Bachelor project in Life sciences

Summary

The student will engage in a laboratory-based project in the field of life sciences engineering. Student projects will emphasize acquisition of practical skills in experimentation and data analysis. Students will acquire skills in information literacy.

Content

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Manage an individual research project
• Develop expertise in a specific area of research
• Implement appropriate technologies to address thecientific or engineering problem being studied
• Conduct experiments appropriate the specific problem being studied
• Assess / Evaluate data obtained in wetlab and computational experiments
• Optimize experimental protocols and data presentation
• Plan experiments to test hypotheses based on obtained results

Transversal skills

• Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
• Plan and carry out activities in a way which makes optimal use of available time and other resources.
• Use a work methodology appropriate to the task.
• Continue to work through difficulties or initial failure to find optimal solutions.
• Keep appropriate documentation for group meetings.
• Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
• Demonstrate a capacity for creativity.
• Collect data.
• Write a scientific or technical report.

Expected student activities

Students will focus on hands-on experimentation, which may be wetlab-based or computer-based, depending on the project. Students will read and discuss assigned papers from the original scientific literature. As part of the evaluation process, students are required to submit a written report or to give an oral presentation that summarizes and interprets their results.

Total workload: 12h/week during 14 weeks (spring semester BA6) or 3-4 weeks full time (42h/week) during the summer preceding BA5.

Assessment methods

Continuous control

The mode of evaluation must be clearly defined and agreed between the student and  the project mentor in advance. Typically the mode of evaluation will include a written report and /or an oral presentation prepared and delivered by the student.

Evaluation criteria normally include as main components:

-Cross-curricular competencies

-Technical contribution

-Oral/Written reports

In case the bachelor project is made out of EPFL, project evaluation should be discussed between the EPFL mentor and the director/supervisor of the host laboratory.

[Unless an exception is explicitly agreed between the student and the supervisor in charge,] the written report is due no later than the Friday of the first week after the end of classes. [The supervisor may require an oral exam or other types of assesments depending on the project. In this case, he/she will inform the student at the beginning of the project, indicating the weighting of the different parts evaluated].

Supervision

Resources

Bibliography

Appropriate reading materials will be assigned by the student's mentor depending on the nature of the research project. The assigned reading material will usually comprise original research papers, review articles, and secondary sources (e.g., books).

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/BIOENG-390