Molecular Biology from Rita's P.O.V

This week I will introduce a very rare mutation that can be quite sad when you think about it. This mutation I will be talking about is called progeria. Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria is a very rare and severe disease that causes accelerated aging. It affects children and unfortunately, the affected only live to be approximately between thirteen and twenty years old. The cause of the mutation is linked to the LMNA gene, a gene that provides instructions for making several different proteins called lamins. These lamins lead to the production of a protein that provides support to the cell nucleus. When the mutation occurs, these proteins are damaged but they are still being used by the cells. When the cells use this protein, called progerin, they break down more easily. Progerin builds up in many cells of kids with progeria, causing them to grow old quickly. Most babies who have progeria will not show symptoms at birth, but...

Okay, so I had no clue what to talk about this week until my friend told me about something that happened to her while she was pregnant with her second child. Long story short, her child was born nine weeks premature due to something called Preterm Premature Rupture of Membrane. PrePROM for short, this caused her water to break and for her to be stuck in the hospital for six weeks. When her daughter was finally born, she decided to send off the umbilical cord blood to the research lab and she learned how her daughters cord blood could be used to treat and cancers or infections her daughter could contract throughout her life. I found this story of hers interesting because I have never heard of umbilical cord banking until today. When I looked it up, I found so much information out and now I am here to share it with you. Umbilical cord blood banking is used to treat nearly 80 different diseases, including a multitude of cancers, genetic d...

Halloween is around the corner and because it is my absolutely favorite holiday, I will slightly relate this blog to the spooky side of biology. Let's talk blood and guts!! Our blood is made up of liquid and solids. The liquid part, called plasma, is made of water, salts and protein. Over half of our blood is plasma. The solid part of our blood contains red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. When our blood is poisoned, it is referred to as sepsis. Now you may have heard about sepsis on some fictional TV show, but it is indeed very dangerous. Sepsis is a life-threatening complication of an infection. It occurs when chemicals are released into the bloodstream to fight the infection but then end up triggering inflammatory responses throughout the body. This inflammation can trigger a multitude of changes that can damage multiple organ systems, causing them to fail. If the sepsis progresses, it can lead to something called septic shock. When an individual goes ...

A lot of organisms are used in the lab to run experiments, but I have found that most biologists have taken a liking to a very particular bacterium. If you have had any experience in a biology lab, you probably have an idea of which one I may be talking about. Well, I am talking about Escherichia coli.  E. coli is a huge asset to biology, and this week we are going to talk about what exactly it has helped us accomplish. E. coli was the first organism to be genetically engineered. Stanley Cohen and Herb Boyer showed the world that it was possible to move genes from one organism to another. Prior to their collaboration Cohen had demonstrated that E. coli could take up a plasmid that conferred resistance to the antibiotic tetracycline. Then with Boyer, the scientists were able to cut this plasmid in a precise location and splice in another antibiotic resistant gene, and the vector was taken up by E.coli and the genes expressed. This discovery led to the field of g...

In molecular biology, we take advantage of many instruments. No, not the ones found in band class, I just thought that was a clever title because instruments.... get it? Okay, moving on. This week I will be discussing some instruments that have made their mark in our molecular world. The usage of instruments within a molecular lab are in variation and also very versatile, as a biologist may need the same instrument to play along to the next experimentation. When you think of molecular biology the intermediate thought that come to mind is the need of biochemistry understanding of what exactly is going on in the cell, which of course is the goal. However, we cannot begin to understand those processes until we go to the molecular level, which for that it requires PCR. Now, what in the world is PCR? PCR is defined as taking the ability of the DNA polymerase and creating a complementary DNA strand, and using primers to express specified gene expressions. However, in order for PCR to act...

Last week we discussed DNA and how a majority of it is non-coding. I think an appropriate topic to follow would be what exactly does the coding DNA undergo to produce all the necessary proteins. The process of turning the coding DNA genes into proteins is called the Central Dogma, and Francis Crick first introduced this concept in 1958. He stated, " The Central Dogma. This states that once ‘information’ has passed into protein it cannot get out   again. In more detail, the transfer of information from nucleic acid to nucleic acid, or from nucleic  acid to protein may be possible, but transfer from protein to protein, or from protein to nucleic acid is  impossible. Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the  nucleic acid or of amino acid residues in the protein. " The basis of the Central Dogma is that DNA is replicated. Once the DNA is replicated, transcription occurs by replicating a DNA strand i...