http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/04/reality-check-sex-crime-genetic

This article on Sciencemag.org was written in response to a study that was published looking at the potential for genetic connection to sex crimes committed by males in Sweden. They found that there was strong correlation between families and sex crimes. I found this interesting because of our class discussion/guest presentation on Apr 8, where we talked about how genetics is portrayed in the media/understood by the public. The article itself talks about how environment plays a large role in how children behave later in life and how genetics similar to a sex offender does not mean that you will commit a sex crime, but I can see how this could be taken in a different way where someone thinks that because their father has committed a sex crime then they will too. Definitely relevant to social psychology.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/05/ije.dyv029.full

I’m currently doing my Honours project in a lab on campus and one of the research/lab tech’s contract is not being renewed for lack of funding. He has been in the lab for 11 years and is truly an incredibly helpful and easy to talk to person, who made coming into the lab  this summer painless, pretty fun, and a learning experience. His leaving reminded me of something I’ve thought about in the past. As a lab PI, a business owner, or lots of other positions, your support staff can make or break the feeling and atmosphere in your place of work. Competence is not the only aspect of a job that is important, but also the ability to welcome/help/interact with new people, as well as people who have been around for a long time. Surrounding yourself and your work with good, competent people can make a lot of difference, especially in a situations where people come and go like labs with grad students.

I was assigned Hunt et al. (2012) as a paper to present in one of my classes. This paper talks about the effect of BPA on the developing ovary in rhesus monkeys as a follow up to other studies that looked at effects in mice. Mice do not maintain estrogen levels throughout pregnancy and have different plantation and protein associated with the placenta when compared to the monkey. In terms of pregnancy monkeys are much closer to humans and using a primate model for research into chemical effects on reproduction is more applicable to humans. This paper is kind of scary in that they found that low level constant exposure changed chromosome behavior at the onset of meiosis (resulting in increased synaptic defects and chromosome interactions between non-homologous chromosomes) and failure of proper follicle formation later in development (many follicles contained multiple oocytes and there were large clusters of oocytes that were not in follicles). These defects could have long term implications because ovary structure can affect function and multioocyte follicles are usually targeted for apoptosis, which may decrease reproductive lifespan.

Hunt, P. A., Lawson, C., Gieske, M., Murdoch, B., Smith, H., Marre, A., … & VandeVoort, C. A. (2012). Bisphenol A alters early oogenesis and follicle formation in the fetal ovary of the rhesus monkey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(43), 17525-17530.

Questions/issues about imprinting and Hox genes:

I find that imprinting and Hox genes make sense while talking about them with classmates but reading papers about these topics can be very confusing.

write (about a paragraph) where you explain to a very concerned member of the public what the role/function/importance of the use of animals is developmental biology research is.

The use of animals in biological research is unfortunately often the best option for learning about the multitude of questions that scientists ask about life everyday. Technology is not at the point that scientists can model what is happening inside an organism without actually going in and looking at the function of each piece in the whole. Maybe someday we will know enough about the genome to be able to only use computers to do manipulations and ask questions about the affect of different substances inside an animal body. While not all research with animals has a direct relation to bettering human life or the environment, a lot of it is. Animal models allow scientists to learn about the cause and ways to treat many types of diseases and genetic abnormalities as one example. The use of animals in research is heavily monitored in a lot of countries and researches must be trained in the proper handling and care of animal subjects before they can start experiments. Some types of animals are protected a little bit more than others, for instance mice and other mammals are highly regulated but experiments on fish or invertebrates are a little less regulated. I guess this is due to the increased connection that people feel to animals that are more like us. Pharmaceuticals are often tested on animals first to prevent potential harm to humans. One way to decrease the use of animals in this capacity would be to use body, or somatic, cells that have been returned to a stem cell state (induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells) to grow sheets of cells that act like human organs. This method can look at how drugs change after being detoxified in liver cells and how they affect heart cells as a few examples. If these types of cells can be used instead of animals subjects then the use of animals in drug testing could decline.

Q1. Limb development is caused by a number of integrated processes that form the patterns that tell which type of cell to grow in specific locations. Limb malformations caused by defects in limb development has been studied for a long time, even before DNA techniques were invented, because malformations are relatively easy to see and describe. Subjects/patients in studies of limb malformations are likely found through doctors offices and connections with medical professionals and the scientists that study these disorders. Information regarding the genetic regulation of limb development, or how cells are told what to do, is of interest to many people, including medical professionals, scientists,  and people who are affected by limb defects.

Q2. It is difficult to answer the question “what big processes are involved in the development of the human limb?” because of the complexity of this process as well as the ethical constraints of human research. Mice models are often used to decrease the later. The complexity of the system that allows limb development is a challenge for sure, but with carefully constructed studies using animal models it is possible to understand this process.