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Biology in the News is presented by Dr. Lamar's Biology A/B classes. Each student is responsible for posting ONE blog entry and commenting on ONE post submitted by a fellow student.

About your initial posting . . . . . (approximately 150- 300 words)

Your initial posting is worth 30 points. It must be submitted by October 15th. - Locate an electronic article about a new finding in biology. Article must be been written in the last 12 months. Your posting should include 1) the name of the article (3 point), 2) article source - be specific (3 point), 3) date of article (2 point), 4) link to article (2 points), 5) summary of article in your own words (0-10 points), and 6) significance of article (0-10 points). Comments on significance of article can include (but not be limited to) importance of article to self, to society, or to the further advancement of a particular area of biology.

NOTE: To add link, select text in post that you want to link, click on link icon above posting field, and then paste URL information into appropriate field.

About your comments to a fellow classmate's posting . . . . (approximately 100 - 200 words)

Your comments to another student's posting is worth 20 points. Comments must be submitted between October 16 and November 19 - "The more you know, the more you realize there's a lot more to know" is certainly true to science. Read our Biology in the News blob posts. Pick one post (not your own) and submit comments about this post. Comments should included 1) A question that is raised in your mind by the post. The question should have scientific relevance (0 - 5 points) 2) a response to your question. (0-15 points) Research your question and answer it. If the answer is currently unknown, provide additional background information, describe research that is being done in this field, and/or research that is required for the question to be answered.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Biology News Blog-Gene Identified That Prevents Stem Cells from Turning Cancerous

Source-Science Daily
Article Name-Gene Identified That Prevents Stem Cells from Turning Cancerous
Article Date- Oct 14, 2010
Link to Website-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101014191151.htm


Summary

Stem cells are the prodigious precursors of all the tissues in our body. They have the ability to develop almost anything in our body given the right circumstances and unfortunately this can be a good thing and a bad thing. One bad thing that can be developed from stem cells is cancer. Researchers from Rockefeller University found out that two things can increase your chances in developing cancer. The two are having too many stem cells and having stem cells that live too long. To help slow down this problem, researchers identified a mechanism, which is called Sept4, that regulates programmed cell death in precursor cells for blood, or hematopoietic stem cell. This provides evidence of the potentially carcinogenic downside to stem cell treatments and suggests that nature tries to balance stem cells' regenerative power against their potentially lethal potency.

What I Think.

I believe that this is a major improvement in science because cancer is a problem that has an effect on many people. Alot of deaths have come from cancer and this is huge that scientist have found a way to at least attempt to slow down the problem. Researchers have been trying to solve this problem for many years and never had a way to slow it down or tell u a reason why u developed the gene but now that they now more about the problem they can do more to help u get rid of the cancerous gene.

Citation-
Rockefeller University (2010, October 14). Gene identified that prevents stem cells from turning cancerous. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 16, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2010/10/101014191151.htm

Raymond Hines
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1 comment:

  1. LlynnNovember 18, 2010 at 5:33 PM

    I think that this article is a very good one. If it's a gene that can prevent stem cells from becoming cancerous then that is a good thing. The question that pops in my head if how can Sept4 help prevent cells from becoming cancerous? As stated in the article summary it says that it regulates programmed cell death in precursor cells for blood, or hematopoietic stem cell, but i wonder what does it mean. I looked it up but i wasnt able to find the information that i wanted. This article is still a good one and if the discovery is able to be further viewed then this should be something that we should look more into.

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