Genetics Progress

This series of course curriculum offers students suggestions and support from faculty members outside their host labs and helps students to grow as an independent researcher. In these courses, progress committee members, who are specialists of other research fields, provide comments on student’s research projects and advice on presentations and publications of their research. The progress committee can also offer various help to students: solve problems they are facing during their academic life; prepare for the future career; provide objective opinions to break a deadlock in research; mediate a conflict of opinions inside and outside the lab; etc.

Overview of Genetics Progress

The activities and assignments differ depending on the grade year. By completing each assignment of the entire curriculum one by one, students develop their research ability and skills that are necessary to become an independent researcher. From the D1 year to the D5 year, students are engaged in one main event per year with specific objectives. They also make one poster presentation every year (except for the D5 year); students thus have an opportunity to report their individual research progresses every 6 months.

Please click the contents in the table and look over the syllabus.

Grade year		D1		D2		D3		D4		D5
Progress		IA	IB	IIA	IIB	IIIA	IIIB	IVA	IVB	VA	VB
Time	April enrollee	Jun-Jul	Final Thu Feb	Final Thu Aug	Dec-Jan	Jun-Jul	Final Thu Feb	May-Jun	Final Thu Feb	Jun-Jul	Nov
	October enrollee	Dec-Jan	Final Thu Aug	Final Thu Feb	Jun-Jul	Dec-Jan	Final Thu Aug	11-12月	Final Thu Aug	Dec-Jan	May
Content		one-to-one interview	poster presentation	poster presentation	D2 report open presentaion	one-to-one interview	poster presentation	D4 report closed meeting	poster presentation	NIG colloqium	pre-exam of phD thesis manuscript
The number of committee members		1		4		1		4		4

Selection of Progress Committee Members

Students are responsible for selecting their progress committee members. Choose members whom you can count on for help in different scenes. For new students who are unfamiliar with NIG faculty members, it is a good idea to consult your supervisor as well as senior students for advice on selection. The number of committee member varies depending on the academic year of the student (freshman, sophomore, junior, etc. see the table). Students can change the committee member in accord with the direction of their research.

Progress committee chair must be a professor or an associate professor outside the student’s host lab. Tenure-track associate professors at the Center for Frontier Research can be elected as a committee member but not as the chair. While it is common to select one’s sub-supervisor as the committee chair, this is not a mandatory rule. The formal role for the sub-supervisor is to replace the supervisor in the case that the person can no longer supervise the student due to unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, expected roles of the committee chair and the sub-supervisor differ slightly.

Assistant professors can be a progress committee member but not as the chair. Upon electing an assistant professor, please obtain consent from him or her in advance. A faculty member who is actively engaging in the research of your interest will likely provide practical comments and useful suggestions. Advanced consent is unnecessary upon selecting associate or full professor.

Postponement or Cancellation of Genetics Progress

If a student wants to decline or postpone a progress for some reasons, they must contact the progress chair and the General Affairs/Education team. Only when the progress committee gives a special permission, a student can obtain credits for the Life Science Progress with alternative assignments or activities such as an individual interview or a report submission.