Thursday 1:30-4:10 pm 
Room 304b, PWI 
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 27 - Feb 2)	Project topic selection
Weeks 2 - 4 (Feb 3 - Feb 23)	Review of the literature, proposal development
Weeks 5 - 10 (Feb 24 - Apr 6)	Work on the project
Weeks 11 - 12 (Apr 7 - Apr 20)	Work on the report
Week 13 (Apr 21 - Apr 27)	Review 2 reports of other students
Week 14 (Apr 28 - May 4)	Response to the reviewers' comments

Important dates: 

Jan 27	Introductory lecture	Class meeting
Feb 3	Software demo	Class meeting
Feb 3	Deadline for the project topic selection	Email or individual meeting with the instructor
Feb 24	Due date for the proposal submission	Email
Mar 3	Project proposal presentations	Class meeting
Apr 21	Due date for the report	Email
Apr 28	Due date for the reviews	Email
May 3	Due date  for the final report	Email
May 5	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