Discovery Phase: what next? Co-directors contact information: Dr. Maureen Powers, Department of Cell Biology, Dr. Hank Blumberg, Department of Medicine, Ms. Michi Everett, Program Coordinator,

Have ~140 potential projects so far from both clinical and basic departments. Within a week or so these will be accessible at: SEARCH RESEARCH PROJECTS>> Can be searched by: Mentor name, Department/Division, Key word. Can browse through the full database if desired. “View full database”. Database of potential research projects. In order to be eligible for the Discovery Phase, a project must be approved and visible in the Database. If you have identified a mentor independently, the mentor MUST submit the project for approval. Keep in mind that there are requirements for serving as a mentor that must be met by the faculty. If you need to identify an Emory mentor for an off-site project or if you can’t find something in the area you are interested in, we will work with you to help find an appropriate mentor.

We encourage you to meet with potential mentors to discuss projects and find the best fit for you. Please do be upfront with the mentors about where you are in your decision so that they can budget their time. Choosing a Discovery Research Project Find an area that excites you and makes you want to learn more about it. Look for projects that are part of an ongoing, productive research environment. It stands to reason that a mentor who is experienced at research can provide the best guidance in a research project. Look for projects that pose an hypothesis-driven, focused question that can be reasonably addressed in 5 months. Find a mentor with whom you have some rapport, ideally a person whose style or approach meshes well with yours – you will spend a considerable amount of time working with this person and they can provide advice and opportunities.

Once you have decided on a Mentor and project: This function will be available at the web site once the database is accessible. From the main page at: there will behttp://med.emory.edu/FMA/index.cfm a link “ Select Research Project”. This will take you to a page where you will input the name and department of your mentor and the project number. An will then be sent to the mentor to notify her/him that you have asked to be matched to that project. Once the mentor responds affirmatively, you will both be sent and that confirms the match and spells out your responsibilities for the Discovery Phase.

After your match to a Mentor and Project is confirmed: A two page (single spaced, Arial font, 11 pt or larger), not including the title page or references, Research Proposal defining the Discovery Project is due in advance of the project. The research Mentor is expected to work closely with you on the development of the proposaland MUST review and APPROVE the proposal PRIOR to submission. For March 1, 2011 Discovery start, 2 page proposals are due by Tuesday January 18, For April 4 and May 2 Discovery starts, 2 page proposals are due by Monday February 14, The Discovery Project Proposals will be submitted online through the web site as a Word document. For this year, Discovery will be graded and late submission will impact your grade.

The Research Proposal Title page. Give the title of your project and list the investigators to be involved. The title should succinctly describe the project. List as investigators yourself, your Mentor(s), their Emory department Affiliation and, if the project is not to be conducted at Emory, indicate the research site and affiliation. Introduction/Background. Provide a description of the area or issue to be investigated. This should contain sufficient information to allow your proposal to be understood by a non-specialist in the field. Try to limit the amount of jargon. Be sure to include the medical significance of the issue to be investigated. Hypothesis: State in a sentence or two the specific hypothesis to be tested.

Research Proposal continued: Specific Aims: Enumerate the specific goals or testable questions to be addressed in the project. There will likely be 2 to 4 of these; be reasonable about what can be achieved in 5 months. To learn the literature or attend group meetings are NOT specific aims. Research Design: Describe how the project will be carried out. Include experi- mental methods, state how the resulting data will be analyzed including description of statistical analyses if applicable. Briefly state the manner in which patient consent and confidentiality will be addressed, if applicable. This should be the largest section of the proposal. Literature Cited: Give literature references for any papers cited. Use a format that includes full article title and authors as well as the citation. References do not count toward the 2 page limit for the proposal. Figures: Should be included only if necessary. These must be embedded within the text and they WILL count toward the 2 page limit. Student Role in project: State specifically what YOU will be doing.

The Project Proposals will be reviewed by a Discovery Research Committee of Emory faculty. The committee may return the proposal to the student for modifications if deemed necessary. After the proposal is submitted: We will make every effort to return proposals needing changes to the student within three weeks after submission. Revised proposals must be resubmitted and accepted before the Discovery project can start. IRB approval must be in place by 10 days before project is due to start. Online CITI training must be completed by 10 days before the project start date. If these are not in place, your Discovery project start will be delayed.

The SoCRATES course will be given during the Discovery Phase; the exact dates are still to be determined. This is a 4 half day course that covers topics such as Ethics in Research, IRB, publishing your work, etc. Attendance is MANDATORY and videotaped talks will be made available on line for students doing their research project away from Emory. For Clinical research projects: no more than one half day per week can be spent seeing patients in the clinic. Two weeks of vacation may be taken during the 5 month Discovery Phase. This can be at the beginning, the end or at some time during this period. The timing is to be arranged with your Mentor. This year you have the option to split Discovery into months if this works better with your data collection or your overall schedule with regard to residency apps, rotations, etc.

Discovery Evaluations Approximately half way through Discovery we will send a very brief questionare to students and mentors to check in and see that things are proceeding well. After completion of the Discovery Phase, a final paper is due (this year January 3, 2011). This will be an 8-10 page paper in the format of a scientific manuscript. A manuscript submitted from the Mentor’s group on which the student is a middle author is NOT acceptable. A manuscript on which the student is first author and was responsible for preparation of the manuscript IS acceptable. Case reports are NEVER acceptable. More information on this will be provided as the time gets closer. At the end of the Discovery Phase the Mentor will submit an evaluation for the student and students will be asked to evaluate their experience and their mentors. All students will present their research as either a talk or a poster at Discovery Research Day April 21, This will be part of the Capstone course. You are invited to attend the presentations from the current class in April.