Team Project 2007
Team Project 2007
Have you ever dreamed of being a young hot-shot entrepreneur, saving human lives, developing a new, life-saving drug, adding a useful product to the world, finding a cure for a disease, and/or becoming a multi-millionaire before the age of thirty?
Well, here's your chance...
Goal: Design a product for IUPUI Biotech, a rising Biotech Start-up conveniently located in beautiful, hip, downtown Indianapolis, IN. The product must be new, creative, and scientifically sound!
Teams: You will work as part of a team of 4 students. Teams are expected to work together - make arrangements acceptable to all members for meeting times, project goals, presentation and paper preparation. The project will have both cooperative (working closely together) and collaborative (divide-and-conquer) aspects to it. You will receive both a team and an individual grade for the project. See below for more info.
Presentation and Paper: On an assigned date, your team will give a 15-minute presentation to the class on your project. Powerpoint is probably the best way to make a creative, professional looking presentation! You can do a videotape "commercial" if you like. Humor (tasteful, of course) always adds a nice touch! Think of the audience (the rest of us) as a bunch of rich venture capitalists - how will you persuade us to give up some serious cash to fund your idea? The paper should not be written in the form of a scientific research paper, but should describe the project and the methods that will be "used" (see following page). Use pictures and graphics to make your product appealing to potential investors. Do not spend much or any of your own money to do this! See me if you need access to equipment, xerox, etc.
How do we come up with an idea? Think of useful products on the market today, new life-saving drugs that could be made possible through biotechnology, diseases where 1 protein is missing, over-expressed, or faulty, new foods or products you would like to buy yourself!! I would prefer that the product be relevant to medicine or agriculture and meet a true 'need'! (There are lots of people in need of good medicines in this world, and why shouldn't YOU be the one who provides that lifesaving drug?) In addition, it should be a 'biotech' approach - making a product using molecular biology, involving living cells, etc. Think about the scientific process - look at something, and ask questions about it! Be sure to touch base with me before or after class to talk over your ideas before you plunge in!
Hey, I have a life, you know~! I understand. This project will take both time and effort, but the steps involved (problem solving, development of a new idea) are both an essential part of learning how Biotech works and an essential part of being a scientist. As an M.D. or Ph.D., you may someday want to do more for your patients that provide the current standard of care you may be involved in a clinical research trial to test a new drug - or be the one developing new ways to treat a disease!
Don't try these, they've been thought of already in class:
Need General Ideas? Check out these web sites:
Update 2006 (and 2007): Lets help out Dr. WIlliam Hazeltine
at HGSI!
Human Genome Sciences, HGSI, was
one of the Hip, Happnin'
companies of the Early 2000s (way back then).
The Motley Fool (as well as well as many) others put a lot of stock (literally)
in HGSI.
"This business has excellent management. Several of us on the Rule Breaker Portfolio team have personally met all the top execs. Their accomplishments with the fledgling, revolutionary company are superb. CEO William Haseltine is a visionary. He, his excellent CFO, and top management team did exactly what smart companies did during the 1999-2000 boom, when investors drove stocks of anything genomic to the moon : They raised as much money as possible on the best terms available. Smart, smart, smart."
And yet, the potential
of those Heady and Tumultuous dot.com years fell short: No products,
no revenue...TMF sold off their stock in Sept
2002..., and William
Hazeltine retired in 2004.
But not to fear...the products are likely to come: HGSI
has no less than 464 U.S. Issued patents on human disease sequences....!
Surely somewhere in there is 1 $billion drug!
My proposal for 2006:
A
reverse approach: Match up a KNOWN gene sequence related to a human disease/disorder
and THINK UP a way to use it!
(1) Pick a patented Gene Sequence
(2) Click on the handy link to the USPTO.
(3) Think of a way to use this gene sequence and develop it into a product!
Who knows, if this works out well, we can shoot HGSI right back up in the big time!
Part 2: Rationale: Remember, this is a Team Project: I understand that group work initially makes people uncomfortable! I also know that people may have had unpleasant experiences in the past with group work in college. So why are we doing this?
From Assessing Student Learning:
Advantages of group projects:
Disadvantages of group projects::
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Everyone MUST contribute ideas, time, and effort during this project - from the initial "brainstorming" sessions to the preparation of the paper and the night of the presentation. Meetings should be arranged so that everyone can attend, give input, and participate in the project. Conversely, everyone on the team is fully expected to participate. Once a few initial ideas are examined, leading to one project start, you may want to assign a leader for each of these roles - keeping in mind that each role is dependent on the other!
You will keep a signed log of group meetings with room for comments that will be handed in with your team paper. I will use this log to assess team member's contributions to the project.
Biotechnology Project Presentation: More
Details (20 points of grade)
Criteria for Biotechnology Product Development
Your presentation will be evaluated and graded on 3 basic criteria:
1. Innovation (a new and creative bio-technological approach - not just a repeat of someone else's idea with a new gene stuck in)
2. Scientific and Technical Relevance (within reason)- must fit our current understanding and limitations of science. One free "Technological Leap of Faith" may be used per project...!
3. Significant Market Opportunity (why is there a need for this product? If it is too expensive or will be used to replace a product that is already cheap and trouble-free, than no one will invest in it!)
Presentation: You will present to Dr. Marrs and to your peers as if we were potential investors. Plan to speak for about 12 minutes (3-4 minutes each), with 3 minutes for questions.
Each member of the group should present some aspect of the project. As an example, one person should provide the overview, others the scientific aspects, others the marketing aspects, etc.
The presentation should be very VISUAL - show as many figures and graphs as you can while explaining the details in words. Don't just read words from the slides.
Each member of the audience will have an index card with rating scales for the various aspects of your team's presentation (see scoring sheet).
(1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 =good, 4 = excellent, 5 = outstanding).
There will also be room for comments from me and your peers (anonymous).
Your peer's responses will not influence your grade!!! However, they will be useful for you to read and learn from! You will receive a grade and a paragraph of analysis from me. You will not receive a cash investment from me (however, if you start your own company and make gobs of money, I will allow you to give me a kick-back..!)
Note: It is important that all class members attend the team presentations. Be sure to turn in a scoring sheet with your name on it for each presentation except your own. Each one of these sheets is worth 2 points. (ie: skipping a night of class during presentations will cost you 4 points!)
Biotechnology Team Project paper: MoreDetails (80 points of grade)
Your paper (one per group) should be 8 - 10 pages single spaced (parts 1-7) and include the components listed below. All the information in your powerpoint presentation MUST be included in your paper IF you want that considered in your grade (but do NOT put all the information in your paper into your powerpoint presentation!) All the information listed below MUST be included in this order in your final paper and turned in on the night of your presentation. It would be best to give one person the final job of making sure the paper is in good shape, correct spelling, neat, etc!
1. Title Page (1 page)
2. Press release (1 page)
3. Introduction (2-3 pages)
4. Research Prospectus and Experimental Design (3-4 pages)
5. Legal Department: Fill out and sign an Invention Disclosure Form.
6. Conclusion: (~1 page)
7. References Cited (1 - 2 pages)
8. Powerpoint presentation slides (6 slide per page format). Include in paper handed in on presentation night
9. Team meeting logs
Writing a Press release Tips from Marketing through the Media
and Publicity Insider:
You will create a press release for your company product. The idea is to write
up a good piece of news that describes your product using a
fairly standard format. A press release is not an advertisement, not an instruction
manual, and not a product review. It is a news story, so make
it sound interesting and appealing to readers and potential investors (and have
fun doing it)!
The entire press release should be no more than
500 words, or one printed page, and should appear in your final report just
after the title page. Since your product is fictional, and
your company is fictional, most of the press release will be...well...pure
fiction!!! It is totally OK to make up info about clinical trials,
FDA approvals, partnerships with Big Pharma, CEOs jumping ship from their former
company to work for yours, etc! Look at the press releases of some other companies
to get a good idea of how to write these up. The basic outline for a press release
is as follows:
----------------------------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For Further Information Contact:
Email Address
Direct Phone Number
URL
HEADLINE (ALL UPPER CASE): (State
your most exciting news in as few words as possible.)
Sub-headline (Sentence case): get in a one-sentence summary
of the press release.
First paragraph is the
most important!: The Press Release Lead
Indianapolis IN -- Date (i.e. September 5, 2006) --
"Think of this as Journalism 101 -- the lead paragraph that answers Who,
When, Where, What, How and So What? of the story. If the reporter were only
to read the lead of a good press release, he'd have everything he needed to
get started. There's no room for BS, hype or sell. Just the facts".
A second paragraph offering more information and background.
Remember to report the company news. Don't fill the press release with buzz-words ("cutting-edge", "robust"),
hyperbole and exaggerated claims. More info about FDA approval, clinical trial
information, partnerships, etc, can go here.
A third paragraph with more information that includes a quote
that's attributed to somebody important, for example: "It's a revolutionary
product," says Craig Venter, CSO of the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation.
Fourth paragraph: "The Boilerplate": includes history
and background information about the company. You will have to make this up
for your fictional company! Don't forget to add a disclaimer about "forward
looking statements".
End your press release with: # # #: For some reason that I don't know about,
press releases often end with three of these. Someday I'll find out why on Google.
# # #
Team Meeting Log
Critical to the success of group work activities is the work individual students take on within the group. While everyone's roles within the team may be slightly different, each person is expected to participate fully in the team project. Each team will keep a log documenting the times they met as a group, who attended, and how peole who were not attending a meeting were participating (ie via e-mail). Turn this log in with your final paper.
| Date........ | Members present........................... | Comments (progress, decisions, etc).................... |
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