The word ‘chemical’ has been recently subjected to negative connotations, especially in the food industry. There have been major efforts in food preservation to advance such chemical knowledge and it is certainly frightening for people to think that anything unnatural … Continue reading
So you might have all noticed that I left class early today. I’ve had nausea and other unhappy GI symptoms for about a month now, and, while the doc’s aren’t sure what’s causing my symptoms, it all boils down to … Continue reading
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/health/fetal-gene-may-protect-brain-from-alzheimers-study-finds.html This article focuses on the recent studies done with REST, a gene regulator that seems to have a more active role in Alzheimer’s than previously believed. It’s articles like these that make me glad I’m a science major, since … Continue reading
I recently came across a product at the drugstore that I’ve been meaning to try out. But before I decided to buy it, I did some research. Some of you may have heard of “Bag Balm”. It comes in a … Continue reading
In light of a recent discussion on the possibilities today of “playing” with molecules and adapting them to our needs, I decided to share a comic from one of my favorite webcomics (though I really like “Hark! A Vagrant” as … Continue reading
I came across this gif (hopefully it’ll show up) of how RecA works! RecA is an Ecoli protein which among other things catalyzes the formation of chiasma during replication and repairs damage that occurs during recombination. Defects in the … Continue reading
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/11/lab-grown-vaginas-successfully-implanted-in-girls-in-tissue-engineering-first/?tid=hp_mm Essentially, four females with a disease that prevented formation of their sexual organs, got lab grown vaginas (made from their own cells) implanted into them. So, as long as everything continues to go well, they are now able to … Continue reading
This week, we spent some time talking about A-DNA, B-DNA, and Z-DNA and how the individual nucleotides are able to twist in specific directions but not others. I know I also wondered why only only one direction is allowed, why is … Continue reading
I love it when material from different classes comes together! This week, I did a presentation on drug resistance in my cancer genomics class looking specifically at a drug that targets a fusion protein that is a product of a chromosome translocation. … Continue reading
This post is going to be a little more about the history of science rather than any “hard” biochemistry , but I thought it would tie in nicely with the movie we all watched on Wednesday on how Sanger sequencing … Continue reading