Tips for Writing Your Research Proposal

1. Know yourself: Know your area of expertise, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. Play to your strengths, not to your weaknesses. If you want to get into a new area of research, learn something about the area before you write a proposal. Research previous work. Be a scholar.
2. Know the program from which you seek support: You are responsible for finding the appropriate program for support of your research. 
3. Read the program announcement: Programs and special activities have specific goals and specific requirements. If you don’t meet those goals and requirements, you have thrown out your chance of success. Read the announcement for what it says, not for what you want it to say. If your research does not fit easily within the scope of the topic areas outlined, your chance of success is nil.
4. Formulate an appropriate research objective: A research proposal is a proposal to conduct research, not to conduct development or design or some other activity. Research is a methodical process of building upon previous knowledge to derive or discover new knowledge, that is, something that isn’t known before the research is conducted. 
5. Develop a viable research plan: A viable research plan is a plan to accomplish your research objective that has a non-zero probability of success. The focus of the plan must be to accomplish the research objective.
6. State your research objective clearly in your proposal: A good research proposal includes a clear statement of the research objective. Early in the proposal is better than later in the proposal. The first sentence of the proposal is a good place. A good first sentence might be, “The research objective of this proposal is...” Do not use the word “develop” in the statement of your research objective. 
7. Frame your project around the work of others: Remember that research builds on the extant knowledge base, that is, upon the work of others. Be sure to frame your project appropriately, acknowledging the current limits of knowledge and making clear your contribution to the extension of these limits. Be sure that you include references to the extant work of others. 
8. Grammar and spelling count: Proposals are not graded on grammar. But if the grammar is not perfect, the result is ambiguities left to the reviewer to resolve. Ambiguities make the proposal difficult to read and often impossible to understand, and often result in low ratings. Be sure your grammar is perfect. 
9. Format and brevity are important: Do not feel that your proposal is rated based on its weight. Use 12-point fonts, use easily legible fonts, and use generous margins. Take pity on the reviewers. Make your proposal a pleasant reading experience that puts important concepts up front and makes them clear. Use figures appropriately to make and clarify points, but not as filler. 
10. Know the review process: Know how your proposal will be reviewed before you write it. Proposals that are reviewed by panels must be written to a broader audience than proposals that will be reviewed by mail. Mail review can seek out reviewers with very specific expertise in very narrow disciplines. 
11. Proof read your proposal before it is sent: Many proposals are sent out with idiotic mistakes, omissions, and errors of all sorts. Proposals have been submitted with the list of references omitted and with the references not referred to. Proposals have been submitted to the wrong program. Proposals have been submitted with misspellings in the title. These proposals were not successful. Stupid things like this kill a proposal. It is easy to catch them with a simple, but careful, proof reading. Don’t spend six or eight weeks writing a proposal just to kill it with stupid mistakes that are easily prevented.
12. Submit your proposal on time: Duh? Why work for two months on a proposal just to have it disqualified for being late? Remember, fairness dictates that proposal submission rules must apply to everyone. It is not up to the discretion of the program officer to grant you dispensation on deadlines. Get your proposal in two or three days before the deadline.

By: John Micheal

Bioluminescent Bacteria Could Light Up The Streets Of Paris

Paris has been known as "The City of Light" since the 19th century. Glowee

A French company is harnessing the power of bioluminescent bacteria to light up public areas.

Glowee, a Parisian start-up, plans to use bacteria found in squid to illuminate shop fronts, public spaces, and installations, with the hope of lighting up whole streets with these microbial lamps.

As the New Scientist reports, the lights consist of transparent cases filled with a gel containing the bioluminescent bacteria, alongside the sugars and oxygen they need to survive. The bacterium is both non-pathogenic and non-toxic.

There are obvious environmental benefits to using the bio-lights. Although the company has no intention of replacing all electric lighting with bioluminescence, it is a promising idea, with no need for electricity consumption and with considerably less carbon dioxide emissions than conventional means. On their website, the company says that "all the energy generated is used in the light production process. It is also less intense, allowing [Glowee] to limit the effect of light pollution.”

Presently, there are a few drawbacks to the lights. Their current design can only produce light for three days. Although the team hope to improve this lifespan, there is also the question of whether the cost and means of production could ever rival the efficiency of other light technology.

Although the cost and efficiency of Glowee remain unclear, there are some practical advantages. The lights are made of clear shells that can easily be trimmed and tailored to any shape and size. Additionally, the lights and casings appear transparent during the day.

Their inspiration came after a law was passed in July 2013 that forbids offices and retailers from keeping their shop fronts lit during the early hours of the morning in order to curb light pollution and energy consumption. Since Glowee emits a non-invasive soft light and won't eat into France's electricity network, it manages to bypass these laws.

After a crowdfunding campaign in May 2015, Glowee is now working on projects with event companies, urban furniture companies, and even Ben & Jerry’s (the ice cream guys).

But who knows, next time you’re taking a stroll through the “City of Light,” your path could be lit by some bioluminescent bacteria.

by Tom Hale

'Groundbreaking' cancer discovery holds promise for personalized therapy

Written by Honor Whiteman
Published: Friday 4 March, 2016

WE could be one step closer to personalized cancer vaccines; in what has been hailed a "groundbreaking" discovery, researchers suggest it could be possible to encourage the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells by identifying specific antigens on their surface.

In the journal Science, an international research team reveals how T cells - white blood cells that help the body fight infection - can recognize antigens that represent genetic faults, or mutations, in cancer cells.

Study coauthor Prof. Charles Swanton, of the University College London (UCL) Cancer Institute in the UK, and colleagues say the findings open the door to immunotherapies that could prime these T cells to identify the unique mutations and kill cancer cells.

Immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer - using a patient's own immune cells to fight the disease - has been increasingly investigated in recent years. Last year, for example, Medical News Today reported on two studies that hailed immunotherapy as highly effective against skin and lung cancers.

But there is one major barrier that is preventing the treatment from moving forward: the inability to guide immune cells toward the exact cancer cells they need to kill, while avoiding the destruction of healthy cells.

Identifying cancer targets for immune cells

This latest study may have uncovered much-needed targets on cancer cells, bringing researchers closer to a more precise, effective form of immunotherapy.

"For many years we have studied how the immune response to cancer is regulated without a clear understanding of what it is that immune cells recognize on cancerous cells," says study coauthor Dr. 

Sergio Quezada, head of the Immune Regulation and Cancer Immunotherapy Laboratory at the UCL Cancer Institute.

"Based on these new findings, we will be able to tell the immune system how to specifically recognize and attack tumors."

The researchers explain that as a tumor grows, a number of unique mutations arise in various parts of it. These mutations produce antigens on the surface of cancer cells within a tumor, which act as "flags" for T cells, prompting them to launch an attack.

While the T cells have the ability to eradicate all cancer cells within a tumor, they are not always able to reach their goal. The tumor can either launch a defense mechanism that deactivates the immune cells, or there are often simply too many mutations for the T cells to recognize and attack.

"Genetically diverse tumors are like a gang of hoodlums involved in different crimes - from robbery to smuggling. And the immune system struggles to keep on top of the cancer - just as it's difficult for police when there's so much going on," explains Dr. Quezada.

Uncovering the 'Achilles heel' of highly complex cancers

For their study, the researchers set out to pinpoint shared and unique antigens that may arise on the surface of cancer cells. To do so, they used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to analyze the genetic data of more than 200 patients with one of two different forms of lung cancer - adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.

From this data, the team identified certain antigens that represent early genetic mutations that were common across tumor cells.

Moving to the lab, the team isolated T cells from the tumors of two lung cancer patients. They found that their T cells were able to recognize these common antigens, suggesting that tumors contain immune cells that have the ability to identify cancer cells as harmful.

While the T cells were unable to kill the cancer cells due to the defenses the tumors put up, the researchers believe it may be possible to activate the T cells to target all the tumor cells in one go.

For example, a vaccine could be developed that switches on these T cells in a cancer patient, or it may be possible to harvest, grow or administer T cells back into a patient that can identify the common antigens present in each cancer cell.

"Our research shows that instead of aimlessly chasing crimes in different neighborhoods, we can give the police the information they need to get to the kingpin at the root of all organized crime - the weak spot in the patient's tumor - to wipe out the problem for good," says Dr. Quezada.

Prof. Swanton describes the teams findings as "exciting," adding:

While it may be a long time before such treatment is available in a clinical setting, the researchers say they hope to move to human trials within 2 years.

Meanwhile, another study reported by MNT sheds light on how tumors grow; researchers found that cancer cells influence nearby cells to increase production of a protein that triggers growth of blood vessels, which tumors need to survive.

Written by Honor Whiteman