One of the most surprising things I’ve learned about so far is how microbes can be indicators of so many diseases even if they aren’t the cause of them or necessarily infectious. This has to do with the fact that microbes thrive in very niche environments and sometimes diseases can induce specific factors to allow those microbes to grow. What I would like to learn more about is if there have been any proven microbes that aren’t a cause of a disease but nearly always are present in higher or lower densities due to the disease. We’ve discussed several articles that hint at this type of relationship, but there hasn’t been any yet that absolutely confirm the presence of certain microbes as indicators. This could be such an important concept in the field of medicine, in terms of testing early for diseases or simply cheaper testing. I especially wonder if certain microbes could be used to catch some types of cancer early. I’m not sure what the mechanism would be for having greater proliferation have a positive or negative effect on a microbe, but it would be an interesting concept to pursue.
Cancer as a disease has to do with the excessive proliferation of cells without regulation. What I want to know more about is how that might induce an environment where microbes can thrive or in other scenarios may decrease the prevalence of certain microbes. It seems like it would be more likely that tumors inhibit microbial communities from thriving, but I could also see how certain secretions or cancerous indicators may be beneficial for certain microbes. For example, in gastric tumors, the gut microbial community could be changed. I also think it microbe indicators could be effective in anticipation of the development of certain cancers rather than a later indicator. I also think some specific cancers would be better identified due to where they exist. For example, dental and intestinal cancers might be easier to study because they have a closer correlation with microbial communities, but others might have indirect associations as well. Overall, I would like to learn more about the connection between microbial communities and cancer.
Reflection: Based on these free writes I can see I am definitely interested in the idea of how microbes can be indicators of disease. I am not totally sold on doing my final paper essay on cancer and microbes, but it could be a good start. I am looking forward to learning more about all of the above topics even if I don’t write my essay on any of them. To begin preparing for my final paper I will probably start looking for scientific articles that have definitive research about microbes as indicators, but especially heavily studied topics. I will also start to look into what kind of disease I may like to write about, because a lot of projects like this require a fair amount of background research, so I would like to do it on a disease that interests me.
