rharrison's blog

    I enjoyed the proposal project, although my group did misjudge the due dates and had to quickly text and email each other to finish it. The methods project helped because it made us go into more detail, trying to be a specific as possible in our description and directions. And us having to speed up to finish this made us start somewhat earlier and quicker on the poster project. 

    The poster project was my favorite. I had never printed a poster here at UMass so that was exciting. My groups topic was interesting and it was fun making a survey and sending it out to people in my section of the marching band, who after taking the survey asked me questions on the topic. I was confident explaining and it was good practice for presenting, and just sharing science topics I was interested in was awesome. 

    Overall, I did enjoy this class. I felt that it was actually helpful, being that it was writing geared towards my career path. I had one of the better presentation groups I have ever had in  both high school and college in this class, and I am grateful for that. I like to think I did pretty okay overall, but I do admit, this class was one of the most challenging for me in college purely because EVERYTHING I had learned about writing was changed and I just do not enjoy writing in any context.

    Having to go from creative to scientific writing was also a tough transition. Every writing class I have had up until this semester stressed figurative, descriptive language and having to throw that all out the window made me questioning what was the point of learning that.   

    The methods project was not really new in the sense of following a method. I thought that it was really straight forward at the beginning. But, the amount of information that needed to be incorporated in order to achieve the expect result was a lot more than I thought. Someone can interpret your instructions in a way that is completely different than you meant them to be, even if you think you are being so clear. It really showed that attention to detail and specificity was really important and no one is a mind reader. 

Rosemary Harrison

Reflection on Writing in Biology:

    This class to be honest was a dreaded one, especially on a Friday for two and a half hours. I feel that every time I take a writing class, I just adds to the dread of writing. Trying to get in the habit of writing regularly was hard for me especially at the beginning of the semester, and there were time that I did forget, especially when I had exams and presentations in other classes. I did start to just keep a document open on my laptop to jot down ideas or notes from classes that I could turn into paragraphs every week, but sometimes it was tough to do. I don’t expect myself to continue to writing weekly, but I understand that doing that this semester was to build on scientific writing rather than creative writing. 

Fragile X Syndrome is a dominant X- linked syndrome, meaning it affects both men and women. Since men only have one x chromosome, it effects them more frequently and with more severity. In inheritance, the father passes on Fragile X only to the daughters since sons will recieve a Y chromosome from him. If the mother has Fragile X or acts as a carrier for it, there is a 50% chance her children will be affected by it.

The Fragile X mutation was discovered in 1943 by two scientists, Bell and Martin. The disease was originally named after them, but then was renamed after it was found to a sex-linked condition with a "fragile" site on the X chromorosome. The mutation that causes Fragile X is a CGG repeat on the X that extends more than normal. Normally, it repeats between 6 and 55 times. Anything over 55 repeats is considered Fragile X.

About 50% of women with Fragile X do not show any symptoms (long face, large ears, and flat feet). Also men and women who have between 55 and 200 CGG repeats have what is called "pre-mutation" Fragile X. Pre-mutation is incomplete Fragile X but can cause multiple issues like ovarian failure and Tremor Ataxia Syndrome. If someone has 200 or more CGG repeats, they have complete Fragile X. The greater the number of repeats, the greater the severity of the effects.

DISCUSSION

Across the various majors we surveyed, only 20% of the students had never heard of gene editing. Most of the 80% who had had a  major under the category of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Those in STEM, for the majority had gone over it in their required classes. Of those that were not STEM majors, they had learned about it from the news, social media, and general education requirements here at the University of Massachusetts. Overall, the population at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has some familiarity on the topic of gene editing on genetic disorders or medical practices in general to form some opinions. Major choice may limit the amount of in depth knowledge someone may have on the topic, but  today’s media (news sources, facebook, instagram, etc.), personal interest and internet access does give the population a general understanding.

We created a ten question survey addressing age, major, knowledge of genetic editing, and opinions on different areas of the topic. We provided specific statements about the use of gene editing in the treatment of genetic disorders, and had survey participants indicate to what degree they agreed or disagreed with them. We sent out the survey to students from the University of Massachusetts Amherst through Survey Monkey, which allowed for easy sharing of the survey link as well as a clear format for analyzing the results. We posted a link to the survey in a Facebook group for the clarinet section of the UMass Marching Band which consists of students of various ages and majors in order to get a variety of different responses.  

Once we got enough responses we were able to view the resulting data in graphs. We analyzed these graphs to see if there were any observable trends between college major and attitude towards the topic of using gene editing to treat genetic diseases.

With the rise of scientific issues such as genetic engineering in public debates, “science is becoming more politicized and controversial with widespread societal implications” (Rose, Korzekwa, Brossard, Scheufele & Heisler, 2017). As such, the importance of public attitudes towards these issues is increasing, as is engaging the public with these topics in order to increase knowledge and awareness (Rose, Korzekwa, Brossard, Scheufele & Heisler, 2017). People’s attitudes are influenced by their knowledge, and so people with different backgrounds will often have varying attitudes towards complex topics depending on how familiar they are with them. The University of Massachusetts Amherst has over 100 different undergraduate majors [CITATION], and presumably people in different majors will have had different levels of exposure to the topic of genome editing. In this study we investigated whether or not there is any observable connection between college major and people’s attitudes towards the use of genome editing to treat genetic disorders.

Genome-editing has been met with both celebration and skepticism from the scientific community and the general public, with concerns about the viability, ethics, and long- and short-term consequences of modifying the human genome [CITATION]. As genetic disorders are caused by DNA abnormalities, they can only be “cured” by targeting the disorder at the genomic level, recently made possible by new advances in molecular technology. Both somatic cells and germline cells can be edited, and while any changes made to the DNA of an individual's somatic cells will only affect that individual, changes made to their germline DNA could be inherited by their future children. The technology at present cannot guarantee that “unintended modifications created through an editing procedure would not result in a devastating long-term outcome such as cancer or adverse developmental effects if one were to modify a zygote” (Kohn, Porteus & Scharenberg, 2016), which has lead to mixed scientific and public opinions about its use.

Genome editing (or gene editing) is a type of genetic engineering that involves modifying a living organism’s genome. Specific regions of the genome are deliberately targeted and DNA sequences are inserted, deleted, or otherwise modified to modify the sequence at that location and alter gene function, either by preventing or enabling expression, or by changing how the gene is expressed (“Genome editing in brief: what, why and how?”, n.d.). Genetic disorders can affect both somatic (body) cells and germline cells (cells involved in reproduction, such as sperm and eggs). While genetic mutations in the DNA of somatic cells only affect the individual and cannot be inherited, changes in the germline DNA are heritable and can affect future offspring (Ormond et al. 2017)

Fragile X Syndrome is a dominant X- linked syndrome, meaning it affects both men and women. Since men only have one x chrolmosome, it effects them more frequently and with more severity. With inheritance, the father passes on Fragile X only to the daughters since any sons will recieve a Y chromosome from him. If the mother has Fragile X or acts as a carrier for it, there is a 50% chance her children will be affected by it.

The Fragile X mutation was discovered in 1943 by two scientists, Bell and Martin. The disease was originally named after them, but then renamed after it was found to a sex-linked condition with a "fragile" site on the X chromorosome. The mutation that causes fragile X is a CGG repeat on the X that repeats more than normal. Normally, it repeats between 6 and 55 times. Anything over 55 repeats is considered fragile x.

About 50% f women with fragile x do not show any symptoms (long face, large ears, and flat feet). Also men and women who have between 55 and 200 CGG repeats have what is called "pre-mutation" fragile x. Pre mutation is incomplete fragile x but can cause multiple issues like ovarian failure and tremor ataxia syndrome. If someone has 200 or more CGG repeats, they have complete fragile x. The greater the number of repeats, the greater the severity of the effects. Those with fragile all show a silenced FMR1 gene with no FMRP proteins.