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
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
Pediatric Medical Passport
create a concise medical summary that would allow patients with multiple medical needs to share updated information with new caregivers more easily
Psychiatry, Biology, Medicine
Strategies to reduce Incidence of Colon Cancer
Colon cancer is one of the most preventable cancers in the United States, and yet is also one of the most common. There are a number of social media education strategies that can be employed at health delivery site in communities across the country that may help reduce the alarming rate of colon cancer. Much of this has to do with increasing awareness related to dietary habits, nutrition, smoking, and other social habits. I think this would be a terrific project to take the lead on.
Medicine
DIY Microfluidics
Microfluidics is a growing field in engineering that is proving to be a powerful technology for diagnostics, blood screening, genetic screening, and studying antibiotic resistance. Microfluidics uses small-scale fluid mechanics to conduct tiny chemical reactions. Microfluidics can be made simply with tape and paper, but you can even use 3D printing or laser cutting to make the devices. Possible project ideas: - What are laminar and turbulent flow? - How do you mix chemicals effectively in microfluidic devices? - How can you use microfluidics to study cells? Students can make a microfluidic platform to conduct an experiment of their own, write a review paper on microfluidics and the applications, or anything in between!
Medicine
Tranexamic Acid as a treatment for drug-induced angioedema
High blood pressure is one of the most common conditions in adults worldwide and medications such as lisinopril are commonly used to treat it. However, some patients develop a dangerous side effect called "angioedema" when they take this lisinopril, which can cause serious complications. In this project we review tranexamic acid as it is used medically to treat such patients and provide rescue therapy for drug-induced angioedema.
Cancer, Healthcare
Working with your community
In this project, we can either do deep research or do a quick survey to identify your community needs. We can include your volunteer community or neighborhood meetings to draw our analysis. potential skills: needs assessment, survey, data analysis.
Public Health, Medicine
Exploring Social Epidemiology
You've probably became very familiar with the term "epidemiologist" over the past few years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, did you know that there are many different types of epidemiologists, not just those that study infectious diseases? Social epidemiologists study the effects of social and structural factors on the health of populations. This field considers "exposures" at the individual level (e.g., education level), the community level (e.g., housing segregation or income inequality), and the policy level (e.g., policies that provide nutritional supplementation for low-income families). If this interests you, we can design a project where you learn about a social issue, review the research about how it shapes human health, and create a product showcasing the importance of reducing that social inequity to improve population health.
Public Health
A new era of medicine--telemedicine: a systematic review and meta-analysis
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an explosion of the use of telemedicine. Patients, physicians, and medical institutions have learned and invested into telemedicine. It is still unknown what patient attitudes may be towards long-term telemedicine use. There are some advantages of telemedicine, such as being more convenient, but also disadvantages, like not having human-to-human contact. This paper can be a systematic review and meta-analysis, which means that students would read through and extract data from existing publications, and "combine" the data from many studies to end up with new data that explains all the included studies. Students will end up with a scientific research paper that can be published to journals and presented at various local and national conferences. They will learn skills of literature review, research study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript review, and, if applicable, journal submission process. They will also learn skills specific to systematic review and meta-analysis, including using statistical data analysis software.
Cancer, Surgery, Public Health, Medicine
Investigating the role of Vitamin C and apoptosis in cancer
Data describing the association between Vitamin C and improved cancer patient survival is largely inconsistent. Some investigators show that Vitamin C can promote apoptosis in breast cancer cells and can be used as an anticancer therapy. In this project you write a review on the role of Vitamin C in cancer through the lens of apoptosis. Additionally, you could complete some cell survival and apoptotic assays to assess the role of Vitamin C on breast cancer. Upon completion of this project you could put together a scientific poster, write a review, or a report in the style of a scientific research article.
Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry, Public Health
Developing a project blueprint - putting together a specific aims page!
An essential skill in research is the design and implementation of experiments to test a scientific question. However, it can often be difficult to get started without a clear plan of action. This projects aims to develop student skills in thinking through experimental design and distilling down a large overarching scientific question into a specific plan with clear, actionable, and testable hypotheses and questions that are thoroughly addressed with a defined experimental plan. This will additionally teach skills in selecting the most appropriate research technique for a specific question and ask students to consider potential pitfalls and alternative approaches as they work through their experimental design.
Biology, Cancer
Height and genetics: Nature or Nurture
How much do your genes determine your height? How much do nutrition and environmental factors play a role? What gene variants are implicated in height differences and what is the role of epigenetics? We will access and analyze an open dataset on twins to estimate the correlation between monozygotic twins (who have the exact same DNA) and height. You will learn to use R to open a dataset, analyze data with statistical methods such the student’s t-test, and display your data as graphs and charts. Finally, you will learn how to make a research presentation on height and genetics, describe the research methods, and present the data in a compelling and thorough way.
Biology, Neuroscience, Psychology, Medicine
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
Creating a Science Blog
The best way to learn is by enjoying what you are doing. Do you have a passion or interest in a specific scientific area that you love talking about? Are you interested in science communication? Creating a blog (or podcast, etc.) is a great way to practice clear and concise explanation of scientific topics, making it easy for anyone to understand. This is also an excellent foundation to start creating a portfolio that showcases your work.
Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive, Medicine
Experimental Methods of Stray Animal Sterilization For Population Control Literature Review
Stray animals pose both animal welfare and public health concerns. Currently, spaying and neutering to sterilize stray animals is the mainstream approach to reducing stray populations. However, spaying and neutering is inefficient in that it requires a large amount of time, effort, and resources to catch feral animals, sedate them, perform surgery, and monitor them post-op. Several organizations have been funding research into more efficient sterilization techniques that are less invasive and more practical. In this project, the student would perform a literature review on the ethical problems that stray animals pose and recently published research in trialing new methods of sterilization. The student is expected to evaluate each new method they come across for advantages and disadvantages such as roadblocks to implementing the method, financial feasibility, and how the method could have future impact on new human birth control options.
Nutrition
High School Health Independence
Adolescents often have difficulty managing medical problems as they transition from pediatric to adult care. In this project, we will work together to help improve high school students' understanding of their role in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Biology, Ethics, Public Health, Medicine
Understanding Disparities in Human Genomics Data Gathering
To understand how populations are influenced differently by their genetic makeup, we first need to know what their genetic make-up is. Many of the existing genomic studies (genome wide association studies to name one) are done on groups that have been extensively studied. This lack of diversity in the cohorts being studied can lead to bias in data collection and our subsequent understanding of disease. Question to answer: What is the demographic make up of the existing genomic datasets used widely in genomics research? In this project you will learn to do a literature review of important papers in genomic data gathering, gather publicly available genomic datasets used in genomics research. This would include datasets from sources like the 1000 Genomes Project, UK Biobank, and others. You would use statistical methods to analyze the demographic information within these datasets, including ancestry, geographic origin, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. And finally compare these findings to the general global population. You would compile these findings and comment on the ethical implications and challenges these findings provide to genetics research.
Cancer, Public Health
Signals on the Human Body
In this project, you will do a literature review to see what kinds of signals are being measured from the human body in routine clinical care, or promising ideas for new types of measurements. You will pick one (or two) and do a deeper dive on what that signal looks like, what it measures and how to extract meaningful information from it. For example, you can pick the electrocardiogram, and write a review on what doctors use it for, or build a device using components (like Arduino) on the web, or I can send you examples to analyze using Python or Matlab in some way.
AI/ML, Medicine
Neuroscience - Student Journal
Would you like to set up a journal where students can publish original research papers and reviews in the field of Neuroscience? I'd love to help you set it up!
Neuroscience
Health literacy and COVID-19
Due to widespread information and misinformation, the importance of 'health literacy' has been emphasized during the COVID-19 pandemic. This would be an interesting topic to research.
Public Health, Medicine
