You are an engineer in a large pharmaceutical company..

You are the lead engineer working for a large multinational pharmaceutical company working on a project with collaborators in several public hospitals, including Shands at UF. In recent weeks there has been uptick in new (and disturbing) patient admissions to the hospital. Patients are being admitted with very high energy levels, an inability to sleep and bloodwork shows elevated total protein levels. Early stages are limited to frantic behavior, which progresses rapidly to a comatose state followed by death (less than a week post admission to the hospital), unless whole blood transfusions occur. Initial analysis has shown that the typical blood proteins such as albumin are at normal levels (standard blood work panels) but the total protein in serum is very high. At this point it is unknown what the accumulating protein/s are.

Question 2 (2 points). Once you have detected the protein/s what would you do next?

Question 3 (2 points). Given that this is potentially a new disease, is it genetic (hereditary)? If so, why would you think it is and how would you test that. If not, explain.

Question 4 (4 points). Using the scope of this homework (above) and using the BME4311 class a foundation for thinking about the problem (also use above example) - design an experiment that would.

1. Identify the clinical problem and the objective and the critical questions that frame the knowledge gaps (i.e. what you needed to search for to generate a solution).

2. Identify the relevant course material (and other sources) that serve to fill the gaps.

3. Propose a solution that details your experimental groups and your evaluation metric. Hint: Think about what would be on the x-axis and y-axis of a graph (or graphs) representing your experiment.

Make sure to identify the methods used for your evaluation or analysis (i.e. identify the method used for collecting the data collecting data). Your experiment can focus on part of a single Question 2 or Question 3 or both. Your answer should showcase the integration of details into experimental design that addresses a specific objective.