Monthly Archives: September 2016

Intermediate Stage of Project: Draft Research Question

In conventional pregnancies, 50% of developing embryo’s DNA does not come from the mother. However, the mother’s immune system does not consider the embryo to be dangerous. Surrogate mothers have even less DNA in common with the developing embryo, yet surrogate mothers can still successfully bear children who are not their own.

Based on my interest in how developing embryos are not negatively affected by the mother’s immune system, I created a draft research question:

Are there genes that are expressed by the developing embryo that induce tolerance against the mother’s immune system?

However, I consider this question to be quite broad. Therefore, I will work towards narrowing it down to ask about a specific gene. In past immunology courses, I have learned that T regulatory cells in the immune system secrete inhibitory cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β that suppress immune cells in order to promote immune tolerance. For the final version of my research question, I will consider discussing whether IL-10 expression by the developing embryo is necessary for immune tolerance by the mother.

I am concerned that my question may have already been answered by other researchers, so an important challenge that I will have to overcome is to create a novel question that no one has answered yet.

Learning Journal #1

Once piece of factual knowledge that I acquired since the start of the course is that the “add something” experimental approach is a test of sufficiency for a result that we wish to induce. For example, we may want to know if adding certain transcription factors to differentiated cells can induce the cells to become pluripotent.

This new piece of knowledge fits into what I already knew by providing an additional method of studying the functions of genes. Previously, I was more familiar with the “remove something” approach for studying genetics because I volunteer at a lab where experiments are often done by using a wild-type strain as a control group and a knockout strain as an experimental group. In my experience, I have never used the “add something” approach in the lab, so I consider it to be an interesting alternative way to perform experiments.

One thing that comes to mind when thinking about the “add something” approach is using CRISPR as a means to do the “adding”. I often hear about how CRISPR can be used to add or edit genes, but I do not know very much about how CRISPR actually works. I would be interested in learning more about CRISPR in BIOL 463.

In my opinion, the “add something” approach fits into the general concept of using experimental approaches to obtain information. Earlier in this journal, I mentioned the “remove something” approach as another experimental approach used to obtain information. Furthermore, in class, we also discussed the “look” approach as yet another experimental approach. Thinking about the concept of experimental approaches in general, I am curious about other approaches that may be possible which allow scientists to obtain information in different ways. Just like how the “add something” approach is a test of sufficiency and the “remove something” approach is a test of necessity, I wonder how other approaches can provide information in other ways.

If I were a developmental biologist

If I were a developmental biologist/geneticist, two questions that I would investigate are:

  1. What events during development determine whether a human is left-handed or right-handed?
  2. How does a mother prevent its immune system from reacting negatively to a developing embryo when 50% of the embryo’s genetic composition is foreign?

If I had to choose only one question to investigate, I would investigate question #2. As an integrated sciences student specializing in genetics and immunology, this question allows me to investigate within two of my favourite fields in science, while also placing emphasis on development.

If this question were solved, it would have impacts on developmental biology, science, as well as the community at large.

This investigation would help to answer whether embryo-specific gene expression plays a role in successful development of the embryo in the presence of the mother’s immune system.

In addition, by identifying how a mother’s immune system is prevented from reacting negatively to a developing embryo, it would have an impact on science by allowing us to gain insight on a potential factor that contributes to embryo mortality due to the mother’s immune system, which may then be investigated further in order to help prevent immune-mediated embryo mortality.

Furthermore, this investigation may provide ideas on how we can stop unwanted immune responses from occurring, which can have an impact on the community at large by solving problems such as allergies, inflammatory diseases, and rejection of transplanted organs.