Sample essay titles for Part II Genetics

In the Christmas vacation, Genetics Part II students write an assessed extended essay [3000-5000 words] which, together with the project report, contributes to 25% of the final marks.

Here are some of the essay titles that were offered for 2012/13:

• What can we learn from different types of biological networks using Gene Set Enrichment Analysis?
• Some higher plants have evolved the capacity to parasitise other higher plants. Discuss the interactions between these plants & hosts
• Why do endosymbiotic bacteria have small genomes?
• The role of centrosome deregulation in tumorigenesis & its potential as a clinical strategy to kill cancer cells by targeting centrosomes
• Discuss the limitations and potential of recent developments in haploid cell genetics
• Why do Y chromosomes degenerate?
• Modelling segmentation in the fly embryo
• The role of signalling in the control of single cell phenotypic variabilities during pattern formation in development
• Discuss the contribution of genetics to our understanding of the cell cycle, and vice versa
• Common fragile sites : What are they and are they of any biological significance?
• Discuss spindle positioning mechanisms in vertebrate model systems : Comment on how spindle mispositioning may contribute to carcinogenesis

Here are some offered for 2011/12:

• Diseases of old age are a post-evolutionary phenomenon
• How might populations of bacteria evolve? Are they a good model for an asexual population?
• What is the role of heterogeneities in gene expression during lineage specification?
• What is the plant epigenome, how is it maintained and how does it change?
• What has experimental evolution taught us about the process of speciation?
• How much can we learn about essential genes from RNAi screens in worm and fly?
• How will dirt-cheap massive parallel DNA sequencing change our lives in the lab and beyond?
• In his novel ‘The Alteration’, Kingsley Amis, describes a world where the enduring catholicism of the state has prevented scientific and technological progress. Are science and religion so philosophically opposed?
• Why do eukaryote genomes vary so hugely in size?
• Genetic approaches to mosquito control

Page updated 18 March 2013

 

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