Tuesday, March 2, 2010

New ways of fighting Drug-resistant bacteria

Drug-resistant bacteria kills, even in top hospitals. But now tough infections like staph and anthrax may be in for a surprise. Nobel-winning chemist Kary Mullis, who watched a friend die when powerful antibiotics failed, unveils a radical new cure that shows extraordinary promise.

In the early 1980s, Kary Mullis developed the polymerase chain reaction, an elegant way to make copies of a DNA strand using the enzyme polymerase and some basic DNA "building blocks." The process opened the door to more in-depth study of DNA -- like the Human Genome Project. Mullis shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing this technique.

If you cannot view the video directly, >click here<


For this project you are to view the video and write a paragraph about it. Paragraphs should be at least three well constructed sentences.

Next you should find any other video on TED.com and view it. Finally write a well constructed 3 sentence paragraph about your video.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

Make sure you put your ID and class section on your work. This project is due by midnight Sunday, 3/21. Remember that you need to do either this or the next project. If you do both projects one will count for extra credit.

Spelling counts. Please do your project in a word processor and then cut and paste it into the comment box. Sloppy work really doesn't save you time, and it there are glaring spelling errors you will lose credit.

If you have problems, email me at aphsbio at gmail.com. Please tell me exactly what your problem was including any error messages.

10 comments:

  1. This movie from TED.com is about using a molecule called alpha-gal epitope to help target bacteria for your immune system to easily destroy. Mullis' idea is that the molecule will attach to a bacteria and make the antibodies destroy the bacteria making you healthy again. The only problem with this treatment is that you would have to find the bacteria before you got infected making it hard to use this new treatment.

    talking with bacteria

    I found it hard to find a good video on TED.com that went with the earlier video so this might be a little of stretch. This video is about how bacteria "talk" to each other to help create light in a small squid that lives off the coast of Hawaii. This squid uses the bacteria to glow in the dark and keeps the light that it creates equal to the amount of starlight so it keeps hidden so it can hunt its prey.

    SJB CHEM

    ReplyDelete
  2. I found the video to be very interesting and I learned a lot from the video. Through the video I found out that one of the reasons you cannot transplant a pig heart valve with a human heart valve easily is because pig heart valves have the molecules mentioned in the video all over them. From the video I learned a lot about the molecule that I had never known about. I found that our body actually likes those molecules and if an antibody is attached to the molecule it is considered to be food for the body. I think its cool that the person talking in the video talks about ways to use the molecule to help us. Its very interesting that he talks about putting one of those molecules on a bacteria cell in order to get rid of it. I would like to see this concept put into the real world now that through the experiments it has shown that it works.

    New Traffic Sign

    I found this video to be interesting because there were many facts about driving and pollution I was unaware of. The speaker talks about how energy efficiency is not just about the car but also the road design makes a difference. He talks about how roundabouts are safer than regular intersections and gives statistics to support it. Roundabouts also save on pollution because there is a constant flow of traffic, no stopping which means no accelerating which means less pollution. Lastly the speaker talks about traffic signs and the meanings behind the stop and yield signs. He provides the audience with a new sign which is shaped like a T and is a sign to take turns instead of having the traditional yield sign where the driver must yield the right of way. I found the video to be interesting because the speaker gives stats and his opinions based on them.

    Philip Diegel Block: 3

    ReplyDelete
  3. In this video from TED.com, a molecule known as alpha-gal epitope is introduced to the audience. Kary Mullis, a Nobel Prize winner, has the idea that much like the crooked cops of the LAPD, the molecule is a quick way to rid the bad things, in this case, infectious bacteria, away from the body of a human. It is still a rocky thesis, because of the fact that, it is hard to target what molecules are needed in order to make the cleansing possible. Overall, I believed it was a very entertaining and knowledgeable presentation about the future in medicine.

    Ken Robinson says school kills creativity

    In this video, Sir Ken Robinson uses brilliant comic references to reach his audience on a personal, yet educational level. He talks about how teachers ultimately try and put students into their place. He describes that children are born creative but are taught, throughout life to lose that. He describes that we are trained for the future and less creativity. He states that creativity is key in life and that it is desperately needed everywhere.

    JR bl3

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think that this is amazing that this scientist developed the an Altermune linker which will link to a DNA Aptamer which will then attach to a specific target that you have selected like finding a certain feature on bacteria that you do not want in your body. This will alert your body when you have staph and it will go after it to destroy it. They have tested it on mice and it has been completely successful which is so grateful because it will hopefully soon save many lives.

    amazing animation


    It is crazy that you can make a digital recreation of a human look like the actual person. They use special lighting all around you and take consecutive pictures of you with different lighting for 3 seconds. Then they use those pictures to analyze all of the contours of the face and put them into the computer system. When they do this they can use the tools to move the face any way they want to and make all different expressions.

    JE

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think that this is amazing that this scientist developed the an Altermune linker which will link to a DNA Aptamer which will then attach to a specific target that you have selected like finding a certain feature on bacteria that you do not want in your body. This will alert your body when you have staph and it will go after it to destroy it. They have tested it on mice and it has been completely successful which is so grateful because it will hopefully soon save many lives.

    amazing animation


    It is crazy that you can make a digital recreation of a human look like the actual person. They use special lighting all around you and take consecutive pictures of you with different lighting for 3 seconds. Then they use those pictures to analyze all of the contours of the face and put them into the computer system. When they do this they can use the tools to move the face any way they want to and make all different expressions.

    JE

    ReplyDelete
  6. Transition to a world without oil

    In this video Rob Hopkins talks about how we are currently running out of many global resources. In specific he talked about oil, we currently based our life around this and could be running out relatively soon. We are going to be in need of an alternate source of energy to keep our society running.

    mG

    ReplyDelete
  7. In the video a molecule that targets bacteria and attaches to it and destroys it, this molecule is known as Alpha gal epitope. Scientists are researching this and it is looking to be a good way to kill harmful bacteria. In theory the harmful bacterial will attach with it and your antibodies on the alpha gal epitope will eat it, therefore destroying it. This could be a very fast and effective way of killing harmful antibodies to become healthy.

    mG

    ReplyDelete
  8. I found the video about the alpha-gal epitope to be very interesting. I never realized that our body can't except a pig heart because the hearts have many of these epitopes on them. Our body will react with the molecule and the heart will not be effective. It's very interesting that this molecule could be used to alert your immune system to a harmful bacteria and kill it. This molecule will find the bad bacteria, attach itself to it, and the immune system will recognize the molecule and bacteria. After this happens the body will destroy the harmful bacterias.

    Click Here

    In this video Eric Mead explains how the use of a placebo can have actual effects on the human body. If your body and your mind believes you are taking real medicine that will help you, you will actually feel better and be healthy more quickly. What you take as a placebo has an effect on how much better your body gets. If you take a blue pill stamped with a letter instead of a plain white pill, you will be better more quickly. If you take a red and yellow capsule pill you will be even better than the blue pill. If you get an actual shot, even if it is a completely useless substance your body will feel much better. It is truly amazing how the mind can effect things so much. The brain can turn something that is one hundred percent useless into something that will help your body.

    Jimmy Sullivan block 3

    ReplyDelete
  9. This video is about a molecule that is greatly found on heart valves. It is used as food for things in the body like anti-bodies. People are trying to attach this molecule to bacteria as a way for the body to start attacking whatever the molecule is attached to.

    Medical Miracle on Mt. Everest

    There were a bunch of climbers up on Mount Everest when an extreme storm started along the summit ridge. One was known dead and 16 climbers were missing, and 2 were too weak to come down. 2 men went up the mountain to try and find other climbers and would send them down to station 3 to get steroid shots so they could make it the rest of the way down the mountain. Most of the climbers that survived had extreme frost bite. The climber believed to be dead turned out to be alive but in a state that he couldn’t move, not even blink. The climber reversed a irreversible hypothermia.

    KR

    ReplyDelete
  10. This video is about a molecule that is greatly found on heart valves. It is used as food for things in the body like anti-bodies. People are trying to attach this molecule to bacteria as a way for the body to start attacking whatever the molecule is attached to.

    Medical Miracle on Mt. Everest

    There were a bunch of climbers up on Mount Everest when an extreme storm started along the summit ridge. One was known dead and 16 climbers were missing, and 2 were too weak to come down. 2 men went up the mountain to try and find other climbers and would send them down to station 3 to get steroid shots so they could make it the rest of the way down the mountain. Most of the climbers that survived had extreme frost bite. The climber believed to be dead turned out to be alive but in a state that he couldn’t move, not even blink. The climber reversed a irreversible hypothermia. To me this was crazy, because the climbers that past by him all thought he was dead. He even heard them say he was dead. However he somehow reversed it and climbed down the mountain by himself.

    KR

    ReplyDelete