Group items tagged

This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW examines the realm of personal DNA testing. It describes the latest tests, which look for single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These single-letter differences in DNA sequence make humans unique from one another but may also predispose people to certain diseases. The video also discusses the Personal Genome Project, an extension of the Human Genome Project aimed at determining the root causes of many common diseases. The Personal Genome Project takes into account personal genomics as well as lifestyle information, such as one's living environment, habits, and behaviors.

We create interactive lessons for high school and college educators to engage their students in discussions of ethics and personal genetics. The lessons are relevant to multiple subjects, including biology, health, social studies, law, physical education and psychology. All of our lesson plans contain background reading for teachers and students, a selection of classroom activities, discussion points, in some cases a slide presentation or video clip, and an evaluation. Each lesson can stand alone, or all the lessons can be taught as a unit.

An outbreak of plague that affected four people and a dog in Colorado might be the first instance of person-to-person transmission of plague in the United States in 90 years, officials said Thursday. It started with a sick pit bull, and its owner, two vet techs and a close personal contact of the dog's owner all ended up infected. The dog died but all four people were treated with antibiotics and are okay.

Each person in the United States generates five or more pounds (2.3 kilograms) of waste a day: about the weight of a medium bag of sugar. More than half of that garbage is buried and stored in landfills. Increasingly, however, cities are promoting recycling programs, often getting schools involved so students can learn about recycling and follow these practices at home. A person in a Scandinavian country (such as Sweden, Denmark, or Norway) generates about the same amount of waste as an American. People in developing countries generate less waste than Americans or Europeans; for example, a person in India generates about three-fourths of a pound (0.34 kilograms) per day. Still, every country must find a way to process the garbage that each of its residents generates every day, month, and year.

But this tiny sample turned out to hold tremendous scientific value. It was from a person fortunate to survive the deadly Ebola virus outbreak of 2014. Walker and her colleagues wanted to know if they could identify some special antibodies in that person's blood. If this person had special Ebola-neutralizing antibodies, that might help explain why that person lived. The antibodies might also help provide a template for future development of a vaccine. Or, they could be the basis for genetically engineered copies that could be manufactured at large scale, stockpiled and used to rescue people newly infected in an outbreak.

Articles on personalized medicine for a socratice discussion

For Collinge, this led to a worrying conclusion: that the plaques might have been transmitted, alongside the prions, in the injections of growth hormone-the first evidence that Alzheimer's could be transmitted from one person to another. If true, that could have far-reaching implications: the possibility that 'seeds' of the amyloid-β protein involved in Alzheimer's could be transferred during other procedures in which fluid or tissues from one person are introduced into another, such as blood transfusions, organ transplants and other common medical procedures.

CRISPR still has a long way to go before it can be used safely and effectively to repair-not just disrupt-genes in people. That is particularly true for most diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, which require correcting genes in a living person because if the cells were first removed and repaired then put back, too few would survive. And the need to treat cells inside the body means gene editing faces many of the same delivery challenges as gene transfer-researchers must devise efficient ways to get a working CRISPR into specific tissues in a person, for example. CRISPR also poses its own safety risks. Most often mentioned is that the Cas9 enzyme that CRISPR uses to cleave DNA at a specific location could also make cuts where it's not intended to, potentially causing cancer.

Everyone experiences pain -- but why do some people react to the same painful stimulus in different ways? And what exactly is pain, anyway? Karen D. Davis walks you through your brain on pain, illuminating why the "pain experience" differs from person to person.

Controversial new research suggests that contrary to the history books, the "Black Death" that devastated medieval Europe was not the bubonic plague, but rather an Ebola-like virus. History books have long taught the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, was caused by bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas that lived on black rats. But new research in England suggests the killer was actually an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.

In this lesson, students explore some of the risks and benefits of gene-based medicine. They look at concerns related to genetic testing (which looks for particular genetic variations) and personal genome sequencing (which sequences the entire genome of an individual). Through videos and discussions, students learn about existing technologies for genetic testing and therapies. They also explore matters such as the emotional consequences of genetic testing, discrimination, and privacy issues. In small groups, students discuss scenarios and then share and analyze related opinions and concerns.

The scientists are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and they have embarked on this watery journey to solve a decades-old mystery about a rare and fatal disease: monkeypox. A cousin to the deadly smallpox virus, the monkeypox virus initially infects people through contact with wild animals and can then spread from person to person. The disease produces fever and a rash that often turns into painful lesions that can feel like cigarette burns. It kills up to 1 in 10 of its victims, similar to pneumonic plague, and is particularly dangerous in children. Monkeypox is on the U.S. government list of pathogens such as anthrax and Ebola with the greatest potential to threaten human health. There is no cure.

In this "clicker case," students learn about sex determination, meiosis, and chromosomal "crossing over" through the story of Santhi Soundararajan, an athlete from Kathakkurichi, India, who was stripped of a medal at the 2006 Asian Games after failing to pass a sex test. The case is called a clicker case because it combines the use of student personal response systems (clickers) with case teaching methods and formats. The case itself is a PowerPoint presentation (~2 MB) shown in class that is punctuated by questions students respond to using their clickers. It can be adapted for use without these technologies. Developed for an introductory biology class for both majors and non-majors, the case could also be used in an anatomy and physiology course or an endocrinology course.

In this "clicker case," students learn about sex determination, meiosis, and chromosomal "crossing over" through the story of Santhi Soundararajan, an athlete from Kathakkurichi, India, who was stripped of a medal at the 2006 Asian Games after failing to pass a sex test. The case is called a clicker case because it combines the use of student personal response systems (clickers) with case teaching methods and formats. The case itself is a PowerPoint presentation (~2 MB) shown in class that is punctuated by questions students respond to using their clickers. It can be adapted for use without these technologies. Developed for an introductory biology class for both majors and non-majors, the case could also be used in an anatomy and physiology course or an endocrinology course.

Summary of mouse study looking at neurogenerative differences in mice.

Pharmacogenomics holds the promise that drugs might one day be tailored to your genetic makeup. By Mayo Clinic Staff Modern medications save millions of lives a year. Yet any one medication might not work for you, even if it works for other people. Or it might cause severe side effects for you but not for someone else. Your age, lifestyle and health all influence your response to medications. But so do your genes. Scientists are working to match specific gene variations with responses to particular medications.

4:10 video, Is personalized medicine for individual bodies in our future? Possibly -- with the use of stem cells, undifferentiated cells with the power to become any tissue in our bodies. Craig A. Kohn describes the role of these incredible, transforming cells and how scientists are harnessing their medical potential.

By then, researchers had identified three genetic mutations that can be inherited and, if they are, cause a form of Alzheimer's called early onset because it strikes before age 65 and sometimes far earlier. Since 2004, Hornstein and all five of her siblings have been tested. Hornstein is the only one who doesn't carry PSEN1, one of the mutations.

Hosted by: Michael Aranda 0:36 Brain Personality Maps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1w... 5:10 Do I Only Use 10% of My Brain?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxIS3... 8:47 Are People Really Left or Right Brained?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYWBL... 16:46 Your Brain is Plastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KLPx... 20:24 3 Senses You Didn't Know You Had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA_j3... ----------

Sure, we know insufficient serotonin levels get a bad rap when it comes to depression, but that's like blaming one person in a full-scale riot. Depression isn't caused by only one factor. In fact, study co-author Elyse Aurbach says we're probably not getting to the core of why people are depressed because "the brain is immensely complex." In this study, the research team conducted eight experiments (four on animal brains, four on brains of the deceased human kind) of varying sample sizes - from 20 to 90 brains in each - and found that the brains of deceased humans who'd been depressed had increased levels of hippocampal FGF9 and that live animals with increased FGF9 levels demonstrated depressive, anxious behavior. "This is not just a correlation," study leader Huda Akil of the University of Michigan says. Less really may be more, at least when it comes to FGF9.

In short, you have an aura, except it isn't made of purplish light; it's your personal cloud of dead skin cells, fungus and many, many microbes. And researchers are learning to be able to identify you by it.