HomeAs an individual, you will describe and assess the progress of your project, including gene synthesis, DNA assembly, and testing of DNA. The written portion of your report (excluding DNA sequences, data, and references) should be no longer than 3-5 single-spaced pages. You will upload your progress report as a Word file (.doc or .docx) in OWL-Space by the specified date/time; submit a hard copy (single-sided only) of your report on 8.5 x 11 paper (please use a paperclip -- don't staple) in Dr. Beason's inbox outside ABL 326 by the specified due date/time. The sections required for this report and guidelines for content are as follows:
TITLE PAGE with each of the following on separate lines:INTRODUCTION (1-3 paragraphs): Describe the motivation for your project. What is the societal challenge that your proposed microbial biosensor could help address? Revisit your team project proposal -- revise your goals if needed based on the outcome of the gene synthesis. Write about the specific problem that you want to address with your project. Provide some background, including appropriate/relevant references, and state specific goals.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH (3-5 paragraphs): Explain the approach used to study the problem described in the introduction and outline the methods you used. You should include references. In this section, you should also include the final versions of sequence for genes and PCR primers. NOTE: do not go into great detail about the methods here (you are not writing a formal Materials and Methods section); detailed methods should be recorded in your laboratory notebook.
RESEARCH PROGRESS (length as needed): Discuss your progress in detail (i.e., your experiments, data analysis, etc.). Include exact technical specifications and quantities and source or method of preparation for work you have completed thus far. You should present this information in chronological order if possible. Include relevant data such as images of gels, sequence analysis, gas chromatograms, etc.
EXPECTATIONS AND CHALLENGES: 1) Provide a sentence or two describing the process of your work. What observations have you made? Describe how your experience is (or isn't) in line with what you expected. 2) Provide a sentence or two describing the challenges and problems that you have met so far. Were you successful in overcoming them? If not, what additional resources will be required?
FUTURE WORK: Provide a sentence or two describing approaches to meet remaining goals. What questions still need to be answered?What's next? Where do we go from here?
REFERENCES (length as needed): Within the text, number references consecutively and cite references using (#). In the references section, use the following format for citations:
(1) Jayalakshmi R, Sumathy K, Balaram H. Purification and characterization of recombinant Plasmodium falciparum adenylosuccinate synthetase expressed in Escherichia coli. Protein Express. Purif. 25: 66-72, 2002
(2) Hesketh R. The Oncogene FactsBook, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995, pp. 8-11
(3) Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.) Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304
(4) BIOC 313 Introductory Synthetic Biology: Synthetic Biolog in Complex Settings, http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~bios311/bios311/bios313/overview.html (accessed 28-Nov-2014 at 10:45 AM CST)
Format your report in a Word doc as follows:
Font size must be 11 or 12 points
Font should be Cambria, Times, Times New Roman, or Calibri
Line spacing must be 1 to 1.5-spaced
Margins must be one-inch in all directions
Pages must be numbered consecutively (the title page, which is page 1, is not numbered)
​Printed copy must be single-sided pages only
The report is scored as follows:
10 points = Summary
20 points = Introduction
20 points = Experimental Approach
20 points = Research Progress
10 points = Expectations and Challenges
5 points = Future Work
5 points = References
10 points = Professional Writing Style: clarity and terminology use; organization/coherent flow of information appropriate for genre; presentation of data; sentence/paragraph structure; grammar/spelling
Copyright, Acknowledgements,
and Intended Use
Created by B. Beason (bbeason@rice.edu),
Rice University, 10 January 2008
Updated 17 October 2016