This next project is intended to help students develop requisite skills in orally presenting their review of a specific topic based on integrating information from several related primary articles. To achieve this, I ask the groups to role-play the same team of disease experts now invited to present a joint 45-minute research seminar at a public research symposium entitled the The Diseased Genome. This course capstone project is held towards the semester's end during laboratory sessions. Depending on enrollment and number of laboratory sessions, the symposium is usually all day long or progresses over two weekdays. Up to four talks are presented in each session. I purposefully maintain low profile during the symposium so students feel strong ownership of their conference. Posters advertise the symposium around the campus community inviting all to attend (see photo). Many students invite friends and even families to their scientific meeting. Peer teachers serve as the symposium organizers and panel chairs. All student speakers are presented with copies of the TIDS journal. The Abstracts Book is distributed to all symposium attendees. 

To make the symposium setting as real as possible, student presenters dress in professional attire and a celebratory reception is held at the symposium end. Talks are videotaped and made available to students for later self-review. Students typically present a 45-minute PowerPoint seminar, but they are strongly encouraged to supplement it with other audio-visual support. In the past, students have used overheads, chalk-and-board, or have performed theatrical skits depicting either a research lab setting, patients in a doctor's office, or how biological molecules interact in a signaling pathway.  Others have created physical props (for example, French bread to represent a protein and bread knives to represent proteases) and audience-interactive exercises. One group even engaged the audience in a Jeorpardy-like game show in which the audience ended up summarizing the main points of the presentation via a quiz-highly effective! Few creative boundaries are set except to require that presentation aids must educate peers on a cell biology concept.