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Faculty of Mathematics and Natural SciencesInstitute for Biological Physics

Advanced Practical Course M in Biophysics

An overview page with all information about the Practical Course M is located on the website of the Physics Department.

If you have questions regarding the Practical Course M, please contact Prof. Dr. Tobias Bollenbach (t.bollenbach(at)uni-koeln.de, Tel. 1621) or Prof. Dr. Berenike Maier (berenike.maier(at)uni-koeln.de, Tel. 8046).

Registration

You can sign up at the Practical Courses database.

If you are not yet registered in the database through earlier participation in Practical Course A or B, you can create a new account with the function "Sign up".

In particular, you can find the registration deadlines under "Events" in the database.

Topics

The experiment number corresponds to the respective identifier in the database. All experiment appointments must be performed as a group after free arrangement with the responsible assistants. Once you have communicated with the assistants to the point that you can exclude irresolvable scheduling conflicts, send a list of all experiments you are planning to do to Gerrit Ansmann (gansmann(at)uni-koeln.de), so they can be entered into the database. All attestations (one for each successful performance, one for each correct report) are documented in the database by the assistant and can be viewed there with the function My Appointments.

General Rules

  • Work in groups of two to three students.
  • Four experiments
  • Make your appointments directly with the supervisors.
  • Grade: exam at the end of the semester
  • Content: theory, discussion of results, one paper specified in the instructions
  • Safety instruction is mandatory.
  • For each experiment: 
    • Understand theory and sequence of experimental steps before coming to the lab.
    • Discuss theory and work plan before starting the experiment with your supervisor.
    • Perform experiments.
    • Analyze your results and coordinate with your supervisor how much you can do at home.
  • Write-up includes: 
    • introduction / theory (2 pages) including goal (1 paragraph)
    • results and discussion (4–8 pages)
    • summary (1 paragraph consisting of 1 sentence goal, 3–5 sentences results, 1 sentence conclusion)
    • Make sure that for graphs all axes are labeled and that each result is explained in words not only as a graph.
  • Deadlines:
    • The entire course including accepted versions of your write-up has to be finished during the semester. (The exam may be taken later.)
    • Each write-up must be submitted three weeks after the experiment.
    • The supervisors will potentially return corrections and you are required to return the revised write-up within three weeks.
    • The supervisors will inform you once your write-up has been accepted. You may also check your status on the database.
  • The entire group is responsible for submitting acceptable reports within the deadlines.
  • Please make sure that each member of the group has a copy of all data in case one group member becomes unavailable.