PH634/CM890                                 FALL 2008

Advances in Nanobioscience

SYLLABUS

INSTRUCTOR: I. Sokolov
OFFICE: SC 204
OFFICE HOURS open door policy
TEXTBOOK: N/A
CLASSES: Tuesday  2:30-3:45pm, room SN118
          Thursday  2:30-3:45pm, room SN118
MAXIMUM NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 12
 

GOAL: 
The goal of this senior level course is to learn the frontiers in the area of nano scale research and advanced materials with emphasis on studying/mimicking biological systems. The course is designed to develop skills in the critical analysis of new research results, presentations, and public scientific discussions.

COURSE STRUCTURE:
The course combines tutorial lectures and seminar presentations prepared by graduate students, post-docs, and professors currently working in the area of biological science and advanced bio-materials at Clarkson University. The course is organized in two extended periods per week. During the first period each week, one or more graduate students will make at least 20 min presentation assigned by the Instructor (related to the student’s research, if applicable). All participants, including participating professors and postdocs, should be prepared to ask questions. Presentations will be graded through a special questionary filled by all people in the audience. The second period of each week will be a lecture given typically by the participating professors. The lecture topics will be related to the research area given by the graduate students. The main goal of the lectures will be the explanation of fundamentals behind the techniques used/mentioned in the students’ presentations.

 GRADING:

All students registered with 3 credits should prepare about 6 term papers (one per each research topic/technique presented by participating Professors). All registered graduate students should additionally give at least one 20-min presentation. All term papers are graded equally.

 For the 3 credit students: The presentation is 20% of the total grade, term papers are 60% , 20% participation.

 For the 1 credit students: The presentation is 50% of the total grade, 50% participation.

The grading scale given below will be used: Above 90 points = A ,  85-89.9 =B+,  80-84.9 = B,  75-79.9 = C+, below 70 D, below 60 = F.

“Term papers” should be submitted by the day mentioned in the schedule provided.

“Term paper” is a short report on the topic. The paper explains clearly the phenomenon discussed, critically analyses the topic, and illustrates it with 2-3 examples. A copy-paste approach from existing digital sources is not acceptable. Term papers should be a succinct, 1 page long, font 11, one interval. Term papers should be structured as described in the attached template.

Seminar presentation is about 20 min long. It should be illustrated with 15 to 20 PowerPoint slides. The structure of the presentation is very similar to the one of the term paper. Try not to show long sentences in your slides. Try to illustrate your ideas with charts, plots, images, and animations. Present text information in bullets. Try to show advantages versus drawbacks. Try to formulate clearly the most challenging problems in the field.

Schedule

Week	Tuesday	Thursday
1	Aug.26    Prof. Goia “Synthesis of gold and silver nanoparticles and their applications in bio-medical applications”	Aug.28 Prof.Minko “Grafting polymer brushes on planar substrates” Supportive materials: click here.
2	Sept.2  Student presentation Venkateshwarlu Gopishetty	Sept.4 Prof.Minko “Characterization methods for thin polymer films” Supportive materials: click here. Term paper on lectures of Prof. Goia is due
3	Sept.9 Student presentation Roman Sheparovych	Sept.11 Prof. Sokolov “Various Microscopy Techniques” Supportive materials: click here. Term paper on lectures of Prof. Minko is due
4	Sept.16 Prof. Sokolov “Various Microscopy Techniques”	Sept.18 Student presentation Surisetty,Charan
5	Sept.23 Student presentation James Benson	Sept.25 Prof. Katz "Applications of Electroanalytical Chemistry in Biochemistry" Term paper on lectures of Prof. Sokolov is due
6	Sept.30 No classes	Lecture postponed to a day after Oct.14th (new time will be announced by Prf. Katz after that day) Oct..2 Prof. Katz "Applications of Electroanalytical Chemistry in Biochemistry"
7	Oct.14 Student presentation Gaikwad,Ravi Madhav	Oct.9 Prof. Melman “Bioconjugation techniques: covalent methods” Due day for the term paper on lectures of Prof. Katz will be announced later by Prof.Katz
8	Oct.21 Student presentation Lupitskyy,Robert Mikhailovych (midterm will be soon posted)	Oct.16 Prof. Melman “Bioconjugation techniques: non-covalent methods” Supportive materials: click here
9	Oct.28 Student presentation Volkov,Dmitry	Oct.30 Ed Sazonov “Practical applications of processing and pattern recognition of physiological signals” Term paper on lectures of Prof. Melman is due
10	Nov.4 Student presentation Ionel Halaciuga	Nov.6  Prof. Privman “TBA” Term paper on lectures of Prof. Sazonov is due
11	Nov.11 Student presentation Frederick,Brian J.	Nov.13 Prof. Privman “TBA”
12	Nov.18 Student presentation N. Gus (tentative)	Nov.20 Prof. Andreescu “Introduction to bioanalytical techniques. ELISA” Term paper on lectures of Prof. Privman is due
13	Nov.25 Student presentation Chinnapareddy,Soujanya	Nov.27 no class
14	Dec..2  Student presentation TBA	Dec.4  Prof. Andreescu “Applications of bioanalytical sensors in health sciences. Analytical aspects” The term paper is due by Dec.11th

Suggested format for the term-paper:

1page , Size 11, Times New Roman, single space.

Title ...

Student’s name and # …

Introduction Why this topic is important and how it can be used to advance science and/or technology;

Major ideas and results what are the basics principles, methods, technologies were presented; how it works; what it can do/measure/help to understand/help to solve, etc.

Expected future progress: is there any future development expected (if applicable)..

Conclusions/ summary what are the advantage/disadvantages of the described approach/method/technique; how do you see it in the application to your research or interest area..