coolscience

Besides cultural and diet differences in people, we distinguish each other generally by phenotype related to race; hair color, skin color, nose size, ear size etc.

Is it tacky to identify each other by genetic differences?  Is it all apart of subconscious discrimination?  We all share the same genes to the 10^-4 degree, why focus on the differences when we are so similar.  I’d like to think that this line of thinking is preoccupied with the fear of treating each other without equality rather than keeping an objective view of genetic diversity.

A determined effort to find the mutable changes we have gone through as a species would reveal a story that hasn’t been told yet on the development and acceleration of human civilization on evolution.

The idea that increased genetic knowlage will lead to reproduction to select  certain traits while eliminating others belonging to supposed undesired races only presumposes that people use their brain when looking for a partner which is an anecdotally false observation I’ve noticed throughout my life.

1. The medical branch of the United Nations, the World Health Organization last week issued swine flu an official pandemic of the highest degree, level 6.  What is strange about this?  The scaling system is entirely on the spread of the disease and not on the severity.  So while H1N1 is definitely an effective vector, its definitely not lethal like the pandemic viruses in The Stand or Outbreak.  The WHO has accepted that the meter of a pandemic needs to include more factors.

2.  The legislative and executive branches of the federal government have aproved a bill to move cigerette regulation to the FDA, a change from regulation from the occasional consumer activist lawsuit.  Whats funny about this?  The FDA won’t have power to regulate the nicotine content of cigarettes but only the sugar additives that make them sticks so tasty.  This wooden horse legislation was sponsored by Philip Morris.

Today was the second day working in the trout immunology lab.  We are getting some cultures prepared for mass plasmid production (~1mg) and set up a one hundred gallon fish tank for our trout in a couple weeks.

Last night I read over the paper that summarized the technique we would be adapting.  Very, very interesting.  A transgenic (frankenstein) Shigella bacteria with an inserted plasmid with a eukaryotic promoter was used to infect mice.  The bacteria would cross into the eukaryotic cells using an invasive protein activating a phagocytic response.  Once the bacteria was inside the cell though it would be quickly lysed from an engineered deficiency in cell wall peptidoglycan and the plasmid dna would be released into the cytosol (preferably a macrophage cell).   The plasmid was coded for a surface HIV protein (glycoprotein) and an immune response developed.  The established response then protected the mouse from HIV infection in the blood and through mucus membranes. So its pretty cool that they were able to do develop a immune response to HIV for mice, but a shame that other potential dangers like using transgenic bacteria as a vector and that it couldn’t be properly tested in people from the high risk that keep this from being pursued quicker.

In our lab we are working on essentially the same technique for a different disease for a different animal.  We are testing this method for establishing an immune response to infectious hemapoietic necrosis virus (INHV) in trout/salmon.  A little less important but much less red tape. Apparently it is a big problem to recreational fisherman and figh farmers in the northwest though and maybe it will give me some resume cred if I want to go back to alaska to work later.