Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi. I will not be able to perform my original experiment because my mentor told me that he no longer has time to help me...

I have been trying to figure out a different approach or bleep for my science fair project, due this Wednesday, for the past week or so since my mentor told me he didn't order the materials.

However, I haven't been able to. I want to do a decent project - grade 12 - so that I can actually get a good grade for my science fair project. I can make it better later, but I have to turn in bleep this Wednesday.

My teacher told me that I have to keep the general topic I was working on, and just alter it so I only do bioinformatics or bleep.

My topic was originally going to be doing PCR on a newly discovered protein. This protein, I suspect, is very similar in structure,etc. to a protein that resists breast cancer radiation therapy. If this turned out to be the case, I would conclude that the newly discovered protein, also, possibly resists radiation therapy.

However, I can't do this anymore, obviously. Any suggestions for things I can do? I am at a loss. I think it will have to deal with bleep I can do at home with only information on the internet/books because of the time limit. I was thinking bioinformatics. I will put in the time and effort to learn it, but, in all honesty, I don't understand how to use ensembl/pubmed. There's so much on it that confuses me. I need a tutorial on what the different symbols, etc. mean, and I haven't found their "help" section very helpful.

I'm sorry this is so long. I'm just really in need of help quickly.

optimization wrote:Hi. I will not be able to perform my original experiment because my mentor told me that he no longer has time to help me...

I have been trying to figure out a different approach or bleep for my science fair project, due this Wednesday, for the past week or so since my mentor told me he didn't order the materials.

However, I haven't been able to. I want to do a decent project - grade 12 - so that I can actually get a good grade for my science fair project. I can make it better later, but I have to turn in bleep this Wednesday.

My teacher told me that I have to keep the general topic I was working on, and just alter it so I only do bioinformatics or bleep.

My topic was originally going to be doing PCR on a newly discovered protein. This protein, I suspect, is very similar in structure,etc. to a protein that resists breast cancer radiation therapy. If this turned out to be the case, I would conclude that the newly discovered protein, also, possibly resists radiation therapy.

However, I can't do this anymore, obviously. Any suggestions for things I can do? I am at a loss. I think it will have to deal with bleep I can do at home with only information on the internet/books because of the time limit. I was thinking bioinformatics. I will put in the time and effort to learn it, but, in all honesty, I don't understand how to use ensembl/pubmed. There's so much on it that confuses me. I need a tutorial on what the different symbols, etc. mean, and I haven't found their "help" section very helpful.

I'm sorry this is so long. I'm just really in need of help quickly.

This isn't my area of expertise at all, so I cannot really offer detailed help. I'm not entirely sure what you are asking for- general help with Ensembl or for some ideas for bioinformatics projects.

Googling for "ensembl tutorials" and "pubmed tutorials" produced a lot of hits, some of which might be useful for you.

http://wikiomics.org/wiki/Ensembl_tutorials
and then the "worked examples" pdf looked pretty detailed.

The science buddies site has some suggested bioinformatics project under the genomics category.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... ?from=Home

This one sounds closest to your interests- you pick a protein or a gene, and search for similar proteins and genes. You could even look for homologues of your original protein, so you past research will be relevant.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... ?from=Home

I don't know the details of your mentoring relationship, but it seems unacceptable that your mentor would not order your supplies and not tell you until the last minute. If this mentorship was setup through the school or another organization, you need to discuss this situation with them. If the mentoring isn't working, you shouldn't be told a week before the project is due.

Lastly, you are more likely to get good help with a good subject line. "Help with bioinformatics: Ensembl" is more likely to catch the eye of a bioinformatics expert than "Re: Need Help NOW Please", which seems to be the subject line of many, many posts. [Don't just repost your initial post under a new subject line though. Look at the tutorials and sciencebuddies links and try to develope a question and then post back.]

Louise