BIO401 Evolutionary Medicine Project Guidelines Name:___________________________________
Evolutionary medicine is not a field of science, like plant biology, microbiology, or biochemistry. Instead it is an approach that integrates evolutionary biology into healthcare and medicine. It is a rapidly growing field that relies on the concepts of evolutionary biology to understand, prevent, and treat disease. In this project you will select a health concern/disease and apply the concepts of evolutionary biology to your topic. This project will be written in a scientific format, like a scientific paper. Scientific papers are essential for compiling information or original research and distributing it to others.
Here are a few possible topics you can select for your Evolutionary Medicine Project; risky behavior in adolescents, obesity, binge eating, infanticide, obsession and social media, cardiovascular disease, self-induced vomiting, self-starvation in response to stress/fear etc.
Please follow the formatting guidelines for the project:
General Formatting Guidelines: Your paper should be ~4 pages in length. The paper must be single spaced with times new roman, 12-point font and 1-inch margins.
The project should include the following sections:
Topic/Title: Please pick a concise title for your paper. The title should be short, descriptive, and refer specifically to your project. For example, if you select obesity you would have a title like “The evolutionary aspect of obesity” or “The practicality of obesity from an evolutionary perspective.”
Introduction: This section provides background information on the project topic. This section will tell the reader what topic the paper will focus on and why it is important in society and healthcare. In this section you want to address the scope and the aims of the paper. Be sure to cite sources in this section of the paper as you will use data from other scientific studies and textbooks to provide the background on your topic. This section should be ~ ½ a page in length.
Mechanism: This section should provide sufficient information on the anatomy, physiology, and regulation of your topic. You will also need to discuss how the health concern/disease works to accomplish its function. We will focus on the mechanism in the human body as this is most relevant to healthcare and medicine. I would suggest having a figure in this section that focuses on the anatomy/physiology/regulation of your topic as this provides an easy way to relay a pathway/process to the reader. In this section you must cite your sources as you are not performing any original research on your topic. This section should be ~ ¾- 1 page in length.
Ontogeny/Development: In this section you will want to discuss how the health concern/disease develops in an individual. Be sure to describe the health concern/disease at life stages and the mechanism that controls its development. This section is different than your mechanisms section. In this section you want to address the developmental differences that are behind the issue. Again, this section will have a heavy focus on anatomy & physiology in humans. I would suggest having a figure on the ontogeny/development of your topic as this provides an easy way to relay a pathway/process to the reader. In this section you must cite your sources as you are not performing any original research on your topic. This section should be ~ ¾-1 page in length.
Adaptive Significance: In this section you want to address how the health concern/disease interacts with the environment to influence fitness in ways that explain the traits form. You want to focus on the usefulness of the health concern/disease and how it aids an organism in survival or provides an environmental advantage to improve fitness. Be sure to address why this concern/disease may have developed, what benefits it has to the organism, how it is passed on to offspring etc. You will also want to research your topic to determine its presence in other organisms besides humans. This section should be ~1/2 a page in length.
Phylogeny: In this section you address the phylogenetic history of the health concern/disease. Essentially, you will be addressing the presence of the health concern/disease in other organisms besides humans. You will want to build a phylogenetic tree for your topic using the information from your adaptive value section to show which organisms also demonstrate this health concern/disease. You must include the phylogenetic tree for your trait in this section with a few sentences describing the relationship of organisms in the tree with your selected trait. This section should be ~1/2 pages in length.
To build your phylogenetic tree you use this site: https://phylot.biobyte.de/ You will enter the scientific name of your organism into the Tree elements box. Use commas but no spaces between your organism scientific names. For example, your entry should look something like this:
Homo sapiens,Aepyceros melampus,Oryctolagus cuniculus,Odocoileus virginianu
Once you have entered the species names you will click on the button Visualize in iTOL on the bottom right side of the screen.
It will take you to a page that will display your phylogenetic tree like the example below. Screen shot this tree and paste the image into the body of your project. You can use the controls on the right side of the screen to change some of the features of your tree.
Alternatively, you can use the NCBI site to build your tree, but it is a bit trickier to get a nice clear tree at the end to put in your project. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/CommonTree/wwwcmt.cgi You can enter the common names of your organisms, and then click on save as text tree.
References: You must use and cite scientific references in this project. I recommend having at least ~4-5 sources in your paper. This will provide you with enough breadth and diversity on the topic. You are to use ONLY scientific sources in your project, such as textbooks, journal articles, scientific research papers, scientific review papers etc. I will NOT accept websites like WebMD, Wikipedia, livestrong, etc. as sources. These are not suitable scientific sources for scientific publications. In order to find suitable scientific sources you should use Galileo which is accessed from the TU library website, Pubmed which is available online through the website https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ where you can search studies published in scientific journals, or Google scholar which will search only scientific studies online. You may use primary sources (specific studies published in scientific journals) or secondary sources (a review paper published in a scientific journal or textbooks), but make sure that the source is suitable for your topic.
You will use the CSE style for your references. The CSE stands for the Council of Science Editors and this type of formatting is used primarily in physical sciences, life sciences, and mathematics publications.
The correct formatting for books is as follows:
1. Sherman, C. The invisible Web : uncovering information sources search engines can’t see. Medford, N.J.: CyberAge Books, Information Today; 2001. 439 p.
2. Voet D, Voet JG. 1990. Biochemistry. New York: J Wiley. 1223 p.
The correct formatting for a journal article:
1. Cox J, Engstrom RT. Influence of the spatial pattern of conserved lands on the persistence of a large population of red-cockaded woodpeckers. Biol Conserv. 2001; 100(1): 137-150.
2. Meise C.J., Johnson D.L., Stehlik L.L., Manderson J., Shaheen P. (2003) Growth rates of juvenile Winter Flounder under varying environmental conditions. Trans Am Fish Soc 132(2):225-345.
You must cite the sources you used in the text of the INTRODUCTION AND DISCUSSION sections of your paper. In this paper we will use the citation-sequence system. In this system you will number your sources in the reference list by the order in which you refer to them in your project. This means that the in-text citation #1 refers to the first source mentioned in your text, the second is #2, and so on.
Here is an example of the citation-sequence system:
Due to the continuing rise of the worldwide prevalence of allergic diseases the development of strategies for early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of allergic sensitizations becomes an increasingly important issue [1]. The development of IgE responses to allergen molecules, a process termed “allergic sensitization” seems to occur early in life whereas IgE-reactivity profiles of adult allergic patients do not change in a relevant manner [2,3].
Reference list:
1. Wuthrich B, Schmid-Grendelmeier P, Schindler C, Imboden M, Bircher A, Zemp E, Probst-Hensch N. Int. Arch. Allergy Immunol. 2013;162:143–148.
2. Kulig M, Bergmann R, Klettke U, Wahn V, Tacke U, Wahn U. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 1999;103:1173–1179.
3. Lupinek C, Marth K, Niederberger V, Valenta R. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 2012;130:1418–1420. e1414.
Here are several sites on the CSE format that you will find useful when making your reference list.
https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/teacher-resources/style-guide-resources-mla-apa-cse-chicago/#CSE
https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/documentation/doccse/
