The assignment is for you to write a brief literature review on a particular topic of microbiology. It should be 500 words maximum, typed with double-line spacing and in either Times or Times New Roman 12 pt font. Marks will be deducted for poor English expression, spelling and punctuation. Diagrams or figures are not to be submitted ? only text. This lit review is necessarily brief, and since you are only required to cite five data papers, you could approach it as an essay. I will be looking for a clear and concise introduction to the topic, followed by a well-cited review of the field ? referring to papers that you think are important, or at least interesting.
To get you started with your literature search I have also included a helpful guide to find relevant articles, please take the time to have a look at this.
For the purposes of this assignment (and this is by no means a regular thing to do) you can cite a paper having only read the abstract. Please add an asterisk to papers such as this when you list them in your bibliography (reference list). Refer to at least five data papers that you have read in full. For some of the topics listed below, I have alluded to a review or recent paper to get you going. This paper will not be counted in the five references. Nor will any reviews you may cite. Reviews can be helpful to cite, but make it clear that they are reviews, as opposed to data publications.Many of the suggested topics are broad, and you should feel free to concentrate on a particular area. You may also want to approach the work as a historical view on the topic.
You can search for papers using PubMed at the NCBI (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). You can either type your references manually or use Endnote to build a file of your references and to print and format them: the library has courses on how to use this program (available on the DLToolkit).
For reference citation style, you can use either Harvard
Please note that this assignment will be automatically checked for plagiarism with Turnitin, so please ensure that your work is original.
Some suggested topics:
? Biofilms
? Bacterial cell division
? Bacterial cytoskeleton
? Organelle division proteins
? Bacterial flagella
? Bacterial swimming (S Chattopadhyay et al. PNAS, Sept 2006)
? Bioplastics
? Bacterial speciation
? Bacterial Genomics
? Extremophiles
? Genomics of the weird (NATURE, Vol 443,26 October 2006)
? Ammonia oxidizing archaea
? Aging bacteria (Watve, PNAS Oct 2006)
? Thermophylic archaea (e.g. Science vol 314, p1783)
? Halophylic archaea
? Origin of life
? Co-operation among microorganisms (PLoS Biology, Volume 4, Issue 9, e299)
? Antibiotic-resistant strains
? H5N1 ? bird flu
? Antiviral drugs (NATURE, Vol 443, 7 September 2006)
? Sars
? Bacterial Fimbriae (PLoS Biology, Volume 4, Issue 9, e298)
? Emerging diseases
? Bacterial Quorum sensing
? Prions
? Rare marine microbes (Science Jan 2007, Craig Ventner ScorcererII)
? Effects of increased temperatures on phytoplankton growth and primary productivity
? Effects of increased temperatures on marine bacterial growth and productivity
? Urban aerosols harbor diverse and dynamic bacterial populations (Brodie ? PNAS)
? Microbiol diversity ? see Science?s breakthroughs for 06.
? Origin of organelles (Martin and Koonin and Embley papers in Nature 06)