Admission requirements
Successful completion of How To Write A Research Proposal is strongly recommended.
No special requirements.
Description
Period: Sept 24– Oct 19, 2012
One of the characteristics of the current ‘-omics’ era is the rapid evolution in biomolecular technologies. The past decade has provided immense improvements for the analysis of an organism’s peptides (peptidomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolites (metabolomics), which have been extensively used to investigate biomolecular changes associated with an organism’s phenotype. Consequently, these approaches have become an essential element both in the explorative phase of clinical research (“biomarker discovery”) as well as in more focused, in-depth analysis in biomedical research.
During this course, a combination of lectures and self-study will be used to introduce these biomolecular technologies and their clinical application. Through the use of examples from literature and ongoing research within the LUMC it will be demonstrated how these methods provide new insights in clinical and biological research; this will be further supplemented by practical demonstrations at the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Unit (BMSU) within the LUMC.
Subsequently, the students will have the opportunity to perform their own small research project under the supervision of a BMSU tutor. This will encompass the whole experimental process: starting from setting up a research question and choice of experimental set-up to data collection, data analysis and presentation.
Course objectives
The aim of this course is to provide a detailed insight into the impact and application of modern biomolecular analytical technologies in biological and clinical research.
Mode of instruction
1 week lectures/self-study, 3 weeks practicals combined with self-study.
Assessment method
Oral presentation of the results from the research project and a written research proposal based on these results. In addition, the input during the practicals (such as participation in discussion, motivation) will be used for the final assessment.