Thomas Webber

This links VERY nicely to my "role of genomics in cancer medicine" essay that I wrote last semester - which I reread the other day to try to keep it fresh in my mind, as I found the subject to be very interesting. At the time I talked about Her2, an "oncogene" which helps to "personalise" medication courses . Now another such gene has been discovered in the same cancer. - Thomas Webber from Bookmarklet

I am finally starting to settle into the week's routine - it's a lot of hours in uni, but now I feel I am at least making use of it. This weeks #MB1005 lectures were very good, even if I felt that the practical's worksheet was beyond confusing (my beef with it is that we were guided nicely through all of the questions in the previous report in a logical way, but in this practical we were dropped in at the final steps of the understanding and then essentially asked to work backwards. This was made worse by conflicting advice from the demonstrators (more like instructions - at one point my instructor asked why I had written something as I had before crossing it out and 'correcting' it)). I've also been enjoying all aspects of microbiology ( #BS1009 )and have found all of the #MB1031 lectures to be really enjoyable/useful. I'm going to get a CV drafted over the weekend ready for any applications I may need to make; this should keep me prepared. - Thomas Webber

Haha, what did he say? - Rachel Bell

His response via email was just as flippant as his lecturing style. I very much appreciate this! - Thomas Webber

The week is going well, even if I feel a little overwhelmed by the lack of free time. I'm really not a fan of thursdays due to the heavy schedule, but at least it gets a lot of work done all at once. Like most people I am enjoying the practicals more this semester, probably because they feel more engaging and slightly less laborious (due to a great deal of work being packed in to get the widest view of each practical subject). I am delighted with the #MB1004 (membranes and receptors) module, not just because of Dr Norman's great teaching style, but also because I'm finding this to be the most mentally stimulating module for me. Looking forward to the workshop tomorrow! - Thomas Webber

I also find the module interesting his book is very good and would advice you having a look at it. - James Muir

Also liking Dr Norman's lecturing style a lot! The concepts seem to be higher-level but it reassures me a bit that he's teaching us. :) - Zainab Chaudhary

"Although cassava is a major source of protein for 700 million people, mostly in Africa, it normally contains only small amounts of protein." The plant was genetically modified by inserting bean and maize genes to bolster the protein content to 12.5%. The plant sacrificed some of it's source of nitrogen - cyanide - to help build this new protein. Convenient for the scientists, and very helpful to African children, 1 in 4 of which can die from protein-energy malnutrition. Watch this space! - Thomas Webber from Bookmarklet

This is an extremely well reasoned episode of horizon in which the public's view of the scientific process is scrutinised. The importance of scientific evidence and it's presentation are highlighted. A fascinating watch. - Thomas Webber from Bookmarklet

This article gave credit to the scientists who worked on preventing the up-rise of vCJD and who tried to convince the UK government that the threat of human BSE was very real before the first cases of vCJD were seen. This has links to #BS1009 regarding the identification of new diseases caused by microorganisms, just as BSE was in the mid-1980's. - Thomas Webber from Bookmarklet

I feel I have started this week well, perhaps better than any last term. I made sure I understood my timetable last weekend and went through all of the first lectures for the new modules. I'm definitely noticing that this makes lecture notes easier. I went to the SWIFT meeting on monday which I found relatively useful, even if I was a little too tired and too hungry to fully appreciate it. Tuesday's microbiology practical was a mixed affair, as the content was really enjoyable when you were doing it, and I've always found microscopes easy enough to use. However the instructions we had been given and told to read through were virtually unintelligible! Full of complete jargon and missing out on the simplistic wording that non-experts can understand. At one point after placing a sample of E. coli on a slide I was told to "dry the film" at which point I began looking around for whatever a "film" could have been. After a few wasted minutes searching around and beginning to feel that I had... more... - Thomas Webber

I totally agree with what you are saying about the practical Thomas, and Dr Cann he did say that he asked a demonstrator, I find that a lot of the time the demonstrators have a lot of students in a group and you have to sometimes wait quite a while anyway.. - Rachel Bell

Read this article, and though it brings up a perplexingly unregulated scientific business, it also tells of an uncommon use (and an ill-advised use, if the article is anything to go by) of Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP's). I found out about SNP's during my research for my genomics essay for #MB1030. - Thomas Webber

like the article... not the tests - Dr Chris Willmott

Although the title of this article seems really daunting, the introduction tab of the article (free to view) gives a nice reflection on the metabolism work we've been covering in the final #BS1015 lectures if anyone is interested. Some other key points are raised too, such as the importance of acetylation on enzyme regulation. - Thomas Webber

Just thought I'd highlight this short article as it gives a couple of non-membrane related uses of cholesterol; a molecule we've looked at briefly in #CH1070 and #BS1015. It also mentions regulation of cholesterol productions and associated diseases. - Thomas Webber

This is a highly relevant topic to #BS1015 if not to my course (Med Biochem), and this article gives a history of Protein Kinases in language I am just able to understand. I have yet to read the article in its entirety, but I am sure I will come back to it to further my understanding of these highly important proteins. - Thomas Webber

Complex language! But article is really interesting - Arun Bahl

I found this at A-level, and I am guessing that it may actually come in useful after the next #BS1015 lecture. Funny song, high level and the best Biology related song by these guys! - Thomas Webber from Bookmarklet

interesting link.. how useful - Khetase Chiwowa

Definitely annoyance, but I know that if I was using it more often and with less pressure placed upon its use I could really get into it, as some of the articles I can pick up are really relevant and interesting. After all I am on this course because I really enjoy the content, so I would love to be learning more about what we hear about in lectures. However I have reached the point where the pile of unread articles seems to have reached critical mass... Very daunting indeed. - Thomas Webber

"Mark All As Read" - then it won't be. - Dr Alan Cann

I did my #BS1015 practical write up in the library, and had no trouble with my plotted points. Did you do yours on a different computer? - Roshan Rupra from iPhone

Hmm, I have Excel 2010 and I had no problems at all, unless you're on a Mac? - Sami Kimyongur

I deleted some data and the graph had a problem with that. No worries I'm guessing its just a complex inter-linking of cells that I messed up in the background. - Thomas Webber

Come along to the help session and we'll find out what you're interested in and talk you through it. - Dr Alan Cann

try http://www.biochemist.org/news... . It's published by the Biochemistry Society and discoveries are reported in magazine articles, with suitable links to the journal where the discoveries are published - Luke Thompson

(cont) so using numbers instead of citations, helped speed up my referencing at the end. So at least that's something I can take away from it. - Thomas Webber

Yes this was the first essay where I wrote my reference list as I went along which made things a lot easier as it wasn't rushed at the end. - Rachel Price Tate

We have not given you electronic copies (though I don't think you DO need Biochem Soc membership to read the Biochemist) - Dr Chris Willmott

Thanks. I just had to register (free) to view the article. - Thomas Webber

(this is not related to the content of any of my modules to date) I found this research, based upon building organs or structures of the body from their scaffold and then adding stem cells to differentiate into the correct cells, extremely fascinating. It is also great to be able to follow the developments in this field, from the artificial trachea in 2008 up until now; real progress is being made, which is great for the people in desperate need of transplants. - Thomas Webber

Thaks for the post, that is quite interesting. - Pritesh Mistry

The research was very interesting to read, I find it remarkable that break throughs such as this are being made. The possibilities stem cells hold for the future of medicine in general is fascinating. - James Haddock

Naked mole rats; who knew. ( #BS1015 ) These animals seem to have much more efficient mechanisms in place within their cells to protect their DNA from replicating if it is damaged. Their proteins also are much more stable and so are able to be damaged more than proteins of other species'. These factors contribute the ability of the naked mole rat to live 10 times longer than mice or rats. The naked mole rat is a gold mine of important possible biological advances. - Thomas Webber

I think the aim of this exercise was to: make sure you are able to take effective notes during lectures, make sure your writing can be read for future written essays, and to help you to understand how to structure an essay. What was it you lost marks on? - Hollie Smith

The first assignment always tends to shock people as they are still writing in college format, and so it hits you quite hard especially when you've done very well in essays and the like before! Have you tried using the SSDS service in the library? They do some great sessions on how to improve writing your essay in more of a university fashion.... more... - Jaspreet Seehra

Interesting, can you explain how this works? I assume you can't use this on the CFS version of MSWord? - Dr Alan Cann

There is an alternative that is provided by the university: Refworks http://www.le.ac.uk/library... this has a 'cite'n'write' feature so that you can insert references stored in refworks into Word. There is a bookmarklet to help you add references to refworks and there is a 'school of biological sciences' referencing output style :-) - Dr Jo Badge

http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ribo... - what was shown at the end of Venkatraman Ramakrishnan's lecture on the ribosome - Thomas Webber

As long as the note describing them and explaining why you chose them is original, yes, reposts count. - Dr Alan Cann