Genetics Project Ideas for Grade 11 Biology

[dajugganaut]

Hi all,

I am a grade 11 biology student. I have this genetics project coming up in a few weeks, and I am allowed to research on anything I would like. Could you please help me and try to come up with some really good topics for my project? Thanks. (btw, someone else in my class is already working on foresnic science/DNA fingerprinting, so i can't do that)

thanks all

 

[Moonbear]

Do you just need to write a report about a topic in genetics, or do you need to do something that includes some sort of experiment/demonstration?

What generally interests you in biology? Maybe we can help you find something that fits your interest so it will be more fun for you to work on the project.

 

[dajugganaut]

well, there are several components to the project. but mainly, the end product would be a presentation (probably only informational) and a brochure for the class. my biggest interest was in forensice science, but unfortunately someone else has taken that topic. I am also interested in evolution, which has something to do with genetics (i think)

 

[drdolittle]

try to find some book on Evolutionary Computation...if you don't find a topic for your project,try to solve traveling salesman problem using DNA computing...the procedure is very simple...map the parameters in traveling salesman problem to A,T,C,G components in a DNA.Now mix the solutions and you can find the optimized path.Many books illustrate mathmatical solution for traveling salesman problem...Hope this helps

Regards
drdolittle

 

[dajugganaut]

thanks drdolittle,

i have some question about your idea though. I'm really not sure what the traveling salesman problem is. do you think you could elaborate on that a little more?

thanks =D

 

[selfAdjoint]

Traveling salesman problem.

Give a random scattering of N point in the plane, representing cities on a map, find the shortest path that visits all of them (for an efficient traveling salesman to travel). I believe the problem is as computationally hard as anything known, and hence there is no algorithm for doing it. Approximations and heuristics are used in practical cases (and the TS problem is a stand-in for some very real and practical problems). So somebody can always sell a new way of attacking it, be it massive parallelization, quantum computing or DNA computing.

 

[Moonbear]

The traveling salesman problem sounds pretty complex for a high school project, it sounds computationally challenging even to me!

You could do something related to evolution. One example would be the study of mitochondrial DNA to determine relatedness of organisms. It would be something amenable to some charts and graphs if you need to do a presentation on the topic.

 

[drdolittle]

i think somebody has helped you,travelling salesma(TS) problem is indeed a computationally difficult problem.It is to find out the shortest path of traversal...you also try to bring in Hamiltonian path concept...just think...try this reference "Numerical recipes in C"atleast this intriduces you to the topic

Regards
Drdolittle

 

[kalladin]

How about the traditionally done projects such as a crime scene investigation? You could make up a little story about one murder victim and three suspects. Maybe the victim scratches some skin off the murderer? Then you can extract the DNA from the skin and perform PCR and use specific primers to amplify it. Then you compare the primer bands with the three suspects (using the same primers) and say which one is the murderer.
You could then calculate the probability of that having the same primer bands as the bands shown on the skin DNA make you the murderer. Use maybe an estimate of 10 alleles per polymorphic region, then number of possible genotypes is [10x(10+1)]/2 = 55 genotypes. Then P(having the same genotype) = 1/55. (1/55)^(number of primers used) is a good estimate of the probability that you have the right suspect.

Of course, a simple pedigree analysis of a heriditary trait/disease would make an interesting discussion, but with all this hype about forensics...

K

 

[Moonbear]

How about the traditionally done projects such as a crime scene investigation? You could make up a little story about one murder victim and three suspects. Maybe the victim scratches some skin off the murderer?

That's all part of forensic science. One of dajugganaut's classmates has already taken that topic according to the first post.

 

[kalladin]

Haha sorry, didn't catch that.. I seem to be blind to stuff said in parentheses.

K