1. Successful cloning depends on several ingredients in the agarose cloning plate, as well as competent E. coli cells transformed by recombinant plasmids. Describe in 1-2 sentences what each of these ingredients achieves in a cloning activity, and what would happen if this ingredient were left out of the protocol.
a) X-gal
b) IPTG
c) antibiotic
d) recombinant plasmid
e) competent E. coli
2. You are given a microarray that contains cDNA probes for every protein encoded by the human genome. Describe an experiment in which you investigate a question of your choice about human biology. You might propose to compare samples from two different groups of humans (e.g. children vs. adults), or from the same group of humans (e.g. before vs. after taking a drug). What question will you ask, and what will you learn from the microarray experiment? Please do not use the two examples given above or the cancer example from class – there are may options to dream up!
3. Please use your book and the web to learn a little more about the case of Dr. Acer and whether or not he infected his patients with HIV, then answer the following questions:
a) How was the phylogeny constructed (gene used? method of tree construction?). What did the final tree tell us about the various patients’ likelihood of having been infected by Dr. Acer?
b) Please search beyond the textbook and share a mystery that remains about this case – you will find a few options to choose from. What do we still not know about what happened? Also share your source(s), and explain why you find them credible.
c) What debate about doctor-patient relationships ensued the CDC’s phylogenetic study of HIV sequences from Acer and patients? What are the current regulations (at federal and/or state level) today surrounding disclosures/practices of health care providers who are infected with communicable diseases?
4. Our last exam featured a Hardy-Weinberg question that was not easily calculated by hand. Let’s have you design a better one! Using imaginary creatures of your own choosing, please provide an alternative question testing basic H-W skills, and then show the math that you can use to get to the answers. Your question should give the reader phenotype frequencies from the imaginary population, describe the dominance relationship, and then ask them for both the allele and genotype frequencies. (Note: please do not simply copy a question from the internet, your book, or other students. If you keep the numbers/math from another source and change only the wording/species, this will be treated as plagiarism. It *is* acceptable to use any of these resources as a guide, but your own example question should contain unique numbers (and therefore a unique worked solution) to those of your peers or any online resources. With your own words pleaseeeee.
0 comments