid duplication of topics, so when you have an idea for a topic, post it on our Sakai Wiki so that everyone will know who’s chosen that topic. Also, if you have an idea for a topic that’s not a cancer therapy, make an appointment to talk to one of the professors about its suitability. You need to pick a topic by 13 November.

Paper:

Your final project paper is to written for an educated general audience rather than for scientific specialists; e.g., at the level of a Scientific American article. In contrast to Scientific American articles, however, your papers must be fully referenced.

We expect you to use the primary scientific literature to prepare your paper, and we expect you to explain relevant experiments in the paper. You need a minimum of 8 references, of which a minimum of 4 must be original articles (not reviews).

Figures add greatly to a general interest article, and we expect you to include figures in your paper. You don't need to draw them yourself, but figures from elsewhere must have the sources cited properly. If you do draw them yourself, please note that artistic quality is not a grading criterion!

A couple of additional requirements:

• Papers are to be one and a half or double-spaced.

• We expect 6–10 pages of text, not counting figures.

Sample Scientific American articles:

The following Scientific American articles on cancer provide good examples of the type of treatment we are looking for. The first four are available on the course Sakai website; the fifth, available in Seeley Mudd library, provides a particularly good example of explaining experiments.

• Zimmer, C. 2007. Evolved for Cancer? Sci. Amer. 296: 68-75.
  Some scientists hope to find new clues to help fight cancer by studying the evolutionary history of the disorder in our species.

• Clarke, M.F., and M. W. Becker. 2006. Stem Cells: The Real Culprits in Cancer? Sci. Amer. 295: 52-59.
  A dark side of stem cells — their potential to turn malignant — is at the root of a handful of cancers and may be the cause of many more. Eliminating the disease could depend on tracking down and destroying these elusive killer cells.

• Nettelbeck, D.M., and D.T. Curiel. 2003. Tumor-busting viruses. Sci. Amer. 289: 68-75.
  A new technique called virotherapy harnesses viruses, those banes of humankind, to stop another scourge — cancer.

• Jain, R.K., and Carmeliet, P F. 2001. Vessels of death or life. Sci. Amer. 285: 37-45.
  Angiogenesis — the formation of new blood vessels — might one day be manipulated to treat disorders from cancer to heart disease. First-generation drugs are now in the final phase of human testing

• Weinberg, R.A. 1983. A Molecular Basis of Cancer. Sci. Amer. 249: 126-142.
  Human cancers are initiated by oncogenes, altered versions of normal genes. In one case the critical alteration is a single point mutation that changes just one amino acid in the protein encoded by the gene.

Presentation:

Depending on the number of students, the last two-three class periods will be devoted to student presentations of their final projects. Plan for a 15-20 min presentation, which will leave 5 minutes discussion for each paper. For your final presentation, there are no particular format restrictions for your PowerPoint slides.