General: Lab sessions (9-1pm, every second week) are compulsory. Tutorial/lecture sessions will be held from 1-2pm. There is no final exam for this unit.

Tutorials/Seminars: Tutorials/Seminars will be held on Thursdays from 1-2pm (starting week 1). The location is 8 Sir Christopher Ondaatje Ave (E3B) 212 Tute Rm. The list of tutorial topics will be available on iLearn.  This course is NOT taught from standard texts and attendance at tutorials is strongly encouraged.

Laboratory Session (Wet-lab): Laboratory sessions are only held from 9-1pm on Thursdays and will be every second week. Labs will be held in 14 Sir Christopher Ondaatje Ave (E7B) 349 Science Lab. The timetabled hours of 2-6pm are for you to work with your group outside of the scheduled laboratory sessions. There will be two lab groups: Group A and Group B. Group A will commence in week 2 and Group B will commence in week 3. There are FIVE laboratory sessions in total that you MUST attend. Outside these compulsory scheduled hours, you may also find you will need to attend the lab to complete tasks/experiments. This could include removing/incubating samples. You must notify the laboratory teaching staff if you require access outside of scheduled lab time. Further information regarding the laboratory session and the nature of the laboratory component will be given during the tutorial session to be held in week 1. Laboratory sessions are COMPULSORY. If you cannot attend, you must submit a Disruption to Studies request if you wish your absence to be considered. 

Other (Dry-lab): Due to the nature of the research activities in this unit, there are other tasks/activities that you will need to schedule time for both during and beyond the thursday scheduled contact hours (e.g. analysing data, preparing seminars, etc). The ‘write-up’ room (E7B 354) and notebook computers will be available for you to use during the Thursday lab session to help with these tasks (open until 6pm, by request). The laboratory may also be open during the mid-semester break to help you complete these tasks (by request).

Each student is expected to attend all tutorials and laboratory sessions which commence at 9am.  Excessive absence from tutorials and laboratory sessions will be treated as grounds for incomplete work in CBMS330.

The university timetable can be found at http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au/

Required and Recommended Texts and/or Materials

This course is NOT taught from standard texts but will depend on the nature of the weekly activities and thus reading material may be advised by your CBMS academic supervisor. Lists of other suggested reading material will be issued separately. Additional printed notes and other material will be issued as required or made available via the CBMS330 website: learn.mq.edu.au.

Technology Used and Required

You will be using and receive training in modern, state of the art research equipment for conducting your research project. This will be located in the laboratories located in E7B 354 and may include other research laboratories in the Dept CBMS. You will use database search tools including PubMed to acquire relevant literature. You will complete assessment tasks and deliver presentations including an oral talk that will require access to software such as word processing software, graphics software and powerpoint. General use computers will be provided during the laboratory session with internet access.

Unit Web Page

• The URL of the CBMS330 Blackboard site is: ilearn.mq.edu.au
• You will be asked for your username (student MQID) and password.
• For log-in or contact difficulties, contact the University Library Information Technology Help Desk. http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/help/ithelp/

The CBMS330 ilearn site contains important information including the details of the weekly tutorial schedule. Weekly tutorials are compulsory and are structured around the five following themes. Tutorials commence in Week 1.

• Review of the Scaffold of the Biomolecular Science Major: reflecting on the development of your graduate capabilities and how these have been achieved within the degree.
• The Student Portfolio / Graduate Capabilities: Seminars from the career service and other professional bodies will allow you to take on an active role to reflect and then document on your abilities to demonstrate your capabilities in the area of Biomolecular Sciences.   You will be provided with advice to prepare a portfolio.
• Research Project Skills: a practical introduction to research methods, effective writing, effective oral communication and presentations, group work, planning and organization will be given. This will be linked to your research project and the assessment tasks associated with your research project.
• Introduction to Academic and Industry Cultures: Professional preparation of knowledge, skills and values of the profession, occupational health and safety requirements, computer literacy, library competency, software package analysis, analysis of Internet tools/software.
• Ethical and Substantive Issues and Themes: that affect the world community and broad cross-sections of humanity.

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Below are brief guidelines regarding the synthetic biology research-project you will do in this unit. Further details and updates of project results will be continuously made available on the CBMS330 ilearn.mq website during the semester.

“Which techniques/skills that I have encountered during my undergraduate experience do I wish to further develop in a given practical situation?”

Designing and Building Biological Systems: Your research-project for the capstone unit will be mentored by Prof R Willows, Dr L Brown and other academics in the department.  As a researcher, you will work as part of a small team and be the drivers of your research project.  Your research project will encompass a 'Design, Build and Test' format.

• For your research project, you will have access to a kit of ‘biological parts’ (supplied from the iGEM Registry of Standard Biological Parts). You will use selected parts from the kit to design & build novel biological systems and operate them in living cells. Such novel biologically engineered systems have the potential to improve our world and push the frontiers of synthetic biology.
• The CBMS330 research project is a group effort. You may be given or wish to embrace specific tasks in your group project and, as part of the team effort, are expected to communicate/share your findings/results back to your group. You will be assessed individually as per assessment guidelines.
• Suggestions and training on how best to perform your research-project will be part of the tutorial content. Skills to help you prepare for your presentation and written report will be included. Additionally training on specialized instrumentation etc can be organised, if required for your group project.
• Thursdays during semester are the official timetabled 'CBMS330' laboratory days. You will spend at least 20 hours of lab time on your project within the laboratory during weeks (Weeks 2 to 10 for Group A; Weeks 3 to 11 for Group B).     

The weightings of the "Case Study" task has increased from 15% to 20% as additional questions added to the task. The Final report weighting has decreased from 25% to 20% (length of report reduced to 2,000 - 2,500) words. 

Labs will be compulsory to attend every second week from 9-1 pm (not every week). A total of 5 blogs must be submitted for the 5 compulsory lab sessions.