CaRES Project # xxyy

1. CaRES Project #xxyy Project title Date when you began this project CaRES intern name(s) Your school(s) Your preceptor’s name

2. Research Importance and Hypothesis State why this research is important for anyone to do, and state why you chose to do it. State your working hypothesis, for instance that exposure to x causes disease y, or that treatment x can be used to successfully treat disease y, or that a new method of investigation is superior to the old method.

3. Background and Previous Research On one slide, briefly state what is already known about this area of research. Use a list or bullet points if you wish. Also comment on your background and why you were well-suited to do this project.

4. Materials and Methods • State whether your project was approved by UAB’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the protection of human subjects, or by UAB’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), if applicable. • State the source of your subjects and materials (where did you get the mice, patients, equipment, reagents, etc., that were necessary for your study?) • Describe your study design briefly. Was it a case-control study, a retrospective chart review, an experiment, or another type of study? • State which portions of the methods are tried-and-true and which may be innovative or novel. • Describe your overall role. Did you spend most of your time interviewing patients? Or doing Western blot tests? Did you do everything there was to be done, or did you have a specific role? • Add a photo on the next slide if this would be informative.

5. Photos of Equipment or Investigators • Present one or two slides of photos if they would be informative. • Include a photo of any equipment that most students may not be familiar with. • You should not show photos of human subjects of your study, but you may show photos of your research team members if they give their permission.

6. Research Plan Summarize the research protocol (sequence of steps) in a few bullet points. Simplify your description as much as possible, keeping in mind that your fellow CaRES students may not know this area of research nearly as well as you do, and because you have very limited time to describe what you did. Point out which tasks you did and which tasks were done by other members of the research team. • 1st bullet point • 2nd bullet point • 3rd bullet point • 4th bullet point • 5th bullet point

7. Data and Observations • If you have preliminary data or final data, present the data briefly in not more than 3 slides. • If you started your CaRES project very recently – such as on July 1 – you can simply type “None” on this slide, and explain that your research began only recently and you are still planning your study and you have not yet collected any data. However, furnish some preliminary data if at all possible. • Tables and graphs are useful for the efficient presentation of data. • Create new, streamlined tables or graphs, rather than pasting in pre-existing long and complicated tables or graphs that are “busy” and are difficult to understand. Present only the important rows and columns of your data. • Use boxes or shading on your tables or graphs to draw attention to any findings of particular interest.

8. Conclusions State your conclusions if conclusions can be drawn from the results of this study thus far. Quote a few numbers or measures if they are important numbers for us to know, but state more general conclusions and the “big picture” of what you found. Indicate whether your data support the original hypothesis (if there was one) and explain why or why not. State whether your results were pretty much as expected or whether your results were surprising or perplexing. Where is this research going? Indicate what should be done next by you or perhaps by another investigator in order to advance this research further.

9. Take-Home Lessons and Career Plans • State what you learned about the conduct of research – what you came away with in terms of knowing how research is done, the life of a cancer researcher, and the pitfalls that must be overcome in order to complete research projects successfully. • State your career plans insofar as you have developed them. Will you practice medicine, work in a health department, or conduct research full-time? • Did the CaRES research experience turn you on to research, or turn you off? • Do you plan to do more cancer research in the next few years? • If you are undecided about your career direction, it is okay to so state!

10. Thanks and Acknowledgments Thank anyone, such as lab technicians, fellow CaRES students, post-doctoral fellows, your preceptor, or other members of your research team, who were especially helpful to you in starting or completing your CaRES project. [NOTE: your slide presentation should be 12 slides at most, so be selective in what you present!] THANK YOU!