Uplift 2021-2022 Project Details

Thank you for submitting a project for the Uplift Undergraduate Research Training and Opportunity Program! Since many of the students applying to our program do not have research experience, we want to provide our students with several more details about your projects. Please complete the following form by Friday 3 September. This form may be filled out by the professor leading the project or any of the individuals appointed to mentor and support with the project.

Remember that the Uplift program does not have any GPA requirements or pre-requisites. Make sure the project details focus on what your student participant will learn rather than what they should bring to the experience.

Here's an example of how we list projects on our website:

Department: Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Research group: Chuong Lab

Project title: Finding transposon-derived genome variation in cattle.

Undocumented, DACA, and international students may apply for this project.

Brief Project Overview​: Up to 50% of mammalian genomes are made up of transposable elements – fragments of DNA that, millions of years ago, successfully invaded our genomes. Our lab is broadly interested in how transposable elements have shaped evolution and disease. To accomplish this, we employ a combination of experimental and computational techniques to identify transposable elements that have rewired gene regulatory networks.

8 Week Shadowing Period: Our graduate students have been working on identifying transposable elements that have shaped the evolution of innate immune responses in cattle and related ruminants. You will be paired with a graduate student and learn about experimental and computational techniques involved in analyzing next-generation sequencing data. During this time, you will also familiarize yourself with relevant literature from this subdiscipline.

16 Week Guided Research: After your 8-week shadowing period, you will analyze publicly available whole-genome sequencing data from different cattle breeds. Preliminary evidence suggests that certain transposable elements may be present at specific genomic locations in some breeds but not others. We are interested in expanding our analysis to more individuals and breeds & identifying whether these polymorphic transposable elements might impact the regulation of genes involved in immune responses.

Skills and experience you will obtain: 

- An understanding of the following experimental techniques: aseptic technique, pipetting, use of biosafety cabinets, tissue culture, DNA/RNA extractions, library preparation.
- How to use BASH to navigate the terminal and submit jobs to the compute cluster.
- How to conduct literature reviews.
- How to prepare publication-quality figures.

 

Indicates required field
What skills will students learn during their shadowing period in the Fall semester? What kinds of tasks are they expected to learn how to execute? Will students be in a lab setting or conducting computational work?
What question is your research project trying to solve? How do you envision your student approaching exploration of this problem with the skills they've acquired in the 8-Week Shadowing Period?
List several skills your students will have at the completion of this project. Think about transferable skills rather than just lab tasks.
Can undocumented, DACA, and international students apply for your project?
Do you have any questions for the Uplift Board at this time?