Answer: Via selective breeding, by mating a zebrafish mutant that lacked reflective pigment with a zebrafish that lacked black pigment, Casper is transparent. This feature allows scientists to inject fluorescent cancer cells into Casper's abdominal cavity and then track the migration of those cells to specific locations in his body.
Answer: No, you need to take many science courses including biology, computer science, chemistry, math (especially statistics). If you are not broadly trained, you will not be able to obtain a job in this growing field!
Answer: The answers will vary.
Low cost production of proteins used to treat diseases
Development of recombinant enzymes to be used by molecular biologists for research
Students can come up with many more great ideas. This exercise really makes students stretch their imaginations and they really enjoy working together to generate great ideas!
Answer: chromosome 13 has 2 genes listed regarding breast cancer and chromosome 21 only has 1 gene related to breast cancer.
Answer: this is an exploratory exercise for the students- answers will vary depending on what diseases they further studied.
chromosome 13:
Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome
autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay
bladder cancer
breast cancer
COL4A1-related brain small-vessel disease
familial porencephaly
Fanconi anemia
hereditary angiopathy with nephropathy, aneurysms, and muscle cramps syndrome
limb-girdle muscular dystrophy
nonsyndromic deafness
nonsyndromic holoprosencephaly
ornithine translocase deficiency
Peters plus syndrome
propionic acidemia
retinoblastoma
succinate-CoA ligase deficiency
Tourette syndrome
Troyer syndrome
Waardenburg syndrome
Wilson disease
Chromosome 21:
Alzheimer disease
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
autoimmune polyglandular syndrome, type 1
Bethlem myopathy
familial atrial fibrillation
glutamate formiminotransferase deficiency
holocarboxylase synthetase deficiency
homocystinuria
Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome
Knobloch syndrome
microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II
nonsyndromic deafness
Romano-Ward syndrome
Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy
Unverricht-Lundborg disease
Answer: This reflects the current needs of humans- we have too many diseases and currently too few drugs to target them.
Answer: By far, cancer has the most drug candidates than any other disease. This disease has many more drug candidates than hepatitis C because hepatitis C affects less people worldwide than different kinds of cancer. Cancer, of course, can affect many different organs. On the other hand, hepatitis C only affects the liver.
Answer: This will vary, depending on what students come up with. Probably, most will discuss use of recombinant technology to genetically modify foods. For example, scientists can create better crops that are perhaps more drought resistant. They can create ways to better preserve fruits and vegetables so they don't quickly rot and get wasted. Perhaps create crops that are foul tasting to pests including bugs and animals so that the crops survive. Perhaps create ways to have crops grow even in the most extreme conditions. Students will probably discuss better ways to feed people without relying on being carnivores. A lot of the discussion will be ways to obtain proteins from other novel food sources.
Answer: This is an ethical question and should lead to some powerful discussions during class. Make sure to discuss what is meant by biofuel crops.
Answer: Will vary depending on the group's idea.
Perhaps, you want to study the role of insulin in preventing diabetes. By knocking out the gene coding for insulin, you can observe the animal's response (development of diabetes). Then scientists can inject recombinant insulin to the animal and again, study their responses to the treatment.
Answer: Based on the gel results, there is evidence that the defendant committed the crime. The position of the bands as well as number of bands on the gel match with the victim's blood. It is important to note, that though the bands are very light for the sample from the jeans, they also match the victim's blood.
Based on this gel, you CAN ONLY say that the defendant is linked to the crime scene. You cannot use this evidence to state that the defendant is guilty of the murder.
Answer 1. By creating transgenic salmon that overproduce Growth Hormone, it allows the salmon to have fast growth rates over a short period of time.
Answer 2. This modified salmon helps humans because it decreases the time and expenses required to grow the salmon for market sale.
Answer: the answers will vary! Remember, most of these diseases are only be tested with stem cell therapy in animal models. They are not being used in the clinic yet!!!
Some possible answers:
Parkinson's
Alzheimer's
Leukemia
Other types of cancer
Eye diseases such as glaucoma, macular degeneration
Answer: You want to use a product that will be used only to do its specified job. If it is contaminated with some other source, it might not do its job! For example, when you buy a car at the dealer, you are ensured that the car will work because of high regulations within that industry. Now that biotech is a mainstay, it also needs tight regulations too!
Answer: Assume that your mom and sister both had breast cancer and found out that they both had the BRCA1 gene mutation. Your doctor would counsel you to be tested for this mutation too. Then, if you have the mutation, the doctor could monitor you more closely for developing breast cancer. If you were to develop this cancer, they would be able to catch it early on when you have a better chance of being treated successfully. It is important to note that even if you were tested and had this genetic mutation, it does NOT mean that you will definitely develop cancer. It just means that you have an increased risk! It is also important to note that both men and women can develop breast cancer.
Answer: Since there can be multiple codons coding for the same amino acid, then even if person 2 has a SNP, the new codon can still code for the same amino acid as in person 1. Thus, the same protein will ultimately be made and it will therefore have the correct function. This type of mutation is called silent since the nucleotide change did not affect a change in the amino acid sequence.
Person 3 had a SNP that changed the codon so it coded for a different amino acid. Thus, this will affect the way the protein is folded and, if not in the proper structure, it will have impaired function or perhaps no function.
Answer: Scientists are using embryonic cells more often because they can give rise to all kinds of cells in the body. Adult stem cells are limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin.
Answer: Research and development jobs require the most education because these people are involved in the design, execution, and interpretation of the experiments and results. They also have to be able to read and interpret scientific literature. They must sometimes prepare technical reports, write lab protocols and data summaries. Overall, they must understand the scientific details of their project. They generally collaborate with other scientists on a team.
Answer: For the R&D part of the company, it would be the glass washer and for the finance and operations, it would be the shipper/ receiver. Based on this overview of a typical medium sized biotech company, even a person with barely a high school diploma can obtain a job in that industry.