Writing in Biology - Section 1

The RTK-PI3 kinase-Akt pathway can be mutated in a few ways so that it is always "on", even in the absence of an external signal. This pathway inhibits apoptosis. One mutation is a loss of function in Bad, which usually binds the inhibitory protein Bcl2. If Bad cannot bind to Bcl2, Bcl2 can always inhibit apoptosis. Another mutation is a gain of function in Akt. If Akt was always active, it would not need the upstream parts of the pathway to be turned on, and it was always phosphorylate Bad, letting Bcl2 inhibit cell death. The third utation that would lead to this pathway always being on is a lss of function in PTEN, the phosphatase that removes a phosphate group from PIP3. If PIP3 never lost a phosphate, it would always be active, and could dock Akt and PDK1 to the membrane, inititating the rest of the pathway. 

Nglazi, Mweete D, et al. “The Impact of Mass Media Interventions on Tuberculosis Awareness, 

Health-Seeking Behaviour and Health Service Utilisation: a Systematic Review Protocol.” BMJ Open, BMJ Publishing Group, 14 Jan. 2014, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3902379/.

This peer-reviewed journal analyzes the impact of mass media in Tuberculosis intervention. The authors argue that the use of mass media is one of the important strategies in communicating behavioral change in relation to TB prevention and treatment. As a result, the authors conducted a systematic review on the effects of mass media interventions on TB awareness. To do this, the authors performed electronic searches in PubMed, Scopus and other databases, along with manual searches. On the whole this is thorough and well written peer reviewed article on the impact of mass media on tuberculosis intervention. However, in the methods, the authors should have provided more specific details of the electronic searches to avoid selection bias. The studied journals were not clearly identified, and a clear definition of the comparison groups were not given. The authors conclude that mass media interventions have proven effective in changing individuals’ behavior, healthcare utilization, and raising awareness of the disease. With respect to TB, the authors conclude that the mass media has the potential to promote awareness on the services that exist for TB diagnosis and treatment. This peer reviewed source is applicable to my theme because it directly analyzes the impact of pamphlets, popular lectures, and newspaper articles on Tuberculosis awareness. The article supports my theme by concluding that mass media interventions have proven effective in changing individuals’ behavior, healthcare utilization, and raising awareness of the disease. For this reason, the media is an important actor in the public health system, that can catalyze action at the national and local levels. 

Leavitt, Judith Walzer., and Ronald L. Numbers. Sickness and Health in America: Readings in

the History of Medicine and Public Health. University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.

This chapter examines the history of the early workforce movements in the United States and how it has developed over the years. In the following years, unions became more active in fighting tuberculosis. They recognized that tuberculosis was prevalent among the poor and working class. This chapter presents some newspaper articles such as the Glass Worker’s to highlight some effective campaigns against tuberculosis. This chapter also examines how union campaigns using the media highlighted the importance of cleaning up the workplace and keeping the workplace healthy were seen as benefits to both the worker and the public. This chapter is relevant to my theme because it helps readers examine the impacts of media on the present and future workforce conditions with a sense of perspective and continuity. I will use this chapter to highlight how anti-tuberculosis societies relied on pamphlets, popular lectures, and newspaper articles to promote public awareness of the disease. On such accounts, I will show that the media has proven effective in influencing individual and societal behavior towards raising awareness of tuberculosis and transforming the U.S. workforce conditions. 

Duffy, Thomas P. “The Flexner Report--100 Years Later.” The Yale Journal of Biology and 

Medicine, YJBM, Sept. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3178858/.

This peer reviewed article analyzes how the Flexner Report transformed the American medical education system. Abraham Flexner, an educator, published the Flexner report which critiqued medical schools in the US and Canada. This report leads to the reform of medical and higher education in the United States and Canada. The Flexner Report triggered much-needed reforms in the standards, organization, and curriculum of medical schools in the US and Canada. At the time of the Report, many medical schools were proprietary schools operated more for profit than for education, students did not need to have a college degree, and few schools had the equipment and facilities to conduct scientific research. All those things and many others changed for the better after the Flexner’s report. I plan to discuss how this report changed the American medical education system. For example, this report increased homogenous in the practice of medicine and medical education in the US. It also ensured that all medical schools should be attached to a university. Thus, committed to promote increasing knowledge among practitioners and physicians through constant research. This report is relevant to my theme because I want to highlight how public health organizations utilized mass media to address their issues. Noteworthy publications such as the Flexner Report was introduced to the public and covered in the front pages of many newspapers. In that event, it transformed the nature and process of medical education in America.  On such accounts, the media has proven effective in transforming the U.S. medical education. For this reason, the media is an important actor in the public health system, that can catalyze action at the national and local levels. 

Brandt, Allan M. The Cigarette Century: the Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product 

That Defined America. Basic Books, 2007.

With the post-war consumerist culture, it was not difficult to get media attention. According to this article, the unification phase of the American economy was the perfect time for trying new marketing methods, since the baby boomers began to change everything at this period. In the 1960s, there was a request for understanding the reach of right material to the right audience. As a result, businesses took advantage of radio and especially the television to sell their messages to the consumer. Advertising not only opened the consumer to a variety of information, but also enabled them to a greater variety of goods and services. Television was the main method of choice for advertisement because it gave individual tobacco brands their very own identity. However, the introduction of the television to American families not only revolutionized the strategies of American tobacco marketing, but it also helped lead significant social policy change. This article applies to my theme because it emphasizes how media communications played a key role in shaping tobacco-related knowledge among individuals and within communities. Increasing media attention not only changed individual smoking habits but also helped create a climate in which local governments pushed toward tougher anti-smoking policies.

In this research paper, the research shows that the disease in the photoreceptor cells also affects the cells that are around those cells, this changes how the disease should be studied. In the study, the conclusion of the experiment is that the loss of photoreceptors changed the number and morphology of the glial cells such as astrocytes and Muller cells. The change in the number and morphology of the glial cells affected the retina and as a result, may be an important part of the retinitis pigmentosa which was previously only thought to affect cone cells. Because the disease affects other cells and not just the cone cells, there is a need in the cellular and tissue level model to mimic how the cells behave in the disease. In addition, any further research into the treatment for the disease needs to take into account how the treatment would affect the cells surrounding the photoreceptors. For example, if a drug only really works to fix the one problem that is wrong with the mutated protein, this may not necessarily fix the damage that has already present in the surrounding tissue. By taking into account these issues, the treatment will have a higher chance of performing well in the clinical trials, leading to a faster treatment that can be released into the market.

It kind of occurred to me that when writing for this assignment, I often write from the assignment that was assigned and the techniques and how to work in a lab, and almost no information about different biological phenomenons. When I do, it's usually from other studies and reviews. I think that one of the reasons why I'm so interested in papers and techniques that would be used in the lab and not the biological processes because I think that the biological discoveries are so fluid. While that fluidity is nothing compared to something like, say, sociological science, it is also true that a biological finding may be wrong or contain flaws. I've always had an almost unhealthy interest in discovering the flaws of the study and looking at it, from the first epidemiology class that I took on the cancer epidemiology where I read papers and discussed them with the people in the class. I think that this carries over to my biology undergraduate degree as well because I'm planning to take 3 journal club courses. It's further interesting that I chose these because I'm not good at reading papers. But it's important. I've been taught how to read papers since I was in introductory biology in high school, but I still have trouble reading them, especially since they often come from disparate fields. I want to learn how to read scientific papers because I'm not good at it, and the university does not offer classes on how to read papers. This and how to work in a lab is something that I think should be taught as much as writing because those three are all of the things that are going to be needed in the future. While things like advanced courses like immunology and neurobiology is important, with the abundance of information in the form of books and google, I want to prioritize skills that I would think I regret not learning, and for me, those would be learning how to write well, read papers and learning integrate myself into a lab and conduct research. 

One of the most well-used techniques in the lab is the southern blot. This method has been in use for a long time and continues to be relevant within the field of biology. not an easy feat considering how fast the field is moving, and how new techniques are quickly replacing the old ones due to their ease, cost efficiency and decrease in time. However, southern blot has still been relevant enough so that in the job description previous experiences with southern blot have been listed as a requirement. To do this technique, the first thing that needs to be done is to do the last step of genotyping: gel electrophoresis. by running the gel, The different RNA fragments are separated. The RNA is then transferred onto a membrane. Then the membrane is then left in a container that contains a mix of proteins. the resulting mixture is then left to shake allowing the different proteins to interact with the segments of the genetic material. After some time, the membrane is then exposed to UV light to see what binding happened. The band indicates the interaction that happens between the genetic material and the protein/molecule of interest. Because mRNA is used, the southern blot can tell the gene expression of the cell. Similar things can be also done using protein, and DNA. another technique that is similar is DNAase analysis where the protein bind to DNA before the gene is digested and ran on a gel. Because the sizes and the places where the DNA is cut, there is a ladder running down the entire gel. However, because the protein are bound to the protein cannot be digested, there is a blank spot where it indicates the spot where the protein binds to the gene. 

The objective of our proposal is to create a phylogenetic tree examining the possibility of using the HOXC gene as an indicator of the phylogeny. One specific aim of the proposal is to identify highly conserved genes that are present in vertebrates. In preliminary work, we found that one example of a highly conserved gene is the BOP1 gene present in ribosomal DNA. Further research done on HOX genes has noted that the duplication of HOX clusters is shared by all vertebrae (Ruddle et al. 1994). The statement motivated our group to propose that the HOX genes express little variation in vertebrae, and test the statement by knowing how consistent this data would be if we were to expand our subject of interest to a whole kingdom, rather than specific subjects used for their evidence (chicken, zebrafish, Xenopus, and newt). We will now look into HOX genes to see how similar or different expression of the HOX gene is throughout the Animalia kingdom.

The basic aim of the paper is to analyze the effect of thyroid level on OPCs marker and MVP level in SVZ, olfactory bulb, and optic nerve. The way that this was done is by increasing or decreasing the thyroid hormone by giving PTU or T3 thyroid hormones. The result of the study is that hyperthyroidism caused a decrease in MBP and a decrease in differentiation while hyperthyroidism caused an increase in MBP and an increase in the maturation of oligodendrocyte. From this result, the most reasonable way to infer how the result of this study can help me infer how the T3 and T4 hormones affect the neural stem cell is that there is an increase when there is a decrease in thyroid level, and a decrease when the thyroid level increases. The reason why I think this is because when the neural stem cells divide, they divide into two, and then one of the resulting cells would differentiate unevenly leaving one of the cells unusable and the other one would not be a stem cell Because of this, there would be an increase in neural stem cell because the decrease in the thyroid hormones I think would stop the division at when the neural stem cells are dividing evenly and as a result, there would be an increase in the stem cells. The increase of thyroid hormone would cause the cells to split unevenly and as a result, there would be fewer neural stem cells.