Week 2 Assignments

I enjoyed both the Mitosis vs Meiosis, and Citric Acid Cycle links. Since I'm taking Physiology right now, it's both a good review of what we've covered in that class, but also more in depth. I'm not sure I understood everything in the Citric Acid Cycle animation - if we were to fully understand that process, I think we would have to include a bit more lecture and question/answer during class time on the topic.

I know this wasn't one of the listed discussion questions for this week's class materials, but I was especially interested in the article "Health: The origin of a special success" and want to spend a bit of time on the topic of how molecular biology is potentially changing cancer treatment. When Steve Jobs passed away last year, I remember reading an article in which he talked about his prediction that he will either be in the last generation of people to die of cancer or the first generation to be cured of cancer through individual gene therapy. I found this idea incredibly compelling but also, given the track record of western medical science and therapy, potentially fraught with landmines that can't yet be predicted.

Still, the concept is interesting enough that I did a bit more reading on it and have included a few links below that you might find interesting.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-23/genome-map-helps-improve-cancer-treatments.html

A decade after the first draft of the human genome was published, hospitals and clinics are using DNA sequencing to generate better treatments and diagnoses for patients with rare childhood diseases, cancers and other mysterious conditions. Using new technology that can effectively print out an individual’s genome -- the instruction manual for making all the body’s cells -- doctors are examining individual components, called bases, to slow intractable cancers and treat one-of-a- kind diseases in children.

http://www.mesothelioma.com/news/2012/01/is-genome-mapping-key-to-cancer-cure.htm

Of all conditions mapped, sequencing cancer genomes has shown to be extremely effective. According to Barrett Rollins of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, cancer “is among the most promising targets because it is essentially a disease in which damaged genes let cells grow without restraint.”