Thesis Research
Our program is designed to prepare you for your PhD research work and for the continual learning process of a career in science. The process of developing into a productive research scientist occurs largely during the research for your dissertation.
By the end of your second semester, you will choose a research advisor or mentor who will guide you through the dissertation process.
During your third semester, you will work with your mentor to develop an original research proposal. This process provides an opportunity to apply and sharpen the skills you acquired throughout the first year of the program.
Your research culminates in a written thesis dissertation-an original contribution to the scientific literature.
You must then successfully defend your thesis orally before your Thesis Committee.
Journal Club
As with your research proposal and dissertation research presentations, the Journal Club places a strong emphasis on learning and presenting the “why” of genetics, genomics and bioinformatics research and its broader significance.
Through this monthly forum, you will choose a recent, topical paper from the primary research literature, preferably in consultation with your adviser and the program. The subject may or may not be related to your own thesis research.
The broader theme of the paper you choose provides the context for your presentation and discussion. The specific subject of the paper therefore provides a paradigm for a broader question in biomedical science; you will learn to paint this broader picture and to teach an audience about it.
Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
1) Students should recognize the antiparallel nature of DNA strands, recognize the role of DNA as the basis of genetics, know what a gene IS, recognize the different structure of genes in different organisms, understand how genetics influences all other fields of biology, know a lot of terms including: genetics, phenotype, genotype, epistasis, the various types of genes (protein coding, etc.), mutation, allele, the types of alleles (loss of function (lof) etc.), the types of mutations that can give rise to the types of alleles (missense, nonsense), the physical nature of mutations (insertion, deletion, base change, copy number repeat), the types of chromosomes (autosomes and sex), modes of inheritance (autosomal, sex-linked), sex-linked, epigenetics, mendelian, haploinsufficiency, locus, penetrance, expressivity, somatic cell genetics, transgene, conditional transgene, knockouts, conditional knockouts, genome editing, Crispr/Cas, synthetic biology
2) Students should recognize: how multiple genes segregate, Mendel’s 2nd law (independent segregation), the concept of linkage, distance dependent recombination rates, organelle inheritance, epistatis mapping, dominant and recessive allele mapping, genetic pathways, the importance of Model Organisms and hematopoietic stem cells.
3) Students should be able to describe: different types of genetic variation; the utility of population genetics to the study of human health; and forces that influence the amount of genetic variation in populations.
4) Students will be able to discuss how: Drosophila and Humans are similar; Drosophila is a good model for human disease; genetic mutations are created in Drosophila; mutations in Drosophila were used to identify developmental pathways; understand the UAS-GAL4 system and discuss how this system is used to study human disease.
5) Students should be familiar with Mendelian inheritance, random assortment, the process of meiosis and recombination events that occur during meiosis. You should also be familiar with the theory of evolution and natural selection and how mutations are important for these processes. They should be aware that evolution can occur through multiple pathways and be familiar with the concept of homologous genes/proteins and conservation of sequence through evolutionary time.
6) Make progress on a research project related to genetics in the broadest sense, including genetic diseases and social implications of genetic technologies. Learn the processes of hypothesis generation, experimental design, experiment execution, data analysis, data interpretation and hypothesis revision.
Return to: