As the head of a funding agency, I would be most excited about funding a research project that is related with a specific disease. For example, I personally is very interested in type 2 diabetes. From what we have learned in this course, we already known that type 2 diabetes is related with our gut microbiomes. All findings are based on the animal studies. I am thinking about applying those findings into real lives. Type 2 diabetes has become a big health concern all over the world. We still not having a efficient way to help patients to get rid of taking insulin injections and go back to normal health states. If remodeling our gut microbiome environment is a new way, I think it worth a try.
Writing Exercise #14
human non-infectious diseases that you can think of that are influenced by microorganisms:
- Alzheimer’s
- depression
- cancer
- heart disease
Compared with my answer in writing exercise #1, I am more confident about my answer now. I think the main content that I will take away from this course is the fact that microorganisms have an influence on our health in a very complex way. We all need to know how to maintain our health by maintaining a balance of all human microbiome. I may not need write a lot in my future career, but I found a lot of interesting topics from this course. All those topic worth further studies to discover. I will keep researching these topic in the future since they will be helpful for my career.
Writing Exercise #13
- Can experiments detect differences that matter?
It is important because we need to be able to identify functional differences in closely related genes from sequence alone. It also helps readers to identify what matters in an article.
- Does the study show causation or correlation?
Correlation is not causation, but correlation almost always implies some sort of causal relationship. If it is a causation, which mean it has directly affect the on the experimental subjects; if it is a correaltion, there might be a link between the source and the result in the pathway of the effection.
- What is the mechanism?
It is important to understand the mechanism because when we find any question in the new finding, we will need to go through the mechanism and check on the each step.
- How much do experiments reflect reality?
It is important in applying the new findings into the real life, and help readers to understand the importance of the findings.
- Could anything else explain the results?
If there are some other factors contribute to the problem, then we will think about causation and correlation again. If there is another possibility, we will need to find out the relationships between these factors.
Writing Exercise #12
Our gut microbime could have a strong effect to our brain with their neurotransmitter production and metabolism. According to the reading for this week, those neurotransmitter hormones could trigger the change in our brain gene expression and resulting in mental health disease.
The communication of brain and gut microbes are bidirectional. Multiple studies show that brain could alter the release of hormones, which could affect the activities of microbes and what they release. Mental health could influence gut microbiota based off of factors like stress. a person under chronic stress undergoes chemical changes in the body like an increase in the hormone called cortisol. It could potentially alter gut microbiota populations since it’s long term impacts on the body include things like increased or decreased appetite, raised blood pressure, lowered immune response, and over or under sleeping.
Writing Exercise #11
In my experience with the peer review process, it helped me better understand the main goals for writing the paper. It gave me a chance to know more about how my classmates approached them. I usually look at how others address their every single idea about their papers and try to apply it to my paper. I can also learn what kind of words choice people make that I could adapt to my own paper to make it more professional or readable. I also look at the information they use to support their thesis. I personally have difficulty organizing information in my paper. By reading others papers, it gives me a chance to check if I provide enough information to support my ideas. Peer reviewing helps me get a better understanding on what kind of thought the reader have while they are reading this kind of paper, and what kind of common confusions are in the paper, so I can avoid those mistake.
Writing Exercise #10
Peer reviewing is very important because it allows others to evaluate the constants in the article is true and scientifically accurate. It is usually finished by people working on the similar topics.
The benefit for peer review is that it allows the editors to give advice for the article to be more readable to an audience outside of the scientists who preformed the experiment. With more people doing the peer reviewing, the more reliable the article will be. However, peer reviewing could take time and causing the submission on the paper to get push back.
writing exercise #9
Potential risk factors could be:
- Formula feeding instead of being exposed to microbes in breast milk
- Infant being born through c-section and not exposed to vaginal microbes in delivery
- A kid that never plays outside (in dirt)
- Parents that don’t get there kids vaccinated to be exposed to viruses that like virulence factors
- Antibiotic therapy not being used in the right way
- Over use of antimicrobial household products like (detergents, soaps, kitchen cleaners etc.)
writing exercise #8
the most interesting thing I have learned is that the gut-brain commuication can influence the colonization of microbiome of babies. When I was doing the research for the writing exercise #7, the most information I got was about the usage of antibiotics or the mode of delivery. Researches have done plenty of studies on the external factors, but it looks like we still need more efforts on the internal factors.
Gut-brain communication occurs via interactions between the gut microbiome and PIN pathways, including cytokines, endocrine, and neural pathways. Powerful inflammatory stimulus such as LPS can go cross the intestinal interface and get the peritoneal cavity. This may stimulate a inflammatory response.
I may start my final essay by doing the research first. After I get a general idea about what I am going to put into my essay, I will write down a outline. I may do some further researches during the process of writing.
writing exercise #7
- mode of delivery
babies born by C-section transfer less bacteria from their mothers, and they go less diversity of their gut microbiome
- feeding patterns
breast feeding stimulates the growth of Bifidobacterium and Bacteroides
- prenatal antibiotic exposure
prenatal antibiotics exposure lowers the colonization and diversity of gut microbiome of babies
writing exercise #5
Taking nutritional supplements is a intentional choice that may have impact on my microbial communities. Supplements such as dietary fiber, may promote the growth of probiotics in our gut.
The choice of food we eat can have non-intentional impact on our microbial communities. For example, when we get travel to a foreign country, the local food we eat may break the balance of our gut communities, and make us get sick. Another example is that we happen to eat some food that was polluted by some harmful bacterial during the producing process. It is really dangerous if the bacterial get colonized in our gut since some bacterial are lethal.