Caitlyn's Corner

So, for my last bog post I decided to get a topic idea from the syllabus that our professor gave us. One subject he suggested for our blog post was “The Life and Work of [insert your favorite molecular biologist here]”. Well, for this blog post I am happy to present to ya’ll, The Life and Work of Dr. Christopher Randle.   Dr. Randle is a well-rounded and respected professor of biological sciences at Sam Houston State University. His official title is Associate Professor of Molecular Systematics. Dr. Randle grew up in Ohio. He received his PhD at Ohio State University. It was also at Ohio State University, where he met his wife, Dr. Sibyl Bucheli. She is also a professor here at SHSU. Dr. Bucheli is an Associate Professor of entomology. Together, this brilliant couple has one daughter and a little dog. Dr. Randle has worked on a tropical lineage of plant parasites for about 16 years. His research primarily focuses on the connections between molecular and organismal evoluti...

So, just to let everyone know, one of my favorite shows is Grey’s Anatomy. On one of the episode of this latest season, one of the doctors had a brain tumor. As most people are aware, brain tumors are not easily removed. However, because this a made-up show, this tumor was obviously easily removed. Anyway, when this doctor woke up, something strange happened. This English-speaking doctor woke up speaking in fluent French.   Like I said, this show is made-up, so I didn’t really think anything of it. This all changed when Coral and I googled weird and rare diseases. I stumbled upon Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). Upon further research into this syndrome, I found a more recent case that was reported in 2016. A young soccer player in Atlanta ended up in a coma after being kicked in the head. Once he finally woke up from his coma, he began to speak Spanish fluently. In both the made-up show and this real case, both the kid and the doctor knew little of the now fluent language. ...

So, I decided to do a second blog post this week because of a very interesting lecture Dr. Thompson gave my class on Thursday. I am in Dr. Thompson’s Instrumental Analytical Chemistry class. He was explaining to us Electrophoresis, which is something we are all very familiar with. Electrophoresis is a method that was originally used to separate proteins. Next, scientists used electrophoresis to figure out the sequences of the protein, they did this using gel. Later, they used electrophoresis to separate DNA and then finally they used it to sequence DNA.   However, before he went into detail of this process, he decided to give us a little background which I found very interesting. The reason I found this lecture so interesting is because it included a relationship between small pox and electrophoresis. This background included the researcher who first used electrophoresis for separating proteins. He was not the first researcher to USE electrophoresis, but he was the first to us...

I would just like to start this blog off by kindly saying; Can y’all PLEASE post y’alls blogs BEFORE 10pm on a Friday so I can comment?! Okay thanks! So, speaking of procrastination, I came across this article, “This Wacky-Sounding Procrastination Cure Is Actually Backed by Science”.   As I was reading this article I really did not find much science background until it began to discuss a journal published by a molecular biologist, named Nikolai Shevchuk. They used this study to prove that taking a cold shower could help with procrastination. Taking a cold shower may lead to you becoming more alert and overall more productive. However, because they did not do their own research I am going to talk more about the work done by Shevchuk. Shevchuk did a study on the correlation between a cold shower and depression. Depression is a mood disorder that is one of the most common sources of disability. Depression has been linked to be caused by any combination of genetic, biologica...

So, as I was searching for what to talk to y’all about this week, I came across an article titled “CReM Scientists Turn Human IPS Cells into Lung Cells”. I found this very interesting, so I clicked on it, the first thing I noticed on the page was ““Bronchospheres” may pave way for personalized cystic fibrosis treatments”. Before I start discussing this cool find, let me first tell you a little about cystic fibrosis. The majority of my blog is going to focus on the article I found, but you first need to know a little background on cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is an awful genetic disease that is caused from mutations. These mutations are in the CFTR gene. This gene is responsible for sending instructions for making a protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator. This protein is responsible for the functioning of the cells that produce mucus, sweat, saliva, tears, and digestive enzymes. The mutation in this gene causes numerous things including abnormal ...