Genentech

About 30 years ago, Robert Swanson and Dr. Herbert Boyer were advancing on the new field of recombinant DNA technology. Both saw that this could be a way to help many people and started their own biotechnology company, Genentech. This corporation is thought to be the beginning of businesses that help others through biology. Their main way of creating products is by splicing genes and inserting them into fast-breeding bacteria. Genentech has also produced the first human protein through the bacteria E. Coli and successfully cloned human insulin. Along with this, they have created products that help anybody that has any sort of deficiency. Today, Genentech is still one of the top biotech companies that market to everybody.

This company has also won its fair share of awards, such as: MedAdNews' World's Most Admired Biotech Company Companies List, Barron's List of "World's Most Respected Companies", The Annual Helix Award at the BIO 2006 International Conference, BusinessWeek's "100 Most Innovative Companies" List, and a bunch more. Genentech's standards for itself are very high and they are interested in helping anyone who has an unmet medical need. One of their main goals is to become an entrepreneur in helping and improving the treatment of patients with cancer, immunological diseases, and angiogenic disorders. They are always looking for a better way to help the medicine world, right now they have over 100 projects in experiement. Although this company has only been functioning for about 30 years, I think in that short period of time they have managed to complete way more than they thought was possible. Genentech's wise sense of what people need helps them provide to the community in the best way they possibily can.

The Eye

During class on Thursday we had a guest lecturer come talk about the eye, and who better to talk about the eye then an optometrist. Her name was Dr. Pamela Fong. She had a lot to talk about considering the eye is a very complex organ. First she showed us a model of an eye and all the main parts of the eye, such as the: iris, lens, optic nerve, retina, pupil, and cornea. The iris is the colored part of someone’s eye and also identifies the person, because everyone’s iris is slightly different. The cornea is the very front of the eye, if the cornea is too strong you’re near-sighted or myopic and if it’s too weak you’re far-sighted and hyperopic. If someone has astigmatism their cornea is aspheric or warped. The lens flattens and rounds to focus what you see. The optic nerve connects your eyes to the brain; this is also where your blind spot is located. The retina lines the inside of the eye and contains rods and cones. These rods and cones are light-sensitive and help you see in dim light or the dark. In the retina is a black spot, called the macula that contains cones, it helps your depth perception.

After this, she showed us pictures she had taken of the back of people’s eyes. It turns out you can learn a lot about the person just by looking at those pictures. The macula was located on opposite sides for the right and left eye. This would show which one you were looking at. If there is a sheen around the macula it means you are looking at a young eye. In the eye there are arteries and veins, by the width or size of the veins you can tell if someone was sick or had a problem with their body. People with light eyes usually have light-colored hair and vice versa, and depending on what the shade of the eye is you can tell what their hair color is. So by looking at the back of an eye you can tell all that, that’s pretty impressive.

One thing that Dr. Fong said that interested me was the fact that everyone sees things differently because our brains think differently.

Sheep Eye Dissection
Few minutes later we had a sheep eye dissection. I thought it’d be interesting to dissect an eye, but I also thought it’d be gross. When we cut open the eye all this clear goo spilled out, that was the vitreous humor, it helped the eye keep its shape. The lens was a hard clear object shaped like an actual lens. The sclera, covering of the eye, was grayish, attached to the end of the eye was the optic nerve. The inside of the eye was a metallic blue and the retina lining it was yellowish white. I learned a lot about the anatomy of the eye from this dissection.

Hebeloma crustuliniforme, Poison Pie

Hebeloma crustuliniforme is a kind of fungi; Its common name is Poison Pie. It is usually found in groups in the shape of rings or arcs. Poison Pie is found greatly in North America, near or under Oak or Coniferous trees, likely Monterey Pine. They also spring after rains ranging from late fall to winter, they can also be seen in very damp areas in the summer. This organism gets its nutrients and energy either from neighboring trees or the ground itself.

Domain: Eukaryota

Kindom: Fungi

Phylum: Basidiomycota

Class: Basidiomycetes

Order: Agaricales

Family: Bolbitiaceae

Genus: Hebeloma

Species: Crustuliniforme

Hebeloma crustuliniforme has a cap that grows as big as 4-9 cm. The cap will turn upward as it gets older. The surface of the cap is very fleshy, white to beige in color,and is very smooth. However it does get sticky in humid weather or when wet. The gills of the mushroom are also white and grown very close together. The gills have rough edges and produce liquid when young. The stalk can grow to 4-7 cm. high and .7-14 cm wide. It is covered with a white poweder and is not hollow. The spores are greatly diminutive in size, ranging only from 9-12 x 6-7 µm. The spores are circular in shape and has bumps along the suface. This mushroom is bitter and inedible. This fungi has nearly no predators because it is not fit to eat. The Poison Pie, as you can tell from the name, is very toxic; If eaten it can cause drastic problems to your stomach and intestines. If you are trying to identify this particular mushroom, give it a sniff, it smells like radishes.

Evolution Presentation

On January 24 our class had a guest speaker for Evolution. The guest was Louise Mead; she had been studying evolution for about 10 years. She introduced Charles Darwin and his role in evolution. Her presentation included cladograms that showed the evidence of evolution. There was also evolution-related vocabulary, such as: Natural Selection, Genetic Drift, Phylogenetic, Biogeography, Comparative Anatomy, Molecular Biology, and Fossil Record. There was also some interesting evidence for evolution. One where salamanders that were closely related were found in different parts of the world. Another where there were visible patterns of evolution in two species of butterflies. There was also the great experiment when mouse genes were inserted into a fruit fly, the amazing thing was that the fruit fly accepted the genes. These are just a few examples of evolution, there are plenty more all around us. Altogether, the presentation was very interesting and educational.

Smartpen

For people who are blind it is a real struggle to grasp the concepts of many subjects such as biology or calculus, because of the constant use of diagrams and charts. But a new invention is going to change all that. The new Smartpen lets the person feel what has been written on the paper, "A new world of possibilities has opened for the rapid creation of portable, ow-cost, high-quality accessible graphics enhanced with audio. For example, a visually impaired psychology student could learn neuroanatomy by exploring a diagram of the brain, with each lobe, gyrus and sulcus's name spoken as the smartpen touches it."This Smartpen can also record and connect all the information onto a computer. In most ways the technology is very similar to that of a laptop. This new gadget is not only limited to the blind, but is also recommended for the average college student, " It will allow them to spend more time listening in class while taking more of an outline form of notes. Later, when they are reviewing their handwritten notes, they can tap within them to hear what the professor was saying when they wrote a particular note, giving them the opportunity to annotate them for accuracy and additional detail."This advancement in technology and many others to come are sure to aid us in the future.

New Genome Map Found

This second generation Genome map is three times more efficient then the first original Genome map and should further uncover the mysteries of the human genome. Along with these new discoveries of life, diseases caused by altered genes will be found much more easily. And speaking of diseases the 2nd Genome map just might show more about the mutations causing the disease, find the mutation-more information about the disease-find the cure. The new Genome map might also uncover more about the intriguing evolution of the human race."If the Human Genome Project aimed to identify the proportion of genetic variation that all humans have in common - now estimated at around 99.5 per cent - then the HapMap(2nd Genome map) consortium may be thought of as a project to understand how the remaining 0.5 per cent makes all humans different from each other". To create the new Genome map they took, sampled, and evaluated the DNA of over 270 people from around the world. It was very important to get as many samples from as many places as they could."...comprising Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria, Japanese in Tokyo, Han Chinese in Beijing and Utah residents of European descent. The group already have plans to add further DNA samples from people of Kenyan, Tuscan, Indian, Chinese, Mexican and African descent."The new findings will be sure to contribute to the fact that we are all very different and unique individuals.

http://www.bionews.org.uk/new.lasso?storyid=3619

Snail Lab

In this lab we observed and read about snails. We learned that snails are really slow, moving at only 3 mph.We also saw it eat. The snail grinds up its food with small sharp rows of teeth called radula. One thing we were told not to do was to pick up the snail by its shell. A snail's shell is pretty fragile, sometimes as thin as paper. In our groups we swabbed some vinegar in front of the snail, instead of running into it turned away. Snails have a keen sense of smell; they know when to avoid acidic substances such as vinegar. However, we have yet to find out what gender our snail is.