Wilson 1

Irene Wilson
Bio 2990.2
Spring 2013
Reflection

On the first day, Dr. Bower introduced us to the topic of stem cell research, which he is
currently studying. He informed us about the promises of stem cell research and self-renewal. It
seems like it could work wonders and be a great benefit to people with all sorts of diseases and
injuries. Dr. Bower showed us a video about how scientists culture the stem cells and the many
ways they can be used. For example, if someone has a serious burn, maybe a third or fourth
degree burn, on his or her leg, specific stem cells can be used to treat the leg and while it may not
be as clean or neat as it was before, it could make a big improvement.
During our second meeting, Dr. Bower presented us with our projects for his rotation.
Our task was to create a scientific poster; most of us had never made one until now, so it was a
useful activity. He mentioned that we should try not to use sentences for the background and
conclusion areas as during a science convention people do not have much time to read complete

Wilson 2
sentences. Also, Dr. Bower gave us a sneak preview of what we will be doing if we continue in
his rotation; he let us look at stained nuclei which become blue and neurons which were green.
The nuclei bind to the DNA while the neurons are stained with the proteins.
The most important thing that I learned from Dr. Bowers rotation was the promises of
stem cells and why it is worth all of the time and resources to develop them. We discussed the
starting point of a stem cell, the fertilized egg and all of the steps following. An embryonic stem
cell comes from a blastocyst at four days and has the potential to become a stem cell of any type;
for the brain, heart, blood, and more. There is such a wide variety of different stem cells, for
example blood cells which live in the bone marrow, and there are skin and brain stem cells as
well. He also taught us the differences between stem-renewal and specialized cells. Specialized
stem cells can die but then what would be next? I think that culturing cells seems very interesting
and I am up to the challenge.

In Dr. Kremin's rotation we discussed neurology as we dissected a sheep's brain and

viewed the many of it's components. Although a sheep's brain is not exactly the same and does
not have all of the same functions as a human brain, they have many similar features. I found it
interesting when Dr. Kremin identified many features of the sheep's brain and explained what
they control as well as what is affected by each part of the brain. He showed us some of the
effects on humans of when a specific part of the brain is altered or changed. It is surprising how
much a small change in the brain's structure can change a person's lifestyle, how he or she
appears, what he or she is capable of, and how he or she is perceived. Also many of these
diseases are inheritable, these were some of the most important things I learned for Dr. Kremins
rotation.
We were able to see the cerebellum which is attached to the medulla and many other

Wilson 3
features of a sheep's brain like the occipital cortex, superior colliculus, inferior colliculus, spinal
canal, fourth ventricle, cerebellar peduncles, hippocampus, and many others. The ventricle
system of the brain is important for rapid communication, it is continuous within the central
nervous system. This rotation presented the technique of identifying some of the many parts of a
brain. I learned that the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body and the right
side of the brain controls the left side of your body. Also, I learned how many diseases are
affected by the brain and how they are unpreventable sometimes. Some diseases can take over a
person gradually while some can take effect immediately with little to no warning. Currently, I
am interested in neurology and am aspiring to become a neurosurgeon so this was a very exciting
rotation to me, my perception was not changed but enhanced by those three weeks.

During the three days that we spent with Dr. Zykovich we discussed computational
biology, bioinformatics, DNA sequencing, and phylogenetic trees. Computational biology is the
development and application of data-analytical and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling
and computational simulation techniques to the study of biological, behavioral, and social
systems. Bioinformatics is the research, development, or application of computational tools and
approaches for expanding the use of data. It is a branch of biological science which deals with
the study of methods for storing, retrieving, and analyzing biological data. We learned that DNA
sequencing is the number one field of Bioinformatics, which was very interesting considering
how intricate DNA is and how hard it is to decipher sometimes. Phylogenetic trees are branching
diagrams that show the evolutionary relationships among various biological species based upon
similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics.
On the first day we learned that the number of cells in the body are about ten to the power
of thirteen. Frederick Sanger was the inventor of DNA sequencing with chain-terminating

Wilson 4
inhibitors which were discovered in 1977, this was the first genome sequenced using this
method. We also learned that polymerase chain reactions are antiparallel and that the human
genome is about 3.2 gigabytes, that was very interesting!
I learned how to determine a specific species through a phylogenetic tree, that was my
favorite part. Dr. Zychovich said to imagine that we were in a safari somewhere in Africa and try
to determine what kind of animal it is, we took some of the DNA nucleotides that he gave us and
discovered what kind of animals were present. There were a rabbit, mouse, rat, gorilla, bacteria,
and cat. It turned out to be a cat and it was a really fun experiment. I would not say that any of
the rotations changed my perception of science, but they enhanced my inspiration to become a
neurosurgeon.