Elizabeth Havey
Cystic Fibrosis is a respiratory disease that many suffer from which makes the article that I chose to focus in very important. Cystic fibrosis occurs because of a mutation in a gene (Elborn). According to an article by Elborn J. Stuart Cystic Fibrosis is an autosomal disorder that causes people to have lots of infection and inflammation in their airways. Making breathing really uncomfortable and an extremely tiring process. As of right now there is not an actual cure for people with Cystic Fibrosis. These people just have to live each day and manage their disease. Figure one is an example of two people’s airways. The first one is a person that does not have Cystic Fibrosis and their airway is clear making it so that they can breathe easily. The second is filled with mucus which is what happens when someone has Cystic Fibrosis making it very difficult to breathe.
Figure 1. “Cystic Fibrosis.” By Yourgenome is licensed under CC BY-NN-SA 2.0. www.search.creativecommons.org/photos/fa3e26b2-5db7-4a5e-8479-37485c3f359b
An article that I found from this October talks about how a group of scientists think that they can reverse these life-threatening effects of Cystic Fibrosis and other diseases. The article that I decided to focus on is called “Developing New Delivery Tools for Gene Editing.” A group of scientist lead by Paul McCray Jr. are trying to use gene editing tools to help people that suffer from diseases like Cystic Fibrosis (“Developing”). The scientist apart of this operation are very excited about the work what they are doing. McCray said, “There is a lot of excitement about the possibility of using gene editing in medicine.” MaCary’s idea is that they are going use simple peptides to deliver gene editing tools to the areas impacted by the disease (“Developing”). The peptides that they would like to use are sequences that they borrowed from nature, that are allowed to pass through the membrane. After they pass through the membrane into the infected area, they begin to remove the mutated DNA (“Developing”). In the study they successfully used the peptides on mice lungs and hope that they can use them in the future on people that suffer from diseases that need gene editing (“Developing”).
This article seems pretty reliable. The scientist that are participating in the experiment seem very credible because of their schooling. The scientists that are involved are Paul McCray Jr. who was a MD, David Guay who has a PhD, and Thomas Del’Guidice who also has a PhD (“Developing”). All of these men have extensive schooling and are very knowledgeable about this specific topic. The article was also released by the University of Iowa Health Care. This is a reliable source and I do not think that would release something with false information. The scientist background and reliability of the original source leads me to believe that this article is valid and something that could be seen in the future.
A scholarly article by Elborn J. Stuart called “Cystic Fibrosis” takes about the mutations that take place in people with Cystic Fibrosis. So, with the information presented in the article about gene editing it seems like something that could work and benefit people. The mutation would be removed and then these individuals would produce the correct proteins reversing the impacts of diseases like Cystic Fibrosis. I think that the information in this article is something that could happen in the future and what is being presented is scientifically possible.
Although we have not talked specifically about Cystic Fibrosis, we have talked about a few things related to this issue and the solution that has been presented. One thing that we have focused a lot in class are mutations. Mutations happen when a base pair sequence is changed within someone’s DNA. This can have no impact on someone or like in the case of someone with Cystic Fibrosis it can have a detrimental impact and cause daily life to be difficult. Another thing that we talked about in class was peptides. Peptides are made up of amino acids which we focused on while we were talking about proteins. In this instance the scientist’s mentioned in their article that they are trying to use peptides to change the mutation that have occurred in people. Overall this was a very interesting topic to study, and it was cool to see the overlap with this article and what I have learned in class.
Works Cited
“Developing New Delivery Tools for Gene Editing.” University of Iowa Health Care, Science News, 31 Oct. 2019. Science Daily, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191031174655.htm
Elborn, J. S. “Cystic Fibrosis.” The Lancet 388.10059 (2016): 2519-31. ProQuest. Web. 3 Nov. 2019. https://search-proquest-com.lcc.idm.oclc.org/docview/1846832288?pq-origsite=summon
Hello Elizabeth!
First of all I would like to say that I really enjoyed your post, and found it to be informative and interesting. When reading your post I heard a great explanation of the effects that cystic fibrosis has on the life quality of those affected by it. I also heard how scientists are creating and testing new and innovative ways to edit the genes which are impacted by the mutation. The new discoveries that scientists can make nowadays by using new technology and by building on previous knowledge is absolutely fascinating!
I noticed the relationship between the peptides, proteins and DNA which worked well in making connections to what we previously learned in class. It is interesting to see how the understanding of what we have been taught in class is applicable to scientific discoveries in the modern world. It intrigued me to learn that the peptides scientists have used in tests and plan to use in the future are sequences of proteins that are derived from nature. What a cool additional and unexpected connection to biology!
Once again I really enjoyed reading this blog post, but I do have a question or two. I wonder if there is possibly more that could be explained about the process of how the peptides remove the mutated DNA? Or how they replace it and that becomes a new sequence? Or more specifically maybe how gene editing replaces mutated DNA? This was a great topic to choose and something which not only relates to the class material that we have learned but is relevant in the world today. Great job Elizabeth!