Shirley M. Tilghman

I was inspired by Clarra's recent posts about women in science to write about another female scientist. Shirley M. Tilghman is a professor of molecular biology and was the former president of Princeton University. She was just the second woman to lead an Ivy League institution. She has multiple awards, including the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science, and many others. She is a member of many groups, such as The National Academy of Sciences, The Institute of Medicine, and is a director of Google Inc. The list of her achievements goes on and on.
During Tilghman's postdoc at the National Institute of Health, she was apart of cloning the first mammalian gene. She later focused on gene expression and embryonic growth regulation. With this research she discovered the mechanisms that allow parental-specific expression of a select group of over 30 imprinted genes and how they regulate the growth patterns in the embryo and fetus. Her focus on gene expression led her to be a founding member of the National Institute of Health's National Advisory Council of the Human Genome Project.
Overall, Tilghman contributed greatly to the field of molecular biology and it is pretty dang cool to read about awesome ladies in the field of science!

To read more about her, here are some of the websites I looked at:
https://www.princeton.edu/president/tilghman/biography/
http://www.sdbonline.org/sites/Tilghman-bio.pdf

Mouth pipetting is a real thing?

As I skimmed through the requirements for a chemistry lab report, I stumbled on a question that asked: What are the dangers of mouth pipetting? I didn't believe that this was a real thing, and then I went to my friend, Google, to find out. Yes, this was once a real technique. I was completely shocked.
"How does this work?" you might ask. Well, laboratory professionals would use their own mouth to suck up a specific amount of specimen. This could be blood, urine, or a variety of other specimen. There is no way this was safe practice. The specimen could easily be sucked into the mouth on accident and possibly swallowed. This could cause infection to the lab technician. According to Phillips , a survey in 1915 of 57 labs showed that there were 47 infections associated with workplace practices, and 40% of these were due to swallowing a corrosive or toxic substance or an infectious specimen (1966). As you can imagine, this technique of pipetting was abandoned once mechanical ones were invented to take their place. Phillips also thought it was necessary to outline the simple rules to follow:
            1. Do not mouth pipette infectious or toxic fluids.
            2. Use a pipettor device for pipetting.
As developing scientists in the 21st century, we look at these rules and think they are blatantly obvious. Overall, I think it is really cool to see where we have come in science and how a few decades ago people thought this was an acceptable practice.

Here is the link for the article published in 1966:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/640356.pdf

Could snail venom help treat diabetes?

The title may seem crazy, but this is an actual article from researchers out of Australia and the US. These scientists have figured out the 3D structure of venom insulin from a cone snail. The cone snail venom insulin is extremely efficient and acts much faster than human insulin. How could this help those facing diabetes though? Well, the efficiency of the cone snail venom insulin makes the cell signaling much faster and then increases how fast the insulin begins to take effect. They also discovered that the protein has the ability to bind to the receptors in human insulin, allowing the possibility for human applications. So the insulin from the cone snail is venomous towards fish, putting them in hyperglycaemic shock, but can be helpful for human diabetic therapies. The researchers on this project have already begun the process of finding ways to make better treatments with insulin that works much faster for diabetic patients. Why would it be advantageous to have fast acting insulin though? Most individuals with diabetes have to inject insulin before eating. Depending on the type of insulin, you can take it anywhere from an hour to 15 minutes before you eat. When you have to do an injection and then wait an hour before eating, this could cause problems in timing their meals. They could also eat too early or too late and would not have good control over their blood sugar levels. The faster the insulin works, then the closer to meal time the individual could take it, and would help maintain proper blood sugar levels. So, thanks to the creepy little snail shown below, we could eventually see improvement in diabetic therapies!



Here is the link if you want to read the full article:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160912122604.htm

From scrapie to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or better known as Mad Cow Disease, prion diseases have interesting characteristics. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a prion disease is a rare neurodegenerative disorder that is caused by "prions", which are pathogenic agents that can be transmitted and promote abnormal folding of proteins. These diseases can affect both humans and animals. One prion disease that I find to be very interesting is Fatal Familial Insomnia. This specific prion disease causes insomnia that gets worse and causes various symptoms to get worse, such as hyperventilation or the loss of control over your bodies movements, until the individual dies. This disease, like all prion diseases, has no cure. This is because the prion protein, which is caused by a mutation in the PRNP gene, is still a mystery when it comes to its' function. According to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, scientists believe that the protein might play a key role in the brain since the mutation of the gene causes the protein to fold incorrectly and form clumps. These clumps will accumulate in the brain and destroy neurons, which leads to small holes in the brain. Researchers are actively working to find a cure, but unlike most viruses, prion diseases lack DNA or RNA. Prions are made of protein and a treatment or cure for this kind of disease has yet to be found.