You are to complete an assignment of 1500 words (+/- 10%), critically analysing one biochemical method on the following disease:
Thyroid cancer
You need to choose a journal article which clearly uses a biochemical method to analyse some aspect of a particular disease from the list above. Together with other texts or journal articles you may locate, write an essay describing how scientists have used the biochemical method to discover something new about the disease. You are required to include in your essay:
1. Introduction– Use the journal articles and other resources you have found to help you write a general introduction about the topic (approx 300 words).
2. Description of an experimental method – now look at the ‘materials and methods’ section of these journal articles and choose a single biochemical method used in one of the articles. Explain how this method works generally, and then how it was used in that particular study to better understand the topic of interest. Biochemical methods commonly used may include (but are not limited to):
> ELISA
> HPLC
> Western/Southern/Northern Blot analysis, including electrophoresis
> Enzyme assays etc – do not just regurgitate details given in the article. You will need to demonstrate understanding of how the method works. For example, you could describe how electrophoresis works, or what is involved in an enzyme assay. You may find biochemistry textbooks give you additional support in writing this part of your essay. This is the major focus of the assignment and therefore should be approximately 800 words in length.
3. Results. Summarise what key measurements were obtained using the method. For example, an author may have used an enzyme assay to determine the Km or Vmax of a given enzyme. Approx 200 word length for this section would be appropriate.
4. Discussion. Summarise how the results obtained helped to further understand the area of research. Approx 200 words.
5. Reference list– Ensure you follow the APA referencing system exactly, particularly with regard to how you format different resources in the reference list and how you format your in-text citations (see www.csu.edu.au/division/library/ereserve/pdf/apa-style-guide.pdf). This section does not count towards the word count.
