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
Anxiety and Depression in High School
I have done previous work on anxiety and depression in graduate and medical students, but I am interested in how early this starts. I want to look into if there are trends we are able to pick up on now, and if there are ways to help change and better these trends.
Surgery, Medicine
Immune Cells During Pregnancy
This project will review the changes in immune cell populations and cell signaling that occur during pregnancy. Pregnancy requires a delicate balance between turning down parts of the maternal immune system to allow fetal development while also ramping up other parts to protect mother and baby from infection and disease during pregnancy. This project will explore the immunologic pathways and how imbalances have been linked to negative health outcomes.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Healthcare, Public Health
How does socioeconomic status affect appendix surgery outcomes?
We are beginning to understand that socioeconomic status (SES) can affect many parts of a person's health. It would be interesting to see how SES affects a specific surgical procedure, such as appendix surgery. The data for this project can be collected in a variety of ways, such as from existing, published data. The student would read through and extract data from existing publications, and use that data to synthesize their paper. This paper could take a more qualitative approach, summarizing the current literature and pointing out interesting findings in existing research, or take a more quantitative approach by analyzing complications of appendix surgery by zip code (to correlate SES). 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.
Cancer, Surgery, Public Health, Medicine
Surgical Treatment Cost-Effectiveness Model
2. Advanced Research Project. Students will identify a surgical problem that they are passionate about or interested in learning more about. We will work together to study the cost-effectiveness of different solutions to this problem to determine what is best for patients. Students will learn to perform literature review, quantitative data collection, statistical analysis and modeling, and manuscript drafting. Examples include limb salvage vs. prosthesis use after lower limb injury, lumpectomy vs. mastectomy in breast cancer, and open-heart vs. minimally invasive management of aortic valve disease.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Economics
Call to action - Improving access to Interpreters in the Surgery Department
Is there something in our society you feel needs to be improved, or something you can do better? This is how a lot of research ideas are born. Some of my family members do not speak English and as a medical student I noticed that they were not getting great medical care. This is how I started my quality improvement project on improving access to Interpreter Services in the surgery department. Based on your research interest, we can tackle a project together to work towards a creative final product, like a blog post, infographic, creative writing essay, or even an interpretive dance. Based on your research interests, you can build skills like data collection with surveys or interviews, reading the literature on the topic, etc. We'll work together to find a creative way to present and show off your work!
Neuroscience, Surgery, Healthcare
Mitochondrial diseases: a review of current knowledge and future research
Mitchondrial diseases come in many forms and are rare. Many of these diseases do not have effective treatment and can be devastating. In order to guide future scientists in pursuing appropriate research on mitchondrial diseases, it is important to perform a literature review to see what current knowledge already exists and reveal gaps in the literature where future research must be performed. This paper can be a literature review or scoping review, which means that students would read through existing publications to understand the current state of the literature, and use what they've read to create their scientific research paper. 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.
Cancer, Surgery, Public Health, Medicine
Stroke: The Science Behind A Dreaded Disease and The Evolution of How We Treat It
From the facial droop to the slurred speech, the hallmark signs of stroke are frightening for both the patient and his/her family. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States; however, even with its sudden nature and potential for lasting neurological damage, stroke has become increasingly treatable and preventable. Advances in our understanding of hemostasis and thrombosis have facilitated development of novel pharmacological agents for stroke prevention and treatment. Emerging surgical devices have led to increasing use of mechanical thrombectomy, the physical removal of a blood clot from within the vessel itself. Stem cell therapies hold tantalizing potential for recovering neuromuscular function in stroke patients. Throughout the course of this project, students will review the science of atherosclerosis and understand how this systemic process can progress to the acute onset of stroke. During this process, students will also explore how increased understanding of the pathogenesis of stroke has contributed to the shifting and advancing therapeutic landscape. The student's findings will be summarized as either a review manuscript or as a 15-minute presentation.
Surgery, Medicine
Methods to identify the region of brain stroke using different methods of MRI
Various different methods and image acquisition protocols exist for imaging the brain through MRI. This can serve as a crucial way to identify ischemia, blockage of blood flow, in the brain and causing stroke. This project involves researching multiple different types of MRI which can help aid in detecting the specific region of stroke in the brain.
Biology, Cancer, Surgery, Physics
Creating a 3D interactive web app to demonstrate proper yoga poses
Less than 5% of Americans live a healthy lifestyle, in part due to a lack of exercise. There are many forms of exercise that can be performed at home and at no cost. However, a barrier for many is that they do not know how to perform these exercises properly to avoid injury. Yoga is an example of a free, at-home exercise that can be difficult for beginners to perform. This project seeks to create web app that demonstrates the proper form for basic yoga exercises through an interactive, 3D animated humanoid model. The project makes use of the open source javascript library threejs and the open source digital design software Blender.
Surgery
Host on Health Disparities
In this project you will explore an area of health disparity -- whether that be in socioeconomic class, race, sex, or another population -- and then review sources that allow you to formulate an evidence-based opinion. Your project will include that opinion and possible solutions, to be featured online in print or via podcast!
Biology, Cancer, Surgery, Public Health
Therapeutic targets for neurological diseases
In this project, you will learn about how to identify biomarkers of neurological diseases from research papers, identify a potential stimulation target, as well as design a sample closed-loop stimulation paradigm. You will then summarize your findings in the communication methodology of your choice: research paper, interactive website, podcast, or another desired method. Prerequisites: 1) Strong high school level background in biology 2) Strong background in math, basic calculus preferred Optional: 1) Coding skills, in either Python or MATLAB, to implement closed-loop algorithm
Neuroscience, Surgery, Engineering
The Powerhouse of the Cell and Implications for Pediatric Diseases
Mitochondria play an incredibly important role within muscles throughout the body. I want to investigate the role of mitochondria in pediatric diseases, specifically in regards to the diaphragm and breathing. This would be a review type project.
Surgery, Medicine
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
Research article/Topic review
In this project, you will write a research/topic review that you will choose. The topics can vary from side effect of a medication, or a specific disease. We will find publications of the studies that were already done, taking conclusions and do our own review.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Chemistry
Brain Cancer: An Exploration of the Genomic Landscape and Novel Treatment Approaches
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Tumors that develop in the central nervous system present uniquely difficult problems for medical and surgical treatment. Surgical removal is often complicated by nearby brain regions important for daily functioning. The effects of chemotherapy are frequently blunted by the blood-brain barrier preventing drug penetrance into the tumor itself. For decades, our treatments ranged from "good" to "slightly better", leaving us with few options in patients presenting with advanced or recurrent cancers. The past few years, however, have seen an explosion in the study of genomics and epigenomics in our drive towards personalized therapies guided by molecular tumor characterization. Recent discoveries have facilitated the development of novel therapies ranging from immunotherapy to oncolytic viral therapy, emerging options which offer optimism for treating cancers not responsive to traditional cancer treatments. For this project, students will explore the genetics of brain cancers and how understanding molecular pathogenesis may translate to novel therapies. Students will synthesize the current state of the literature in the form of either a review manuscript or a 15-minute presentation.
Surgery, Medicine
Review Article: Exercise Training and Peripheral Arterial Disease
It is generally known that exercise can improve symptoms of peripheral arterial disease (PAD). This project can investigate the existing data and analyze how exercise has been linked to treating patients with PAD, and can seek to determine if a threshold for exercise is associated with improving symptoms of PAD. This can be presented in the form of an essay, scientific research paper, poster, or abstract. Additionally, analogous projects can be created with ideas similar to this one (ie looking at the impacts of exercise on stress, grades, other diseases, etc.).
Biology, Surgery, Public Health
Synergistic Pain Management for Postoperative Pain
This project will include a brief overview of current postoperative pain management guidelines, the neurobiology of opioid pain relief, and the burden of opioid addiction faced by patients undergoing surgery. The bulk of the project consists of a thorough literature review of pain relief pathways in the brain and research exploring synergistic ways of relieving postoperative pain via neurobiology (such as complimentary receptor stimulation) that may decrease the narcotic requirement for adequate pain relief of postsurgical patients in the future. The literature review will then conclude in information synthesis and a scientific manuscript summarizing the current state of research on pain pathways. The findings are relevant to important topics in addressing the opioid epidemic.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Healthcare, Public Health
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
Racial Disparities and Preferences in Breast Reconstruction
This project reviews differences and disparities in access to care, type of breast reconstruction, and health outcomes among women who have survived breast cancer. Comparisons will be made based on the patients' racial and ethnic identities. This project offers an excellent opportunity to contribute to a growing body of knowledge on health disparities in order to address an important public health question.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Healthcare, Public Health
Medical Diagnosis/Treatment Scoping Review
1. Beginner Research Project. Students will identify an area of medicine that they are passionate about or interested in learning more about. We will work together to perform a review of current literature, synthesize the body of knowledge, and assemble an article for the general public. Areas of focus will include history of the topic, gaps in current literature, and directions for future research. Examples of topics include the growing role of neurotoxins in healthcare, applications of personalized medicine, and the use of simulations in surgical training.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Economics