Posts tagged microbiology
Researchers engineer protein containers to regulate cellular activity
The researchers propose that their system, comprised of a protein capsid and a matching arginine tagged target enzyme, is a viable method of regulating enzyme activity within a cell. Their design is simple and easily applicable to other proteins.
Once again, research has yielded many useful applications for this system as it pushes us further towards cell activity control. Think of containing and regulating tumor growth, viral dependent enzymes and others. As the researchers admit, it still needs a lot of work but these preliminary results are promising.
If all else fails, I will remember this for the exam.
HDI, my Everest
I have taken microbiology in the past; I have taken a pharmaceutical class that is essentially what we are learning now and I must say, HDI and it’s previous permutations are the hardest courses I have ever taken.
You learn the bacteria and the different cocci, bacilli, gram staining; you learn about viruses, parasites and fungi; just when you thought you were information overloaded, you must tack on the drugs to treat every single one. The difficulty of the course has always stemmed from the memorization, not the actual material that is by itself easy.
Apparently, this course used to be even harder. The block was scheduled in an awkward manner—topics were disjointed, the lecture material didn’t correlate well with objectives etc. This year, the faculty has said they have “revamped” the course.
“Really? That’s what they said to us last year too,” said a second year. That isn’t very comforting.
