Please try to address these questions to the best of your abilities. If nothing really comes to mind, it is OK to leave one or two questions blank, but please indicate that you are deliberately leaving them blank (so that I can tell that you did not just forget to answer).

(For Dr. Kalas – I emailed you this journal because my wordpress wasn’t working) 

A. Factual knowledge

1. Please describe, briefly, one new piece of factual knowledge that you acquired or developed so far in the course.

I have learnt how to read the graphs in week 2 of lecture slides, page 9.

2. Please describe how you know that you have acquired or developed this piece of factual knowledge, and provide some evidence for it.

These graphs can be used to see the location of a mutation when comparing to the wild  type sequence. If the curve does not match the normal sequence then we can tell that there is a mutation at that point. If two peaks can be seen at a certain location, then we can tell that the mutant is heterozygote for the mutation. The colors of each curve on this graph can also tell us what base pair change is causing that mutation. For example in the case of the graphs in the lecture slides, the mutation for family 1 was a base pair change of G to A in one of the alleles of the gene.

B. Conceptual knowledge

1. Please describe, briefly, one new piece of conceptual knowledge that you acquired or developed so far in the course.

I learnt knowledge about what it means for a cell to be specified or committed.

2. Please describe how you know that you have acquired or developed this piece of conceptual knowledge, and provide some evidence for it.

If a cell is determined, it means that its fate cannot be reversed. Therefore if you take a cell from one part of the body and transplant it into another part of the body, it will still continue its normal fate.  If a cell is specified, it’s fate can be reversed, therefore if you transplant it into another part of the body it may turn into another cell.

The frog experiment that was done previously, shows that chromosomes become more restricted and packed as time progresses in the development. Therefore, depending on the location the cells become more determined and their potency is reduced.

C. Skills

1. Please describe, briefly, one skill that you acquired or developed/are developing so far in the course.

I have obtained some skill in choosing a proper technique for doing an experiment.

2. Please describe how you know that you have acquired or developed this skill, and provide some evidence for it.

The staining technique can be used to obtain information about the location, distribution, structure  and expression patterns of genes. The strongest advantage for this technique is that it’s very visual.  However, it can be difficult to quantify your findings and many controls are needed.

We can also remove/knock out a gene from an organism’s genome, and this will help us conclude  whether that gene is necessary and required for the proper development of the organism. A  gene/DNA segment can be added to an organism,  and from this type of experiment we can  conclude whether the added segment is sufficient to cause a change in the development.