damianszyk's blog

There is a new drug developed by a therapeutical company that targets sickle cell disease. This new drug, that will be sold under the name of Oxybryta, will cost $125,000 a year. Oxybryta will be the first drug to specifically target the root cause of the sickling cell. Sickle cell disease originated in Africa that prematurely kills 50-90% of the millions born with this disease. Hemoglobin in people with this disease aggregate to from rock hard rods that give them the sickle shape. These sickle cells then block blood vessels and triggers intense pain. The sickle cells are also prone to shattering. These problems lead to kidney failure and often early death. 

A new study has come out that shows that by the second trimester of pregnancy, long before the baby's eyes can see images, they can detect light. The light-sensitive cells in the developing retina actually communicate with each other as part of an interconnected network. This gives the retina more light-sensititvty and enhances the influence of brain development. Only 3% of the cells that send messages through the optic nerve to the brain in the developing retina are sensitive to light. The other percenatge of cells in the developing retina communicate with other parts of the brain, such as the amygdala.  

The thyroid hormone results in an increase in cyclin kinase inhibitors, p27 in particular. With this upregulation of p27 inhibitors, the cell cycle is arrested at the G2/S restriction point. In order for spindles to form for division to occur, the cyclin-CDK2 complex must be activated. Since thyroid hormones play a role in an increase in cyclin inhibitors, cyclin-CDK2 complex cannot become phosphorylated in order to become active.

(from the paper)

Figure 2A shows that her2 is regulated by the delta-notch pathway. The authors came up with this conclusion by seeing what the figure was showing them. The figure shows her2 was significantly downregulated in mib^ta52bembryos compared with the wild-type embryos. They were also able to conduct another experiment to further analyze their results. In this experiment, they either treated embryos with DAPT at 6 hpf and harvested at 8 hpf, 8 hpf and harvested at 10 hpf, or at 10 hpf and harvested at 24 hpf. They analyzed the embryos and found the embryos treated with DAPT at 8 hpf and harvested at 10 hpf experienced a downregulation of her2 expression, which was what they found in the mib^ta52bmutant embryos. With this experiment and results from Figure 2A, the authors were able to determine that her2 is regulated by the delta-notch pathway.

Neurogenesis occurs 24 to 72 hours post fertilization in zebrafish. This is when neural stem cells differentiate to form neurons. The zebrafish that we are using in our experiment are 7 days post fertilization. Before conducting the first experiment, we hypothesized that we should see an increase in neural stem cell differentiation in T4 treated zebrafish due to an upregulation of her2. Since this study shows that her2 is not affected by Notch signaling after neurogenesis, it makes sense as to why not just one group, but most of the class saw a decrease in neural stem cell differentiation in T4 treated zebrafish.

When first studying the replication of DNA, it was unsure in way the DNA was actually replicated. The three models that were studied by scientitsts were the conservative, semiconservative, and dispersive model for DNA replication. The conservative model shows that two newly synthesized molecules of DNA come together while the original helix is joined back together. The semiconservative model shows that each parental strand is a template strand for the newly synthesized DNA molecule and one new strand is joined to one parental strand. The dispersive model shows that parental strands are dispersed into two new double helices. After experiements done by scientists, we know today that the DNA replication is semiconservative.

Scientists have discovered two new species of electric eels and one of them can deliver a shock greater than the highest recorded shock from eels at 650 volts. This new species can deliver a zap at 860 volts. This discovery of a new species of electric eel is the first in over 250 years. These eels are found mostly in the Amazon rainforest. It is in this region where the scientists were able to discover these two new species of eels. To determine if the two eels were the same species, the scientists had to look at the bone structure. Doing so, they were able to determine differences in the bones and were able to accureately confirm that the two eels were different species. 

Our group has decided to go ahead and follow the lichen project proposal to do. For this project, we will observe and record the number of the three different types of lichens mentioned in the proposal. After all of the data is recorded, we hope to see a lower diversity of lichen in urbanized areas and be able to detect the level of air pollution. Based on the amount of air pollution in the area, further steps can be taken to lower this pollution. 

Recent studies have been shown that your conscious memory relies on the temporal lobe of your brain. In this region, the hypothalamus is located. Researchers have found that different types of memories are stored in different locations of your brain. When wanting to recall a certain memory, the neurons changed their activity to match the location for where the memory that you are searching for is located. Tracking these different paths that neurons take to recall a memory, researchers have been able to look at these paths and are able to tell what type of memory one is recalling.

The other day in my genetics class, we were talking about cloning and the idea of cloning your own pets such as dogs and cats came up. Although I don't have neither a cat or dog, I still would be againt cloning one of my pets. Aside from the ridiculous idea of cloning your pet, the price to do so was even more outrageous. It costs $50,000 to clone your dog and $25,000 to clone your cat. We took a class poll to see what the majority of people would answer to whether they would their pet, and the majority of the class voted no. This did not surprise me at all since this was never topic of discussion that has been brought up with anyone that I've ever talked to. I guess a valid reason to clone your pet is if it dies suddenly to a traggic accident; but even then, is that what's best to do?