You should think about areas of biochemistry that interest you. You can work alone or in a group of up to three people. Feel free to setup appointments with me to discuss the material whenever necessary. You will be graded on presentation of the information. Have you communicated the material and described the background necessary to understand the subject matter? Did you properly cite your source material?

Objective.
The objective of the research project is to explore a specific idea or area of biochemistry in more detail. Select any topic in biochemistry. One example might be to select a topic we cover in class, in order to gain further insight. Or pick up a popular Science or Scientific American Journal. All good sources of contemporary and interesting topics. Think about hot new areas like DNA computing or engineering viruses for gene therapy.

Background  (Current state of knowledge).
Tell me about the subject matter. For example; What is DNA computing? If that is your topic I would expect to know what it is by the time I have finished reading your paper. Please see me to get started or if you get stumped along the way. As you become familiar with some of the topic areas and their respective biological significance, no doubt you will have questions not covered or not covered in sufficient detail by the text. This is a great way to develop a more in depth understanding of a single system.

Literature Cited.
References should be limited to relevant and current literature. Simply stated - cite which books or articles you read to get the background for your semester project. While there is no limitation on the number of references, it is important to be concise and to select only those literature references pertinent to your project. There is considerable variation among journals as to the correct format for references. We will follow formatting used in ACS journals, such as Biochemistry.