Category Archives: Portfolio

In the form of a haiku, I describe how I view the study of genetics:

Genetic puzzle.

Small pieces of big picture

Help find the answers.

To elaborate, I consider genetics to be like a puzzle because it is a mystery that has yet to be fully solved. In my opinion, there is much that we can learn from studying genetics because it is connected to all life sciences. I believe that the more that we learn about genetics, the more that we can understand the inner workings of all living things, including ourselves.

Midterm #2 was a learning experience for me. Beyond getting to know an academic paper in great depth, one of the biggest lessons that midterm #2 taught me was that I should be more skeptical of what journal articles claim. This was especially clear to me when we did the group component of midterm #2. Through collaborative discussion, my group came to the consensus that the paper for midterm #2 presented data that showed a correlation between peculiarities of the Xi in female lymphocytes and predisposition of expression of normally silenced genes, but the findings presented were not sufficient to show a cause and effect relationship. In order to confidently establish a cause and effect relationship, the authors needed to perform a manipulative experiment to induce “the cause” (i.e. changing Xist RNA cloud localization patterns) to see if we can observe the expected effect (i.e. changes in gene expression). However, instead of performing a manipulative experiment, the authors performed an observational study, from which they could only observe correlations.

In the past, whenever I read journal articles, I always accepted the claims that researchers made. But from now on, I will be more skeptical of claims and think critically before I accept them.

Prompt:

Genetically engineered foods are greatly criticized, and often feared, by many people. Initially people feared that exogenous DNA from the food item could then transfer to the consumer’s cells and cause harmful effects. More recently (and with the advent of siRNA technologies) there is a worry that ‘transgenic RNA’ from the food could get into the consumer’s cells and cause misregulation of the consumer’s genes. What is your view on this, and how would you present it to someone who has no biology background?

As an informed genetics student, I do not share the fear that some people have against genetically modified foods. In fact, I support genetic modification of foods because there are several benefits such as increased yield and nutrition, and decreased need for the use of pesticides.

However, I can imagine that many people who worry about the consequences of genetically modifying food may not have a background in the study of genetics, and are thus uninformed about what genetically modified foods can and cannot do. Therefore, by educating the public about genetics, we will be able to reduce misconceptions that may contribute to the public’s concern about genetically modified foods.

One way to better inform the public about genetics is to incorporate more genetics at the high school level in general science courses. Personally, I did not learn very much about genetics until I started studying in university and enrolled in genetics courses. Therefore, I would expect most people to have a limited knowledge of genetics unless they decided to pursue the study of genetics at the post-secondary level. If more genetics were taught at an earlier age, when general science courses are mandatory, I believe that the general public would be able to make more informed opinions regarding genetically modified foods.