Advanced Seminars in Biomedical Sciences (PHYS90008)

This subject uses Research Seminars as a vehicle to teach students the experimental approach to contemporary research questions. Students will attend seminars presented by a mixture of departmental faculty, invited speakers from outside the department, and postgraduate students who will discuss their current research findings and describe their experimental approaches. The seminars will be chosen to cover each of the evolving research themes within the department: sensory and systems neuroscience, metabolic and cardiovascular sciences, muscle biology, stem cell and developmental biology and related topics. Students will engage with a diverse range of research questions and the experimental strategies used to address them. Students will learn to critique seminars and to focus on the scientific essentials, i.e. what question is being addressed? What led up to this question? What strategies are being used to answer the question, and how well have they succeeded? Students will also attend a number of workshops throughout the semester where the students will have opportunities to engage with speakers from the seminars in which directed questions and structured discussion will be used to engage students further with the scientific issues arising from the seminars, as well as scientific communications skills.