Table 1.

Stage goals, activities, and focal skills associated with each phase of the project.

CUREs	Phase	Month	Activity	Details
#1	Planning	1–2 January to February 2021	Reading primary literature Propose hypotheses Experimental design Online science communication with instructors	Search suitable clinical and laboratory technology to detect vaginal microorganism species community. Study culture of microorganism community techniques and high-through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to identify vaginal microorganism species between premenopausal and postmenopausal women.
#2	Implementing	3–6 March to June in 2021	Collect vaginal samples in the outpatient department
			General bacterial culture techniques	Identify the 10 most abundant vaginal microorganism genera between the premenopausal and postmenopausal groups.
			16S rRNA gene sequencing	PCR amplification, OTU and community taxonomy system analysis at the genus level, COG-based functional structure distribution to identify species classification and analysis of colony differences at genus level.
#3	Summarizing	7–10 July to October in 2021	Data interpretation	Describe the outcome of abundance and diversity of microbial communities through 16S rRNA analysis. Compare differences in microorganism diversity in female vaginal fluids between the premenopausal and postmenopausal group.
			Statistical inference	Mann-Whitney U-tests and Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate correction for non-parametric data; paired t-test, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA for parametric data
			Graphical inference
			Collaborative writing manuscript
#4	Feedback	11–12 November to December in 2021	For Students and instructors	Exposing feedback loops, facing obstacles, multiple connections among outcomes.