Research Skills for Life Sciences BIOL5353

  • Academic Session: 2024-25
  • School: School of Medicine Dentistry and Nursing
  • Credits: 10
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No

Short Description

This course will provide students with basic laboratory skills including; pipetting; molecular techniques; basic tissue culture for downstream applications; simple cellular assays and molecular pathology. Students will also be provided with training in collating results, statistics, data interpretation and designing a research project.

Timetable

This course consists of lectures and practical lab sessions which will take place in semester 2.

Requirements of Entry

None

Excluded Courses

None

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

Lab report (1500 words approx.) - 70%

Groupwork - 20%

Presentation - 10%

Are reassessment opportunities available for all summative assessments? No

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

 

Where full reassessment is unavailable (group task), an alternative assessment will be issued.

Course Aims

The aim of this course is to:

■ Expose students to and provide them with the opportunity to develop generic laboratory skills

■ Help students design and prepare for their research project

■ Provide students with the opportunity to perform experiments and subsequently analyse, interpret and present the data generated.

■ Synthesise data and formulate a scientific lab report.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Critically evaluate the basis of laboratory protocols for research methods. 

2. Gain experience in fundamentals of molecular lab skills.

3. Critically discuss a workflow design for generating a sequencing data set.

4. Critically discuss and evaluate the results of sequencing data sets.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.