BHS014-6 Applied Microbiology Assignment 1 Brief 2025/26 | University of Bedfordshire

Unit learning outcomes of BHS014-6

1. Demonstrate the following knowledge and understanding
Evaluate the conceptual and methodological advances in applied microbiology, and develop a critical appreciation of the potential and limitations of exploiting microorganisms for industrial and biotechnology applications including genomic, and multi/interdisciplinary approaches.

2. Demonstrate the following skills and abilities
Critically assess the literature relevant to the application of microbiology in industry, and identify key principles and methodologies applicable to specific contexts, also recognizing the applicable risks, and ethical issues as well as the areas requiring further research and development.

What am I required to do in this assignment?

You must submit a portfolio report of 5000 words (excluding references and figure legends). The portfolio should contain three entries and submitted to BREO as single PDF file:

Entry 1: Manipulation of microbes and probiotics (1500 words, 30% of overall grade): This entry relates to the activities in Practical 1 and 2, including bacteria transformation, preparation of agar plates, bacteria streaking to isolate single colonies, and Yakult viable cell count.

Entry 2: Industrial application of microbes (1500 words, 30% of overall grade): This entry relates to the activity assay to detection of cellulose degrading bacteria.

Entry 3: Virtual gene cloning and recombinant protein (2000 words, 40% of overall grade): This entry relates to analysis of IPTG-induced recombinant protein by SDS-PAGE and Coomassie Blue staining activities in Practical 3, and the virtual gene cloning discussed in tutorial 5.

Each entry should include an introduction (with aims), methods, your laboratory results, discussion and references.

You must ensure that your assignment is written in your own words without help from paraphrasing tools or third-party (including Al-generative tools).

What do I need to do to pass? (Threshold Expectations from UIF)

In order to pass this assessment, you will need to:

• Demonstrate key knowledge of advanced scientific principles and practical skills in applied microbiology.
• Demonstrate the ability to analyse and interpret applied microbiology data.

Communicate your data professionally in academic writing.

How do I produce high quality work that merits a good grade?

This assignment brief explains the basic structure and requirements of your submission. Further specific guidance will be provided in the practical and tutorial sessions.

A high-quality report should:

Contain a title page giving the assessment title, unit code, assessment number, your student number and your final word count (excluding references and figure legends).

Demonstrate good clarity of academic English.

Each report should be organized in the structure below:

Introduction: This section should summarise the published background literature relevant to the study. They must explain what your experimental studies were about and place them in the context of published literature.

Aim and objectives: They should clearly state the scientific aim(s) of the studies.

Methods: You should briefly summarise how the experiments were performed.

Methods should be written in the past tense.

They should be written in paragraphs, not bullet or numbered points as in your protocol.

They should contain sufficient detail to allow someone else to reproduce your experiments but avoid unnecessary detail.

Results: You should include experimental data, which may be presented in text, tables, graphs, diagrams, or photographs as appropriate for your studies. You should also include written text to explain what your findings are and what is shown in the figures and tables.

Figures and tables should be separately numbered and be clearly labelled with figure legends.

The main text should describe your findings/observations and may state brief conclusions.

Data should be cited in the main text.

Discussion: You should interpret your results, explaining what they indicate. You should evaluate the quality of your data and the reliability of the experimental technique used. You should identify any problems with the technique or data (if any exist) and suggest possible solutions. You should also compare your findings to previously published findings or your expected findings, and place your results in the context of published scientific literature. Finally, conclude what have you gained from this task, does it directly reflect and enhance your understanding of this unit.

Reference List: Each report should include a minimum of five references from the scientific literature. All information from the literature should be cited/referenced appropriately using UoB Harvard format.

How does this assignment relate to what we are doing in scheduled sessions?

• Lectures and tutorials will cover content related to this assignment. In the scheduled lecturer and tutorial sessions, students learn the theoretical part of this assignment such as transformation, industrial application of microbes, gene expression and heterologous expression system.

This practical session will provide an opportunity to apply their knowledge and understanding and skills in action.

Tutorial classes will be used to discuss what is expected from individual portfolio entries. The example of Entry 3 will be discussed in a tutorial session.

This assessment will allow you to demonstrate your understanding of relevant microbiology techniques in the context of overexpression and purification of recombinant proteins using bacterial expression vector and E. coli (DE3) host cells, manuplation of microbes and the industrial application of microbes.

Your submission should demonstrate your capability to appropriately present and analyse scientific data, by using scientific language and IT resources to effectively communicate your findings.

How will my assignment be marked?

Your assignment will be marked according to the threshold expectations and the criteria on the following page. You can use them to evaluate your own work and consider your grade before you submit.