Students will have the opportunity to select a laboratory at Einstein, Montefiore, or elsewhere to do bench research. Bench research can include a large number of study approaches using a vast array of resources, including primary human materials (e.g., sera, cerebrospinal fluid, tissues, or tissue sections), animal models, in vitro cell/bacterial/fungal culture systems, or many other model systems. Students may also choose a systems biology approach, which is more computer-based than bench-oriented research. Students, along with their mentors, will identify a research question and address a series of scientific questions or a hypothesis using rigorous approaches and analytical tools. This research will likely be a part of a larger, ongoing research program in the chosen laboratory, but it may be part of a new direction in the lab’s research. It is best for the student to take advantage of the research opportunities offered during the summer after his/her the first year to begin a translational/basic science research project. The data accrued during the research project will be a part of a more extensive original manuscript to be submitted from the laboratory, with the student as either the first author or a co-author.
A student may also choose to write a comprehensive review article as first author discussing and analyzing an aspect of recently published data on a specific topic related to Translational/Basic Science. The topic must be approved by your mentor, and you should work closely with them to outline the scope of your efforts and research question. The comprehensive review should reflect a topic of significant interest to the field and be suitable for publication.
The comprehensive review article should have the following components:
- A brief introduction stating the purpose of the review and why it is an important topic.
- A detailed and scholarly synthesis of the existing published data on the topic, and the context in which these data fit into a bigger picture.
- A discussion of some of the difficulties and unanswered questions that need to be addressed going forward with this type of research.
- A brief, scholarly Conclusion summarizing the significance of what is known to date.
- A Bibliography
This should be 25-30 double spaced pages with some figures and/or schematics tying the information together.