Blogs

            Your core values of Courage, Achievement, Responsibility, Respect, Integrity and Transparency are ideals that I try to embody in my everyday life, especially responsibility. I take great pride in completing projects on time and in a punctual manner. Often, especially working in groups, I set up a time line of tasks to stay on top of the project and never lose sight of the end goal. For example, while working on a Microbiology project this semester I organized a layout that allowed my team mates and I to work at our own pace while contributing to the over all project and meeting the deadline. Upon review of the final project we were given an A and the professor even applauded our diligence as she could see the steps taken to produce the presentation.

            In conclusion, I feel as though I would be an excellent fit for your company. Not only do I have the experience you require, I like to believe that I embody your core values and would be a great asset to your team. Thank you for your time and I am looking to hear from you soon about hopefully setting up an interview.

            I am very excited to apply for a position in your Bioprocessing and Cell Therapy group. During the summer of 2018 I had the pleasure of interning with your team and ever since then I have taken the skills I learned and applied them in an academic setting to bolster my knowledge of Biology and more specifically Microbiological research. Recently, I have read that your company is working on a project involving the genomic editing of gut bacteria to benefit malnourished children. During the semester I learned about the nature of the gut and the different facets of such an expansive microbiome. I find it fascinating that your team is pioneering research into such an intricate field that has yet to be fully explained.

            In your job listing it says that you are looking for someone who has experience working with bioreactors as well as other biotechnology involving cell growth. During my time interning, I was fortunate enough to get experience working with the 50-liter bio reactor so that I could proliferate a colony of mesenchymal stem cells over a period of 90 days. I was able to grow and characterize over 5 billion cells which are now being used by your company for other projects. I also was tasked with growing the same cells in a planar environment using Corning T-150 flasks which resulted in the colony expanding to 9 million cells.  

Both Selachains and batoids are considered Elasmobranchs, a subclass of the Chondrochtyes. Both of these fishes have cartilaginous skeletons and plated gills. Additionally both have placoid scales, which are similar in strucutre to teeth, giving them a rough sand-paper like skin. Since these groups are a subclass of elasmobranchs, they also have polydenton dentitions. That is to say there are many rows of replacable teeth.

Selachians include sharks. All sharks have 5-7 gill slits on the side of their head. These also have no swimbladder. Rather they rely on their large pectoral fins and oily livers to maintain bounency. Some sharks have the ability to osmoregulate, and can occupy a large range of ecosystems, marine or otherwise.

Batoids are fish such as rays and skates. These are dorsal ventrally flatened fish with pectoral fins fused to the side of their heads. Rather than having their gills on the side of their head, their gills are on located ventrally. Rays are viviporous and give birth to live young, while skaes are oviparous and lay eggs.

The Lecture that Peter Hotez presented on the rise of poverty related neglected diseases was eye-opening and intriguing. It was packed with information that I had never known and had changed my perspective on the way American organizations are handling global healthcare. Hotez introduced us to the previous eight global goals that had been published, in which three goals had involved healthcare improvement. One of the goals contained the idea of reducing HIV/AIDS, malaria, and “other diseases”. Hotez took it into his own hands to define the ambiguity within the statement: “other diseases”. He defined these diseases as tropical infections that were prevalent in poverty stricken communities. Hotez and his team then sought out ways to provide vaccinations to those in need in an efficient and cheap manner. Their team was able to fundraise over one billion dollars in order to research and act on the behalf of saving the lives of the poor from these infectious diseases. They were able to send large shipments of vaccines to non-healthcare professionals, such as teachers, to administer to people for only forty cents a person. This lead to an overall decrease in cases of almost every disease that a vaccine was provided for in these areas.

The cross bridge cycle is responsible for the contraction of muscles. The sarcomere is what actually contracts. A muslce is made up of myosin and actin. Actin is the thin filament and myosin is the thick filament. The muscle recieves a stimulus from a nerve cell that results in the release of calcium from an internal storage within the muscle. The increase of calcium concentration within the microfibules is what allows the cross bridge cycle to take place. The cross bridges cannot form without calcium because calcium is what allows the active sites to become exposed and without exposed acctive sites, the bridges cannot form. Calcium binds to troponin and as a result troponin changes it's shape. This shape change alters the positioning of the tropomyosin which exposes the active sites. The cross birdges then form. In the presence of calcium, the myosin binds to the actin. The next step is the powerstroke which is when the myosin head pivots, pulling the actin to the center of the sarcomere. ADP is released in this step. In the next step, ATP binds which triggers detachment. The cross bridge detaches as a result of atp hydrolysis. During the last step, ATP hydrolysis the myosin head is coked. The use of energy from ATP to ADP is used to rebind. This is one full cylce of the cross bridge cycle. 

There are two factors that are necessary in cross bridge formation. These two factors are an elevated concentration of calcium because cross bridges cannot form without calcium changing the shape of troponin. An adequate supply of ATP is also necessary becaue this proces requires energy. 

The angle of the camera as well as the position of the person holding the camera led to differences in the photographs used for Panel A and Panel B. Since the replicated Panel B has the ceiling of the building, it seems like my partner’s camera was pointed upward while mine was straight on. Additionally, my partner did not include as much of the rug, wall, or doorway as I did. This is most likely due to them standing closer to the Morrill 4 sign than I did. I could have been clearer when stating how far away from the rug I was standing in my methods. In the duplicated Panel A, the photograph is focused on the radiator pipe rather than the spider web. While I did state to take the photo 6 inches away from the wall while facing the doorway, they may not have completely understood what I meant.

In the crossing of the mutant strands, there were fewer colonies observered than was expected on the control plate (one-hundred and fifty). This might have been due to a dilution error. For the MV plates, there were approximately ninety colonies observed. The reason for this proportion colonies may be due to not plating the same number of cells on the control plate as there should have been. Theoretically, there should have had a 20% survival rate if the optimal exposure was achieved. For the MV plate, the survival rate was 3.3%. This is significantly lower than expected and might be due to errors as mentioned above. There were no mutant phenotypically red colonies observed. This was expected, as you need about 10,000 surviving yeast cells for each mating type (3) to observe surviving mutant colonies that express a red color. The survival rate for our control plate was 6%. This was also much lower than the 20% expected survival rate, for reasons similar to the first plate.