Chapter 12 Post

Hello! This chapter is all about gene expression at the molecular level. One of the major focuses of this chapter is transcription and translation. The following video helped me out a lot by explaining these processes in a clear and concise manner. It's very easy to get transcription and translation confused, and the video does a great job comparing and contrasting the two. He also used a smart pad with a powerpoint presentation, kind of like Dr. Weber, so I found that cool. The guy also uses some outside animations that were quite helpful. I would suggest watching the video for a quick refresh of transcription and translation.

Another focus of the chapter was The Genetic Code. I found this topic very interesting and decided to look it up. All I found was pretty much what the book said, it's history and boring stuff. But then I found this article that had the word "new" in it, so it sounded interesting. I always like to read about advancements to things. This article from PubMed talks about adding new chemistries to the genetic code. The advancement of new orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs has lead to the addition of about 70 unnatural amino acids (UAAs) to the genetic codes of Escherichia coli, yeast, and mammalian cells. These UAAs signify a range of structures and function not found in the canonical 20 amino acids and thus provide new chances to generate proteins with enhanced or novel properties and probes of protein function and structure.

An additional topic of the chapter was RNA splicing. The following video talks about the process of removing introns after RNA transcription. It's less than 2 minutes long, but still manages to provide important details. The visuals, which look rather old, are actually good with the explanation. The lady has a very pleasant and clear voice, compared to the monotone male voice we usually hear in most animation. I would suggest watching the video because it's really worth the 1:39 you have to put in.

That's my last post for this semester! Have an amazing winter break, everyone!

Chapter 11 Post

So this chapter is all about nucleic acid structure, DNA replication and chromosome structure. I was delighted when I found out we were moving on to a new unit of the book, genetics! Prior to this year I hadn't really been exposed to genetics too much in depth, so I was excited to explore this topic. 

My first useful material is this game from the official site of the Nobel Prize, Nobelprize.org. And did I mention it’s a game?! Oh wait- I did. If you like animations and visual learning, I would suggest trying out the game. It lets you first make copies of a double-stranded DNA molecule by matching base pairs to each strand. When you’re done, you have to read about different organisms and determine which organism the DNA belongs to. But be careful! If you match incorrectly or determine the wrong organism, you’ll lose a ton of points. 

A screenshot from the game.

This game was a great break from usual learning out of a text book. Interactivity is my most successful way of learning, so I actually did learn a lot from this game. It was also fun too, so that was an added bonus. If you have some free time I’d recommend playing this game.

Next I found this video that explains telomere replication. When reading the book I understood the structure and function of telomeres, but I didn’t exactly get the replication process. This video does a good job explaining the entire process and integrating exactly what telomerase does. The book had very nicely drawn visuals, which I’ll credit it for, but seeing this as an animation made this seem much simpler and easier. I liked how the nucleotides were all colored to show which regions were the genes and which regions were the telomeres. In addition, this video is from a biology textbook, it’s not just some random video. It’s only two minutes long, and it pretty much summarizes what the book says in 6 long paragraphs.



Being on the topic of telomeres, I decided to read more about it online and stumbled across this PubMed article. The article talks about telomere length in cardiovascular disease and how telomeres play a role in aging. Atherosclerosis is an age-related disease that involves different types of leukocytes. Telomere dysfunction has been connected in aging and senescence. Shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has been verified to predict cardiovascular disease and mortality. The article overviews telomere biology and telomere dynamics of different leukocyte populations. In addition, the article talks about pitfalls in the methodology of LTL quantification and how telomere length can be implemented as an individual biomarker for cardiovascular aging. It’s actually really interesting how big of a role telomeres play in our lives.