Assignment 1:

Approach and Milestones in Research Project

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Company, where you are working, gave you a formidable task.

You are to produce chicken with bright green-colored skin and feathers, so it would look organic.

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1. Identify technology you will be using to achieve the goals of your project.Present the research plan which is most likely to get you to your final goal. Use this part of the paper to justify the choice of technology and to demonstrate your understanding of the nuts and bolts of selected technology. Use your information mining skills to write a research plan

Undergraduates: at least 1 page.

Graduate students: 3 pages with References

2. Identify high-level targets or milestones for the project.Milestones are deliverables or major events to be achieved on a specified date. Milestones can be viewed as pre-set how are we doing thresholds indicating whether a project is on track to finish with planned results.

Note: At the Initiate Stage, information is at an overview level. Milestones identified at this early stage may be further broken down and revised during the project planning stage when the project schedule is created.

High level milestones and timelines should be written to reflect three important goals:

1. Provide measurements showing that tangible progress has been made on the project at each stage;
2. Provide a framework for go/ no go decision making. This framework would allow the project to move on to the next step if the milestone is met or take corrective action if the milestone is not met;
3. Provide rationale for company resource planning and possible project budget modifications.

Arrange your Milestones in the Table as below: Please be as realistic as possible.

(Hint: the class is offered to Biology/ Biosciences students. In order to complete this assignment, you have to figure how to realistically tackle the problem, scientifically. After then, proceed to developing your R&D plan and milestones).

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE: use it as template

Key Milestone	Target Date
1. Phase 1 May 2015 December 2015
1.1 Approved Project Charter and Project Plan	July 1, 2015
1.2	July 15, 2015
1.3	Sept 1, 2015
1.4	Sept 1, 2015
1.5	Sept 15, 2015
1.6	Sept 22, 2015
1.7	Oct 1, 2015
1.8	Oct 1, 2015
1.9	Dec 1, 2015
2. Phase 2 - December 2015 - July 1, 2016
2.1	Jan 1, 2016
2.2	July 1, 2016

Assignment 2:

Think about the Budget

Chart the budget that you need for completing the green colored chicken assignment. Think about lab/farm space, labor costs, chicken feed, reagents/disposables in laboratory, what else do you need?

(REMINDER: the class is offered to Biology/ Biosciences students. In order to complete this assignment, you have to figure how to realistically tackle the problem, scientifically. After then, proceed to developing your budget).

Below are examples of approximate language in budget narrative. (you may also put this budget in the table with a special column for explanations). Every time when you list actual cost, also list its source.

BUDGET JUSTIFICATION example:

Salary/Wages:

XXXXXXXX write it up.

Travel

This is example write it up

Travel is budgeted at $1000 per year for years 2 and 3. This will cover domestic travel including conference fees and subsistence/per diem. We are planning that Graduate Research Assistant will present data on yearly AACR conferences.

Supplies

This is example write it up

Laboratory and Office supplies for Year 1 will be $14,545. That will cover purchase of RPMI-8226 ($179), HL-60 ($179) and LNCaP ($179) cell lines at ATCC, serum and media for eukaryotic cell line propagation, TRIzol and TRIzol LS Reagent (Invitrogen), DNase using DNA-free DNase Treatment and Removal Reagent (Ambion), SuperScript III Reverse Transcriptase (Invitrogen), SYBR Green Super Mix (Life Technologies), mammalian expression vector pcDNA3.1/myc-His (Invitrogen), restriction endonucleases and ligase (Fermentas), TOP10 and DH5alpha competent cells (Invitrogen), Plasmid DNA Miniprep kit (Promega), Geneticin (Invitorgen), Tfx Reagents Transfection Trio (Promega), -Gal Staining Kit (Invitrogen), BD Clontech Protein Extraction & Labeling Kit (BD Clontech), APO-DIRECT kit (Phoenix Flow Systems), doxorubicin and cisplatin (Sigma), as well as for laboratory disposables including Blue and yellow tips (Rainin), gloves (Fisher Scientific), Falcon tubes (Fisher Scientific), various PCR and reaction mix tubes, other plastic labware including labware for cell cultivation.

Budget for supplies for year 2 and year 3 will be $9,327 and $7,414 correspondingly. Reagents needed to perform cell invasion and differentiation assays as well as microarray experiments will be purchased out of year 2 and year 3 supplies budgets.

Anything else you need? Add more chapters to your budget

Assignment 3:

Make Your CV Look Irresistible and Maintain it

Rationale:To introduce you to an art of introducing yourself and your work to research community and potential employers, as well as, needless to say, medical or dental schools.

Remember! Curriculum Vitae format is very different from Resume. Importantly, it is not limited to one page. There is no one single format.

Make sure you include in your CV all things relevant, especially abstracts and publications. Elaborate on your skills, responsibilities and the rationale for you research projects.

An example of very good CV is included on the Blackboard. The student with this CV was accepted as a post-doc researcher in Harvard.

Include your CV in your portfolio, and keep it updated throughout your life.