Thursday 1:30-4:10 pm 
Room 185, PWII 
3 credit hours

Instructor: Iosif Vaisman
Office: PW I, Room 429 
Office Hours: By appointment 
Phone: 703-993-8431 

Course description: This is a project-based course, in which students work under the supervision of the instructor on solving the real-world problems in structural genomics. The course is designed to mimic a full cycle of the research enterprize: from developing and defending a proposal to peer-reviewed publication. Most projects will involve applications of various knowledge-based methods to the large scale protein structure analysis. The course will be conducted in a seminar format centered around student projects. There will be several group meetings for the whole class and a number of individual meetings with the instructor. In this course the students will: 

• select a topic for their project from the list of suggested tiopics 
• perform a literature search and write a short (800-1200 words) literature review 
• write a grant proposal for the selected project
• carry out computational work for the project 
• present the results in a report (1500-2000 words) composed as a journal paper 
• review two reports by other students and write comments (200-300 words) 
• respond to the reviewers' comments, modifying the report if necessary 

Course schedule: 

Week 1 (Jan 23 - Jan 29)	Project topic selection
Weeks 2 - 4 (Jan 30 - Feb 19)	Review of the literature, proposal development
Weeks 5 - 10 (Feb 20 - Apr 2)	Work on the project
Weeks 11 - 12 (Apr 3 - Apr 16)	Work on the report
Week 13 (Apr 17 - Apr 23)	Review 2 reports of other students
Week 14 (Apr 24 - Apr 30)	Response to the reviewers' comments

Important dates: 

Jan 23	Introductory lecture	Class meeting
Jan 30	Software demo	Class meeting
Jan 30	Deadline for the project topic selection	Email or individual meeting with the instructor
Feb 18	Due date for the proposal submission	Email
Feb 20	Project proposal presentations	Class meeting
Apr 16	Due date for the report	Email
Apr 23	Due date for the reviews	Email
Apr 30	Due date  for the final report	Email
May 1	Final project presentation	Class meeting

Grading: grades will be based on presentations (10% + 10%), literature review and grant proposal (20%), final report (40%), and two report reviews (20%). 

Class materials