Okay, so this title clearly requires a bit of context but don’t worry it all comes together in the end. Let’s start by talking about GMOs. Yikes. But what exactly is a GMO? Dubbed as “Frankenfood” it undoubtedly has a negative reputation among most today. But what is it that incites so much fear in …
Category Archives: MB231
Week 2: Genes are Accommodating
While it seems logical to think that gene expression is a fixed, unchanging thing, like the Rosetta Stone of human biology this isn’t necessarily the case. Genes are often viewed as sequences written into our DNA that remain unaltered through our lives, yet today we spent the majority of class time disproving this idea. As …
Week 1: A Peek into the Genome
Imagine a stack of textbooks, packed like sardines with words, and standing four stories high. Now think about being given the task to find not one page, not one paragraph, but one word. Seems like an impossible task. To some extent, this is comparable to the task scientists were charged with in the late 1980s …
Ethics of Genetics
Trisomy – Possession of 3 copies of a chromosome instead of the normal 2. Trisomies occur in non disjunction events: when chromosomes do not properly separate during the production of gametes (egg or sperm). In that scenario, an embryo conceived from gametes with improper number of chromosomes may be missing or have more than the …
Studying Genetics with Context
End of Week 1 Often times, I feel as if we forget that science is often closely flanked by social issues. So far in the course, the ethics of science and in particular, genetics has come up again and again. Professor Ralph Bertrand constantly reminds us to think of the bigger picture and that science …