2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas
Turn inspirations into your passion project.
This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Do maternal medications influence fetal development?
Pregnant people are not typically included in clinical trials of new drugs due to an abundance of caution regarding effects to the fetus. However, this has resulted in a lack of information on which drugs can be safely tolerated by the fetus, especially when they are essential to the mother's health (i.e. antidepressants, antibiotics, blood pressure medication). One recent example is the COVID-19 vaccine, which was not recommended for pregnant individuals until several months after being approved for all adults, despite COVID-19 being more severe during pregnancy. In this project, the student will conduct a thorough literature search of all medications which do and do not cross the placenta in order to create a database for other researchers. The output of this project will be the online database and a written report.
Biology, Medicine
What's in my water?
Most water contains heavy metal ions such as copper, iron, and zinc. Not all metal ions are bad but at high concentrations they can be unsafe. In this project you could collect water samples within your community and measure the metal ion levels such as ferric and ferrous water. In this project you might learn more analytical chemistry techniques and explore a question relevant to public health. At the end of this project you should be able to put together a written report in the style of a scientific article or a scientific poster.
Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry, Public Health
The Effectiveness of Current ARDS Treatments
In this project, you will create a podcast series to educate listeners about Acutes Respiratory Distress Syndromes (ARDS). A large segments of American public are not trained scientists; therefore, you must translate what you learned through extensive literature research to explain difficult topics about ARDS to the general population without oversimplifying them. Research topics may include: 1. What is ARDS and what causes ARDS? 2. How do doctors diagnose ARDS? 3. Current treatment, pros and cons 4. How is our immune system involved in ARDS? 5. Is ARDS preventable? 6. Current innovations in ARDS research and treatment Additional information: You must establish criteria for this podcast (targeted audience, duration, style, etc.) based on your personal interest to create the best vehicle for public learning.
Biology
1. Scientific Review - Systems Neuroscience
Review the literature regarding a topic in systems neuroscience. Learn how to read and understand scientific articles, compile important findings, and predict the future state of the field.
Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Surgery, Medicine
Attacking the Heat Attack
I'd like to project pursued where a student pulls data from all the major health systems in the country to look at risk factors for myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). A proposal could then be made to made to tackle these risk factors such as hypertension to predict how it will reduce the number of myocardial infarctions.
Biology, Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine
Intro to using scientific datasets
Public bioinformatic data resources such as those provided by The Cancer Genome Atlas and DEPMAP are widely used by almost all researchers studying human disease. These datasets help give us insight into what genes and programs might be the most important for certain cancers and can give us ideas for what to target therapeutically. In this project, we will use the programming language R to analyze public data to answer a specific research question regarding cancer genes and dependencies.
Biology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Chemistry
How does a cell manage so much information?
Cells in the human body are constantly exposed to so much information - for example, they receive messages sent by nearby cells, they monitor their own progression through the cell cycle, and they check to make sure their DNA, RNA, and proteins are maintained and produced without any mistakes. Proteins involved in "signaling networks" ferry this information throughout the cell, but there are only so many signaling proteins and networks. How does a cell encode complex messages about its status and its environment? When all the signaling proteins are mixed together in the cell cytoplasm, how does it keep all of this information organized? These are some of the questions related to cell signaling and signaling network crosstalk that would serve as excellent inspiration for a review paper focused on a specific topic of interest to you.
Cancer
What is Growing on my Face? A Look in a Microscopic Mirror
In this project, you will learn about the microbiome and the roles it plays in our daily lives, focusing on the skin. You will then analyze the relevant literature and write a scientific review paper assessing the role the skin microbiome plays in common skin diseases, such as acne, psoriasis, rosacea, lupus etc., and how different treatments people use can change the microbiome and the presentation of the disease, for better or for worse.
Medicine
Low-cost, hand-held surgical guidance system
I have experience developing optical imaging devices to map cancerous lesions to better allow a surgeon to resect out malignant tissue, and avoid leaving any behind in the patient. I believe these kinds of systems can be created with relatively low-cost and easy to access materials - a simple smart phone may suffice! For this project we would use low-cost optical filters and a readily available smartphone camera to put together a handheld fluorescence imaging device. Then, we would employ software to rapidly acquire images and segment the locations of interest, letting a physician know there are suspicious lesions to be investigated - potentially for use in outpatient procedures in a dermatologist's office to remove skin cancers. The primary outcome of this project would be a working prototype that could be patented and further employed in a clinical setting to help increase the odds of cutting out all of a tumor quickly. Students would learn how to design, fabricate, and prototype a novel imaging device for deployment in a clinical setting.
Biology, Engineering, Chemistry, Math
Binding site analysis of potential inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 S2
Therapeutics are needed to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the S2 region is an effective target due to its highly conserved nature. In this project, we will find examples of existing inhibitors targeting this region in similar viruses (i.e. SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV) and dock them to SARS-CoV-2 S2 to understand the binding site interactions. Then, we will re-design these inhibitors to best fit SARS-CoV-2 S2 and improve upon our binding interactions in the final project.
AI/ML
Novel method for cancer treatment - ablation therapy
Alternative methods other than surgery to obtain local control for malignant diseases has been on the rise due to the minimally invasive nature and less complications. One way to obtain this is called ablation therapy which can use heat or electric field energy to treat cancer cells. In addition, ablations have shown to have an immune response that is favorable for cancer cell destruction. This project involves researching the immune benefits of ablation therapy and how it is applicable for cancer treatment.
Biology, Cancer, Surgery, Physics
Future of Biomedicine
Biomedicine and biomedical engineering is a broad interdisciplinary field with nonstop innovation. Students can pick a sector of their interest (prosthetics, diagnostics, implants, biosensors, etc.) and review the state of the field. I will help guide you to resources for background research. Then the student can write what innovations they think will come within 5, 10, 20, or even 50 years from now!
Medicine
Looking inside your gut: understanding the structure of human gut microbial enzymes
In this project you will learn the basics you need to do structural biology and bioinformatics. You will investigate an enzyme of your choice that is known to exist in the human gut. Once you pick an enzyme that interests you, you will model this real life enzyme in 3D using structural biology and bioinformatics techniques. You will then investigate and model the compounds known to bind in the active site of this enzyme. This project will help you gain skills in structural biology, bioinformatics, enzymology, modeling of biomolecules, and making figures for publication.
Biology, Chemistry
Ways to Improve Current Postoperative Pain Control Practices In Orthopaedics
The project could be a research paper, living document, or website explaining the various pain control practices and guidelines in Orthopaedic surgery. This research could build upon the field's current effort to improve and move away from heavy narcotic use, and to instead introduce ways to reduce Opioid consumption after surgery in order to and reduce abuse of narcotics.
Biology, Surgery, Statistics
The Effect of Lifestyle (eg, Nutrition, Exercise) On Human Health or Disease
In this project, a student can dive deep into the evidence on the effect of a healthy lifestyle (eg, plant-based diet, exercise, etc.) on a specific medical condition (eg, hypertension, acne, arthritis, mental health). The project is highly customizable to the interest of the mentee and can result in an evidence-based blog post, review paper, or infographic.
Nutrition, Public Health, Medicine
Learning a New Skill from the Scientific Literature
I'm happy to work with you to learn about anything you'd like in the realm of data science/computer science, engineering, health care, biology, or policy/politics - I would work with the student to identify a topic of interest and critically read the academic literature. The final product would likely be a literature review, or an explanatory product such as a podcast, tech talk, Youtube video etc. Here are a few examples to get you started - but I'm happy to work on anything you choose and help you refine the project! (1) Studying machine learning algorithms - We would read computer science journal articles together and implement the algorithms we're reading about. Then the student could prepare an article or video explaining their favorite algorithm. (2) Learning about biological research - We would identify a topic (epidemiology of coronaviruses, for example) and read journal articles together. Then the student could prepare a literature review on the studies we read, or a podcast educating the public on their findings.
Biology, Quantitative, AI/ML, Medicine
Alzheimer's Disease Group
In this project I'd help you set a group of students to work with individuals in initial stages of dementia. You'd coordinate socializing interventions in an attempt to delay the progressive cognitive deterioration brought by AD. I'd also encourage and help you publish your results.
Neuroscience
Disease Investigation
Study important trends and characteristics of a disease of your choice. We can: do a review article on novel treatments; an epidemiological study on disease trends, spread, and effects in various populations; evaluate theories for the mechanism of a disease; and more. We will go as in depth or broad as you want into the disease/condition of your choice!
Medicine
Cultural Diet & Cancer Susceptibility
Writing a Review - In this project, you will write a paper regarding the nuances of cultural diets and their susceptibilities to various types of cancers. You can focus on one culture or compare and contrast the diets of different cultures. Throughout this process, you will learn how to find and interpret data, analyze results, and how to incorporate primary literature into a review paper all while thinking critically. At the end of this project, you will have the confidence and knowledge of how to write a review based on primary research and will be able to utilize the skills you learned to conduct further research on topics of your choosing.
Psychiatry, Biology, Medicine
Skeletal and Dental Variation
The skeleton of humans, fossil hominins, and vertebrates are composed of different kinds of bones, teeth, and other osteological structures. Bones and teeth can be used to help reconstruct the deep past in paleontology, the recent past in bioarchaeology, or in the current day in human biology and forensic anthropology. Students may explore what different bones and teeth are made of, the different parts of the human skeleton & how to identify them, how much variation exists in within groups of one species or across many species, what we can (and can't) say about the past based on skeletal evidence, and how skeletal bioprofiles are created.
Biology
