Microbes at War: The Mechanisms That Drive Infectious Diseases

Assignments

Weekly Pre-class Assignments

To ensure everyone is prepared for class discussions, each student will send the instructor brief written answers to a few basic questions about each article. Each assignment will be submitted the night before class. The format will be as follows, with answers to be brief (1–2 sentences each):  

• What was the main gap in knowledge this article was trying to address?
• What was the main experiment (or experiments) that answered this question?
• What was the most important control in the main experiment?
• What is the major takeaway finding of the article? 
• Name one outstanding question from the article you would try to follow up on if you were the researcher?
• Optional—is there anything unclear (or interesting!) from the article you specifically want to discuss during class?

Midterm Assignment, Due Week 6

Students will be provided an unpublished primary research paper with the title and abstract missing in week 4. Students should propose 1) a title, 2) an abstract, and 3) a graphical abstract (see below). The instructor will provide feedback about this assignment to help you identify areas in which you are excelling and areas that need improvement.

1. Title: Think about what is the one-sentence takeaway from the research. The title should be about 1 line of text, 1 sentence.
2. Abstract: The abstract should be 200–350 words in length (about 8–12 sentences). Think about answering the following questions:
   1. What is the main subject of the article?
   2. What was the major question/gap in knowledge?
   3. What were the main methods used and the major finding of the paper? (Focus on the main experiment or experiments, distinguishing which data are critical and which play a supporting role.)
   4. How does this paper impact the overall field?
   5. Formatting requirements: Times New Roman, 12 point font, 1 inch margins, double-spaced.
3. Graphical abstract: Put the article into pictures! Graphical abstracts are becoming a popular way to summarize articles and engage readers.
   1. You may hand-draw the figure(s), use clip art from Google Images, etc. (The key for this class is not artistic talent but rather the ability to convey a conceptual understanding of the article.)
   2. The content of the graphical abstract corresponds to that of the written abstract—main question, main method, and main takeaway. There can be limited text, but the major takeaway should be conveyed through images.
   3. See some examples: https://www.cell.com/pb/assets/raw/shared/figureguidelines/GA_guide.pdf

Final Assignment, Due Week 13

By the end of the semester, we will have been exposed to many different organisms and diseases through scientific papers. In your final assignment, you will pick a primary journal article written in the last 5 years. This paper can address a topic we haven’t covered or follow up on a topic you found really interesting during the semester. (The topic should be broadly within the field of infectious diseases.) 

During the last session of the course, each student will give a 15-minute oral presentation about their chosen topic/article. Critically analyzing the experimental design and interpretation of the data will be the primary focus of this assignment, and the majority of your slides should focus on these issues, not on introductory or summary material. The presentation should be 12 slides. The presentation will be followed by a discussion wherein the presenter will answer questions from other students and the instructor. The presentation should provide 1)a brief introduction to the general topic surrounding the research and describe the contribution the research attempts to make towards this topic; 2) an overview of the key experiments and how they were controlled, key findings; and most importantly, 3) a critical evaluation of the work with an emphasis on whether or not the experimental results support the conclusions of the authors.

The presentation should be formatted as follows:

• A title slide featuring the manuscript name, authors, author affiliation, journal name, and date of publication.
• 2–3 slides introducing the topic and the research question.
• 4–5 slides featuring the key experiments, controls, and results (utilizing figures from the paper).
• 2–4 slides presenting a critique of the work, supported with techniques, controls, or alternative experiments that might enhance the findings of the paper. This is the most important aspect of the presentation.