Category Archives: 04 Genetics
Stem cells used in trachea transplant
Doctors have successfully used stem cells in a rejection-free transplant of a trachea.
This is a great example of internationalism in science – the patient was Colombian, the hospital in Barcelona, stem cells cultivated in Bristol and the final stage of the windpipe construction completed in Milan.
Check your understanding:
Did they grow a new trachea from scratch?
How did they prevent rejection of the tissue?
There is a good short reader on the NewScientist website.
The original research paper was published by The Lancet.
Bio-Alive: a huge resource of animations and videos
Bio-Alive Biology and Life Sciences has a massive set of links to online tutorials, videos, animations, interactives, lectures and games. Huge. Loads.
One of the highlights has to be the video archive of surgical operations!
Follow these links for IB topic help:
Cells: animations – tutorials – virtual labs – lectures
Chemistry of Life: animations – tutorials – lectures
Genetics: animations – tutorials – virtual labs – lectures
Evolution: animations – tutorials – virtual labs – lectures
Or just visit their page for masses of links.
Foldit – help science by playing a game
Foldit is ridiculously addictive. 
It is a protein-folding game/simulation, designed and produced collaboratively between the University of Washington’s Computer Science and Engineering and Biochemistry departments. There is a great introduction to the roles of proteins in metabolism and disease, as well as protein folding, on their about page.
Apart from the great software and in-game tutorials in protein structures, players at the highest level may be contributing to medicine! The University and associated labs are setting problems of protein folding for players to solve – each one an important molecule in its own right and some even the key to curing some diseases.
There is a great article about the game on RichardDawkins.net: ‘Computer game’s high score could earn the Nobel prize in medicine.’ There’s even a classic quote from co-developer Prof. David Baker:
“I imagine that there’s a 12-year-old in Indonesia who can see all this in their head.”
Too right. Let’s represent for Indonesia!
Here’s a quick clip of the game in action at a high level:
Download the game here and get playing!
Mice cloned from frozen bodies
So cloning is nothing new, but for the first time we see healthy lab mice cloned from the cells of dead mice – some articles are calling this a ‘resurrection’, although it is nothing of the sort.
It is, however, a big step forward for genetic reserach – lifting the possibility of cloning long-extinct species out of the realms of pure science fiction and into the ‘almost there’ zone. A team of Japanese researchers from Kobe, Japan, used a modified method to clone these mice from tissues that had been frozen for up to 16 years.
Here’s a clip from Japanese news, with a really clear section showing what looks like the insertion of the nucleus into an egg:
For a useful reader, here is the NewScientist article. Here’s another one from the Guardian.
As ever, one of the best reading sources is the Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, where Ed Yong tackles the research paper directly in his article and makes it easy to understand. Check it out here.
Learning idea: ‘dub’ the Japanese clip into your own language, using the information from the articles above.
How did they achieve it? How does it differ from normal cloning? What surprising results did they encounter?
Try to get your story to complement the images in the video clip.
I can just see Jeff Goldblum‘s gurning face as runs for his life from a cloned dodo…
New resources at Learn.Genetics
This is via the Learn.Genetics mailing list. Why not join – they only send mails out when there’s something worth reading.
Coming soon, Amazing Cells:activities and animations on cell processes and communication.
Also, a new interactive lab activity: Polymerase Chain Reaction Biotechniques lab.
Rediscovering Biology – web-based Bio course
Rediscovering Biology is a comprehensive free learning resource that covers 13 different topics- mostly with an emphasis on Biochemistry and Genetics.
Each topic has an introductory video, downloadable texbook, course outline, learning activities and a selection of images and animations in quicktime, which are high-quality. One of the highlights of the site is the selection of immersive case studies. There is also a useful pop-up glossary.
Topics: Genomics, Proteins and Proteomics, Evolution and Phylogenetics, Microbial Diversity, Emerging Infectious Disease, HIV and AIDS, Genetics of Development, Cell Biology and Cancer, Human Evolution, Neurobiology, Biology of Sex and Gender, Biodoversity, Genetically Modified Organisms.
Synthetic Biology – the man-made future?
Where’s the money in Biology? Probably where the future lies – genetics and synthetic biology.
As we learn more about genomes and the way different organisms (including pathogens) work, we can move towards creating targeted responses and DNA-level manipulation. Synthetic biologists take DNA and try to re-work it into a solution to a problem – by creating synthetic DNA, they hope to achieve control over the functions of the organism. They hope to generate alternative sources of fuel, targeted treatments and vaccines and many more applications.
Click on the image to the right to download a useful poster from SEED magazine.
BioBricks (company link) are a leading example of synthetic biology in action. Think of them like lego bricks or parts of standard computer code – you can take them and (theoretically) fit them into any genome. This is one of the wonders of DNA – base-pairings and the universality of the genetic code allow these researchers endless opportunities for tinkering and advancing science. Some BioBricks are ‘parts’, some are ‘devices’ and others are ‘systems’ – sections of code that increase in complexity and functionality.
There is an exciting world of information out there about this topic, and it’s well worth looking at if you think your future lies in biotechnology. It’s a discipline that pulls together Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Engineering and Programming, and the ways in are various. If you want to find out more about a career in synthetic biology, MIT are world-leaders in the field.
For a quick explanation of how synthetic biology works (and an interesting hardware/software analogy) watch the video from ScientificAmerican below:
You might also want to read ‘Prey’ by Michael Crichton for a bit of light holiday scare-mongering. Imagine ‘The Andromeda Strain‘ with nanoparticles.
And while we’re on the subject of Scientific American, you may as well check out their video channel on YouTube. It’s much like the NewScientist one.
i-Biology 
