Writing Assignment #2: Review of current cancer research

You are basically writing a summary/review of a recent (last 12 months) cancer research article. You cannot use a review article as your primary source…but should include at least one review article for an additional reference. Your research should be based on peer-reviewed journals found on Pub-Med or a comparable database (ex. JSTOR, Google Scholar, etc.).

You must use a research experimental article for your primary source, NOT a review paper. To differentiate the two, a research experimental paper has to discuss METHODS + RESULTS, while a review paper is basically a SUMMARY of recent studies/knowledge about a particular topic. Just to clarify that MLA in-text citation is required throughout the essay for any sentence with out-of-class material because you are required to use TWO articles minimum in this paper – one primary research article (which your essay will be based on) and one review article as an additional reference. Thus, consistent citations throughout the paper will be necessary to separate out your thoughts and class content from your primary research article and your review article. It can be on any topic that addresses any of the hallmarks of cancers like p53, RB or Bcl-2 except for Her2 hallmark. The paper should be written so that someone with some background in cancer biology should be able to understand. Below is what you need to include for this assignment.

1. Introduction: What is the topic being studied and the basic question/hypothesis being explored in the paper (ex: Development of a new CAR-T therapeutic). Be sure to include some brief background (should find plenty in the introduction). Do not plagiarize (this includes direct quotations and near wording paraphrases) the material or attempt to basically rewrite the entire intro…just a couple of important details to help the reader.

2. Describe the basic experiments and results detailed in the paper (ex. Effects of drug X were tested on four different breast cancer cell lines (names). Induction of apoptosis was determined by using an Annexin V assay. The results demonstrated…….).

3. Discuss the overall conclusions of the paper.

4. Your discussion/critique of the studies and suggestions for further studies

5. References Overall length: 1300 words