A Butterfly and Biotechnology

Hi, Wish you a very happy day! Let all you researches result only in success! J You know, I’m learning cloning, wow, rhyming it is, learning – cloning! Like this rhythm, cloning is also fun! Yes, fun, interesting! Let me share with you, what I know about cloning. The first step of any cloning experiment would be selecting a vector. Now, I’m learning cloning using plasmid as a vector. So, you have to choose a vector for cloning at first. Vector is nothing; it’s just a plasmid DNA into which we can incorporate our gene of interest and transform the vector into a host which will produce the protein coded by our gene of interest. Vector need not be only p-DNA, viruses could also be used as vector. But, here, we are going to have an overview of cloning using Plasmid vector. Okay, we had selected the vector, let us assume. What next? We have to look at our gene of interest now. We have to get the sequence of our gene of interest – it’s available in databases lik...

We all know that we can cut and engineer our DNA or DNA of any other organism. But, so far the methods used for DNA cutting are not precise. Available techniques: By the older method, the genes are added into the cell and they get inserted into the genome of the cell in a random manner. This can’t be used when our aim is to engineer the DNA at a specific site and here we can’t also replace the already existing gene with our gene. There is homologous recombination method, but unfortunately natural recombination won’t occur in cells that easily! There are also methods which use Zinc fingers for delivering nucleases which cuts the DNA, but, this is really hard, because nuclease can’t target every possible DNA sequence. This is costly too. TALENs – Transcription Activator Like Effector Nucleases – cut the DNA at specific location. But, what to do, this is also costly! Our new method Here, we are going to use the already  existing proteins of bacteria...

We all love sweets, isn’t it? From a cute baby who had just started feeling and enjoying the tastes to 100 year old people, love sweets! Oh, I could hear you, yes, Diabetic patients can’t enjoy sweets. But, they too love to have sweets. Even, my father is diabetic and he uses to eat sweets hiding from my mom! Okay, what for that sweet love, you are asking? Nothing wrong in that, but, if you are crazy about the bottled drinks, then, I’m sorry, you must start worrying! L Aspartame – is an artificial sweetener which is used in most of the bottled drinks. And, that is an approved artificial sweetener by FDA (US Food and Drug Administration – which tests and approves all food and drug items before they are marketed) “It is approved by FDA, then, why we must worry?”, is this your next question? Let me answer you! Aspartame is formed using two aminoacids – L-Phenyl alanine and L aspartate. This when broken down during metabolism in our body produces – phenylalanine and hence ...

In the previous post, GM Mosquitoes #1   we had seen about the GM mosquitoes used for curing malaria. Now, we are gonna see about the GM mosquitoes designed for eradicating mosquitoes population! Aedes aegypti is the mosquito species which spreads Dengue. Nowadays, people are suffering severely because of this Dengue. In most cases it just leaves with mild fever. But, in some cases, Dengue is deadly! So, to get rid of this great dengue nuisance, scientists had found a solution - GM mosquitoes! We had seen that in the case of eradication of malaria by GM mosquitoes that scientists had made the mosquitoes resistant to malaria causing protist, but, here in this case of dengue the genetic modification is different. Dengue! In the case of dengue, male mosquitoes are made sterile and when they mate with the wild type female mosquitoes, their young ones are made unviable i.e they die before reaching adult stage. So, this reduces the population of mosquitoes by the death of ...

You are troubled at the mid-night? Your days are affected due to the lack of sound sleep? I can understand; The "mosquitoes", they are responsible for all this. We can bear with them if they are just biting and sucking a drop of blood, but, never, when they are injecting us with something like a "doctor", that too, which is never going to cure the disease like doctor's injection, but, going to give us disease. Mosquito bats, liquids :( even with the help of these things, we are getting malaria, dengue, chikungunya :( :( Scientists had found a solution for this greatest problem of our night!(nowadays daytime too) GM mosquitoes, these genetically modified species are resistant to diseases like malaria.  MALARIA! How malaria generally spreads! As we all know, its because of mosquitoes, especially the female Anopheles mosquito which gets the virus when it sucks blood from an infected animal/human. Half of the life cycle of the Plasmodium speci...

Hi, Wish you a good time :) Molecular biology! I was taught about "cot value analysis" in my molecular biology class. Here, you could read something, which I know about cot value. Cot (C not (zero) t) value analysis: This analysis uses the DNA denaturation and renaturation kinetics. This is used for measuring the repetitive DNA sequence in a given DNA sample. This analysis has application like separating repetitive sequences from mixture of DNA sample. Okay, let us discuss the procedure now. Note: Cot value = (C zero) * (Time) * (constant representing the effect of cation in the buffer on renaturation) where, c zero -> DNA concentration (mol/l) T - Renaturation time (sec) Procedure: Denature the DNA sample by heating Cool and renature the sample, note renaturing extent (as cot value) at particular temperatures until a particular cot value is reached. Now, dilute this sample with sodium phosphate buffer- SPB (0.03M - at this buffer concentration the DNA bind...

Cancer! As you may know,  cancer is uncontrolled multiplication of cells. There are several reasons for this uncontrolled multiplication of  cells like mutations due to UV exposure or exposure to certain chemicals, even genetic defects, excessive alcohol consumption or smoking (kindly, avoid smoking or alcohol consumption). Still there are several reasons you could quote as "cancer causing". There are different types of cancer based on the part of the body affected like lung cancer, lung cancer, blood cancer etc., Huge number of people all over the world are suffering from cancer, it's a deadly disease, it has no preventive measures and moreover, there is no real cure for cancer, only treatment methods are available! Here, we are going to discuss about the possibility of using magnets in curing cancer. When I read about usage of super magnets in treating breast cancer just by hanging the super magnet in a necklace which hangs over the breast of the patients (!...