Background: A large pharmaceutical company has agreed to fund your research into the identification of cone snail venom as potential pharmaceutical targets based on some preliminary observations. To receive the full funding, however, you need to provide a detailed proposal for the project.
Aim: The project you have negotiated is based on a large-scale survey of cone snail genome and venom genes, many of which may be novel. The company requires that the project proposal contain specific details regarding the methodological approach, from sampling to validation, although you are not required to test the efficacy of the potential candidates. You may choose any cone snail specie.
Note: While there are many approaches here, keep in mind that not all the cone snail species are well studied and unlikely to have a reference genome. You may also consider the use of flow charts when presenting your bioinformatics pipelines (but don’t forget to describe them in text!).
The following criteria apply:
• Prepare a cohesive story. For example, marks will be deducted if you simply list protocols/methods.
• All your arguments need to be justified, and put in the context of your task.
• The two essays may need to be structured differently, however, both need to have an introduction,
body, conclusion and references.
• Some repetition of lecture content is expected, however,lectures only provide the basics.You should support your arguments/statements with references.
• An outstanding essay will go beyond basic description of protocols, and will provide critical evaluation
of some of the limitations of various approaches.
• All references should be consistently presented using QUT APA referencing style. For more
Information visit: http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au
• All references should be listed in the References section at the end of the document.
• Write the essays in clear English, using correct grammar and punctuation. Avoid dot points,unless
absolutely necessary to illustrate the point.
• Essays need to be saved and submitted as MS Word documents.
• No PDF documents or hand-written essays will be accepted.
• Eachessayshouldbetypewritten1800-2000wordsexcludingdiagrams(i.e.,tables and figures)and
the references list. Marks will be deducted if the essays don’t conform to the word limit.
Specific formatting:
• Text should be Times New Roman, size 12 font with 1.5 line spacing.
• Page layout with regular margins set at 2.54 cm (left, right, top and bottom).
• All pages should be numbered consecutively, in the bottom right hand corner.
• All pages, excluding the title page, should have student name, surname and student number
in bottom left hand corner (font 8).
• Title page should not be numbered and needs to contain the name of the unit, assessment name/details,
student name, student number and the date of submission.
• Marks will be deducted for essays not conforming to the guidelines or if files contain viruses.
• Please note that each of the tasks will be marked as per its own CRA table below. Ensure that you
have reviewed and addressed the CRAs accordingly.