For those headed into Bio321 this Spring - here are tag clouds of the content to give you a view into the course!
The lecture:
The lab:
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Bio321 tag clouds
For those headed into Bio321 this Spring - here are tag clouds of the content to give you a view into the course!
The lecture:
The lab:
Monday, December 10, 2012
Genetically altered HIV to battle leukemia
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/health/a-breakthrough-against-leukemia-using-altered-t-cells.html/ref=science&gwh=D9083766D40AE2F7CE684DB2E7476883&_r=0
HIV attacks the immune system and as a retrovirus it can insert its genome into the immune cells' DNA. This research team is using a genetically modified form of HIV to have it specifically put certain genes into the T cells that cause them to target the B-cells (which are the problematic dividing cells in this case)
The exposure of the modified HIV to the T-cells takes place outside of the body then the newly altered T-cells are returned to the host. Sounds like this is in the promising stage but still needs further work
I especially think it's so amazing to be using such a destructive virus to our benefit
Thanks to Alex Pedicone for bringing this one to my attention!
HIV attacks the immune system and as a retrovirus it can insert its genome into the immune cells' DNA. This research team is using a genetically modified form of HIV to have it specifically put certain genes into the T cells that cause them to target the B-cells (which are the problematic dividing cells in this case)
The exposure of the modified HIV to the T-cells takes place outside of the body then the newly altered T-cells are returned to the host. Sounds like this is in the promising stage but still needs further work
I especially think it's so amazing to be using such a destructive virus to our benefit
Thanks to Alex Pedicone for bringing this one to my attention!
Friday, December 7, 2012
Living in sub-zero brine
Murray et al. 2012. Microbial life at −13 °C in the brine of an ice-sealed Antarctic lake. PNAS
Lake Vida is in the Antartic, how's this for a place to live:
- sits at -13 deg C
- salt concentrations 6 times that of sea water
- sits under 50-100 ft of ice
- aphotic (little or no light penetrates)
- anoxic (no oxygen)
(taken from Nature journal's website here)
As always though, microbes abound - albeit ~10-fold lower concentrations than lakes, and a lot more tiny cells that normal. Now that doesn't mean the diversity is high - in the survey they found ~32 species in 8 different phyla - but c'mon, give any microbes credit for living down there!
The researchers cored deep, viewed the cells via fluorescent staining and microscopy, and coupled that with rRNA gene sequence analysis.
Link to the original article: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/21/1208607109
Link to more general article: http://www.nature.com/news/life-abounds-in-antarctic-lake-sealed-under-ice-1.11884
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