Week 9: My Phages program investigation

“Bacteriophages are virus that have DNA or RNA as genetic material, they infect Bactrian cells specific and they reproduce by lysis” (Makarov Roman 2008). This investigation was about found new bacteriophages in different soil samples on Puerto Rico and then send it to HHMI to be sequenced. First we have to take the soil samples and take them to the laboratory. Before this we proceed to worked with the soil samples to know if it had or no bacteriophages and if it infects  Bacillus or Msmeg. This process was done by the techniques of characterization and isolation.

The purpose of this investigation was too sequence the DNA of a new bacteriophage.  As result of this investigation, I found the presence of a bacteriophage and I called it Ocsicnarf. Ocsicnarf was a phage that I have to purify several time because it was mixed with other types of phages. This phage was found in Cayey P.R. Doing this investigation I got so much skills like get the knowledge and practice of what is the aseptic technique,  how to isolate an specific thing (in this case a phage), purification, centrifugation, electrophoresis, fluting a petri dish and equal, manage the laboratory equipment like the pipet, lighter, centrifuge, micropipette.

                                                                 Image of Ocsicnarf

Week 8: Phages(bacteriophages)

What are phages? Phage biology is the scientific discipline concerned with the study of all biological aspects of bacteriophages (phages), which are viruses that infect bacteria. This includes the distribution, biochemistry, physiology, cell biology, ecology, evolution and applications of phages. In my first year i did an investigation about these theme. I was selected in a group of special students to work with this investigation.  For me this opportunity was very important and interesting. Was like my first year and i was doing a investigation. This investigation was associate with HHMI ( Howard Hudge Medical Instutute) that they are like the bosses and we have to find an study a bacteriophage and then we will give it to theme and they sequence it. But for now i only going to talk in general about bacteriophages then i will talk you about my investigation experience. In the image we can see that are metioned the parts of the bacteriophage. In summary in the head of a bacteriphage we find the DNA (genome). They have a neck,collar, sheath and tail fiber. But let see the base place, this part its very important because with it the bacteriophage  attach in the bacteria to infect it.


Bacteriophages are the most numerous viruses on earth, and viruses are more common than bacteria, the most numerous of cellular organism. Specifically, bacteriophages are the viruses of bacteria, that is, they aresequences of genes which move around from bacterium to bacterium while encased within protein shells called capsids, often killing bacteria in the process. Bacteriophages are hugely important to the ecology and evolution of bacteria, have enormous impacts on the global carbon cycle (which among other things controls whether climates globally warm), represent one promising means by which medicine's current antibiotic crisis – think MRSA – may be overcome. Phages also contributed greatly to biology'sunderstanding of life in general and especially at the molecular level. They in addition were key to the development of genetic engineering. In short, phages are perhaps the biological world's least appreciated superstars. 


Definition and somethings about bacteriophages retrieved from: Dr. Michael Rubin, Power Point presentation.

Image retrieved from: www.google.com

Week 7: Biology student

Who are the persons that study biology? when they finished their studies they are called like biologist. But in this case i don't going to talk about  this. In this week i am going to talk about biology student and the experience between studies.The first week in university,is when you feel good but scared because is something new. Then you realize that you are in university,and you have to take this very serious. But then someone tells you that your professor of biology, chemistry or a different type of science  is the worst. When you get the first exam of your concentration, you know that you study very much,but when you saw the exam, you can know why the people told you that the professor was the worst. Then after the exam you are going to see three types of people, there are those who go and get a beer, then are the people that are frustrated because they not understand the test and finally those ones that know that get an A in the exam.

When you are a biology student, is much more then go to class. You have to get involve and love the biology because is very hard to study. Its not impossible but you have to fight for what you want like all the things in life. I say this because I am currently a student of biology at UPR Cayey and believe me its hard but you learn to love it. I took this theme because so much people thinks that science are impossible or very difficult. They are correct only in one of those two, that is the part of difficult.All in this life is possible if you want to do it. In life you always are going to found people that are going to judge you or simply are going to tell that you don't have the capacity  to study what you are studying. But you must never allow that those people kills your dreams.


Image retrieved from: www.google.com

Week 6: Natural selection

 Lets talk more deep about the process that Darwin proposed that is called Natural selection. This is a process fundamental to evolution as described by Charles Darwin. By natural selection, any characteristic of an individual that allows it to survive to produce more offspring will eventually appear in every individual of the species, simply because those members will have more offspring. All the world pass the process of natural selection because the environment is always changing an this cause changes in all the organisms that that live on it.Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

The theory has two main points, said Brian Richmond, curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "All life on Earth is connected and related to each other," and this diversity of life is a product of "modifications of populations by natural selection, where some traits were favored in and environment over others," he said.More simply put, the theory can be described as "descent with modification," said Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist and educator at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who specializes in the study of human origins.The theory is sometimes described as "survival of the fittest," but that can be misleading, Pobiner said. Here, "fitness" refers not to an organism's strength or athletic ability, but rather the ability to survive and reproduce.

In the image we can saw a example of natural selection. In this case is about giraffes and its neck. Those animals create a very long neck by natural selection to maintain it selves alive. The nature make this change in those animal because without that this specie can dissapear. This is something that is progressive because all the world is in constant change.

Image retrieved from: www.google.com
definitions retrieved from: Text book Biology Campbell

Week 5: Darwin and his Theory of evolution.

Naturalist Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, on February 12, 1809. In 1831, he embarked on a five-year survey voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle. His studies of specimens around the globe led him to formulate his theory of evolution and his views on the process of natural selection. In 1859, he published On the Origin of Species. He died on April 19, 1882, in London. This man cause a big impact in what today science is. Thanks to this man the people begin to asking question and make investigation about the humans and his origin. We can say that this is one of those mans that push the society to use their brain. Obviously like always at the beginning all the people thinks that he was crazy.

Charles Darwin is best known for his work as a naturalist, developing a theory of evolution to explain biological change. This man is one of the first things that we have to study if we want to know about biology and. Darwin's exposure to specimens all over the globe raised important questions. Other naturalists believed that all species either came into being at the start of the world, or were created over the course of natural history. In either case, the species were believed to remain much the same throughout time. Darwin, however, noticed similarities among species all over the globe, along with variations based on specific locations, leading him to believe that they had gradually evolved from common ancestors. He came to believe that species survived through a process called "natural selection," where species that successfully adapted to meet the changing requirements of their natural habitat thrived, while those that failed to evolve and reproduce died off.

Biography retrieved from: www.biography.com

Image retrieved from: www.google.com

Week 4: RNA and Proteins

In this week i am going to show you what is RNA and Proteins and why those two are important. As we know in the lasts weeks, DNA, RNA and proteins have a connection because these three pass trough different process to synthesize proteins that are the results of it. Ribonucleic acid, or RNA is one of the three major biological macro molecules that are essential for all known forms of life (along with DNA and proteins). A central tenet of molecular biology states that the flow of genetic information in a cell is from DNA through RNA to proteins: “DNA makes RNA makes protein”. Proteins are the workhorses of the cell; they play leading roles in the cell as enzymes, as structural components, and in cell signaling, to name just a few. DNA(deoxyribonucleic acid) is considered the “blueprint” of the cell; it carries all of the genetic information required for the cell to grow, to take in nutrients, and to propagate. RNA–in this role–is the “DNA photocopy” of the cell. When the cell needs to produce a certain protein, it activates the protein’s gene–the portion of DNA that codes for that protein–and produces multiple copies of that piece of DNA in the form of messenger RNA, or mRNA. The multiple copies of mRNA are then used to translate the genetic code into protein through the action of the cell’s protein manufacturing machinery, the ribosomes. Thus, RNA expands the quantity of a given protein that can be made at one time from one given gene, and it provides an important control point for regulating when and how much protein gets made.

 In the other side we have proteins, those are large, complex molecules that play many critical roles in the body. They do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs. Proteins are made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller units called amino acids, which are attached to one another in long chains. There are 20 different types of amino acids that can be combined to make a protein. The sequence of amino acids determines each protein’s unique 3-dimensional structure and its specific function. Some proteins are involved in structural support and movement, others in enzymatic activity, and still others in interaction with the outside world. Indeed, the functions of individual proteins are as varied as their unique amino acid sequences and complex three-dimensional physical structures.

Definitions retrivered from: www.rnasociety.org and HHMI(Howard Hudges Medical Institute)

Image retrivered from: www.google.com

Week 3: DNA

"DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA)" (2011,Jhonshon). The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people

This bases are one of the characteristics of the DNA. The structure of DNA is a double strand structure. In case of the bases are divided in purines or pirymidines. Two of the five bases in nucleic acids, adenine and guanine, are purines. In DNA, these bases form hydrogen bonds with their complementary pyrimidines thymine and cytosine, respectively. This is called complementary base pairing. in the video we can see al those things described in visual mode,that is more easy to understand it.