Doug Brutlag

For the first assignment, I would like you to write me a short letter of introduction about yourself so I can get to know you. Please include a short history of your academic and personal background including both high school and university. Include any research, internship or volunteer work that you have done. I would also like to know what your future plans are including graduate or medical school, industry, etc. If you have any personal information such as inherited diseases among your family or friends that you would like to share with me please be assured that our correspondence is completely private and I will not reveal any personal information to others.

Then please tell me why you wanted to take this course and what you are hoping to get out of it. While most of the course is a series of fundamental lectures on genomics and medicine, the homework assignments can all be tailored to your personal interest. For example the next homework assignment is to prepare a case presentation on an inherited disease of interest to you. After that we will ask you to analyze a human gene for its biological and molecular function. Again, since you choose the gene, it can come from a personal or research interest of yours. Similarly you will be able to choose a complex disease for the GWAS assignment, a Mendelian gene of your choice for the causal mutation homework and a stem cell therapy of a disease of your choice. The Final project will be even farther ranging in which you may cover any topic related to genomics and medicine, even one not covered in the lectures. This will give you great opportunity to study a problem of interest to you in depth.

Please send your introductory letter to me via email by the due date. You may just send an email or you may attach a Word, HTML or PDF document to an email message. Please send the message to brutlag@stanford.edu.

© Doug Brutlag 2015