Nanotechnology Grant Proposal Writing
Writing grants to receive funding is an important part of engineering and scientific research.Copyright Environment and Life Science Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory; (right) 2013 Luqa Primary, Wikimedia Commons; (bottom) 2009 University of Salford Press Office, Wikimedia Commons. http://www.bnl.gov/lifesciences/GrantWriting/GrantWriting-books.asp http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Writing_Process_Flow_Chart.gif http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Students_in_a_computer_lab.jpg
Students apply the knowledge gained from the previous lessons and activities in this unit to write draft grant proposals to the U.S. National Institutes of Health outlining their ideas for proposed research using nanoparticles to protect against, detect or treat skin cancer. Through this exercise, students demonstrate their understanding of the environmental factors that contribute to skin cancer, the science and mathematics of UV radiation, the anatomy of human skin, current medical technology applications of nanotechnology and the societal importance of funding research in this area, as well as their communication skills in presenting plans for specific nanoscale research they would conduct using nanoparticles.
Some biomedical engineers focus their research efforts on finding ways to apply the unique characteristics and capabilities of nanoparticles to the prevention, detection and treatment of cancer because this line of research has the potential to help so many people. The grant writing practice is a common task for engineers in all fields. As they write grant proposals to request funding to for their research, they cite the scientific results and findings and engineering inventions and accomplishments of their research as well as their new ideas for ongoing research. Through their own writing efforts in this activity, students see how proposal writing fits into the overall research practice.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Write a basic scientific/engineering research grant.
- Explain how grant writing fits into the overall scientific and engineering research practice.