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
2. Neuroscience Podcast
Work on your scientific communication skills by creating a podcast series to communicate systems neuroscience articles and important findings in a way anyone can understand.
Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Surgery, Medicine
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
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
Oral vs. Oropharyngeal Cancer -- Is There a Difference?
Spoiler alert! Yes, there are many differences! In this project you will conduct a literature review on the risk factors and differences between these two very different, but related diseases. This project would culminate in applying for publication.
Biology, Cancer, Surgery, Public Health
3. Medical OpEd
One cornerstone of academic medicine is effective written communication. In this project, you will develop skills in reviewing medical literature and synthesizing that information. Some ideas: review current treatments available and describe the future directions of the fields of psychiatry, neurology, or neurosurgery.
Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Surgery, Medicine
How does orbit size and orientation relate to behavior in vertebrates?
Humans rely heavily on forward facing, binocular vision for the perception of depth and their environment. But for other animals, other senses can be more important than vision and the orientation of the orbit can vary depending on the importance of depth perception versus a wide field of view. This project seeks to quantify the relationship between the size, shape, and orientation of the orbit and behavior in various vertebrates. This project makes use of freely available 3D datasets of vertebrate cranial shape and the open source 3D digital manipulation software Blender.
Surgery
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
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
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
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
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
Can Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria Make Our Crops More Resilient?
Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria (GPR) are bacteria that can organically enhance the growth of a variety of plants. GPRs are easy to acquire and safe to use, and have the potential to be a great organic soil fertilizer. Together, we could browse the scientific literature to learn more about the benefits and downsides of GPRs. Then, we could design an experiment to measure if GPRs can enhance the growth of common plants (such as vegetables and herbs) or make them more resilient to harsh environmental conditions. Finally, we could analyze our data and present it as a poster or a paper!
Psychiatry, Cancer, Neuroscience, Surgery
Ethical Considerations of Artificial Intelligence in General Surgery
This project involves a scientific viewpoint manuscript that examines the advantages, disadvantages, ethical considerations, and future directions for the use of artificial intelligence in surgery, with a particular focus on specific fields such as surgical oncology.
Biology, Neuroscience, Surgery, Healthcare, 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
Mapping the variation in common coffee mug shapes
Coffee mugs come in all different shapes and sizes. Wide at the top or narrow, with a small or large handle, tapered toward the bottom or columnar, etc. If you were to design a new coffee mug, what particular shape would you use? How would you even decide what shape to use? To solve a problem like this, it would be useful to have a "map" of coffee mug shapes. This map would show the principal parameters (that is, axes or dimensions) that define all common coffee mug shapes and show where each of those shapes are in relation to one another. This project seeks to map the variation among coffee mug shapes to create such a map of "mug shape diversity." This project makes use of geometric shape analysis (also known as geometric morphometrics) used to analyze biological shape diversity. This project could also make use of photography and digital modeling in Blender.
Surgery
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
Socioeconomic barriers to pursuing higher education
Pursuing higher education is a great privilege that many students do not have the resources to pursue. Students can read papers on standardized testing and historical barriers to education and synthesize the information in an essay or creative format like a poem.
Surgery, Medicine
Writing a Review article
I work with each student to develop a research question of their interest into a systematic review article. I have specific experience in anesthesia clinical practice but can guide students with a diverse range of topics within clinical medicine. Students will learn broadly applicable skills in how to critically assess primary literature, how to systematically search for literature, and how to present what they find in an articulate and succinct form.
Neuroscience, Surgery, Chemistry
Public Health Problem-Solver
In this project you will choose an area of need in public health that interests you, and start a partnership with an organization to create a better solution for a problem they have. For example, working with Project Homeless Connect in SF to reliably and routinely package and distribute basic essentials to houseless community members.
Biology, Cancer, Surgery, Public Health
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
