Category Archives: Reflections

Here is the link to my Loh et al. (2015) assignment: loh_et_al_assignment

I consider the Loh et al. (2015) assignment to be one of my top assignments because I was able to answer the questions more confidently than previous assignments. Leading up to this final in-class assignment, I had received lots of practice reading journal articles for previous assignments, which helped me read the Loh et al. (2015) article more efficiently. As a result, I was confidently able to interpret the results and figures of the paper. Overall, this assignment made me realize how much I have grown in terms of my ability to read and extract information from primary research articles, which will help me in future courses.

Here is the link to my group’s Chiesa et al. (2012) assignment, with additional answers to questions that were not answered previously and modified answers to address comments: chiesa_assignment_2016

I chose the Chiesa et al. (2012) assignment as one of my top assignments because it demonstrated how I was able to draw from concepts that I learned in earlier sections of the course and used them to hypothesize mechanisms that contribute to disease phenotypes. More specifically, I recognized that epigenetic regulation strongly contributes to abnormal gene expression patterns associated with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome.  In addition, I considered this assignment to be engaging because it involved a paper that studied humans. Many of the papers covered in this course used animal models, so it was nice to look at humans through a clinical study for a change.

The assignment for the honeybee unit was one of my favourite assignments because it provided the opportunity for different groups in the class to propose different mechanisms in a process of interest, and eventually combining all of the information into a single model. I enjoyed both sharing my group’s paper and learning about the papers assigned to other groups. I found it fascinating that even though each group presented a different mechanism that influenced caste switching, none of the ideas contradicted each other, but instead, complimented each other when combined into a single, consistent model.

Through this experience, I learned that there may not be a single and simple answer to a research question. As demonstrated in the honeybee unit, there can be multiple mechanisms involved in a process, which highlights the importance of having an open mind to different points of view. Overall, this assignment showed me that collaborating with others who have different ways of thinking is an effective way to achieve a fuller picture.

Here are the links to the questions assigned to my group and my answers, respectively:

group3_paper_and_questions

answers-to-group-3-questions