Overview and a presentation that I found interesting
The Fred Hutch Research camp was one of the best camps I have ever attended. Sadly, the camp was online this year, however, I still learned a lot about cancer cells, proteins, vaccines, etc. One of the things that I found interesting was how researchers could use computers to replicate and create new proteins. The speaker of this topic, Ian, taught us about the building blocks of protein, the different types of amino acid chains there are, little pieces of carbon that connect amino acids together and form them into a certain shape called “side chains”. He also taught us about the different types of protein and what they do, hemoglobin transports iron throughout the body, immunoglobins are basically antibodies, a hormonal protein called insulin, and many more. Then Ian taught us about how computers help researchers identify and understand amino acids and proteins. He stated that computers can break down the amino acids into these letter sequences and with these sequences, we could identify, rearrange, and create other amino acid chains. Computers can do something called homology modeling, which creates a model of a protein and allows us to see the amino acid chains and how they are structured to create that protein. He showed us Microscopy, which is taking a sample of tissue, such as a tumor, and using a machine to perform all types of purifying techniques to try to characterize a protein that might help you find a way to stop the spread or kill the tumor. After that, you crystalize the protein by keeping it at a cold temperature (25 degrees Celsius) and wait for it to grow into a larger and larger protein to be x-rayed, and eventually find the alphabetic code that makes up these proteins and their structure. Again, computers can help us shorten down the time it takes to figure out the sequences of these proteins, with the use of AI. AI could automatically do the process in a fraction of a second and give us the results, without having to wait years for it. Although, this will probably be implemented soon. Ian also talked about AI learning and how that would help make new proteins. There is machine learning, and deep learning. Machine learning is when the AI determines if something is one thing or another based on multiple factors. However, deep learning is when the AI extracts features from information and interacts with other variables to make a classification to eventually make the final decision. This is a lot of information to swallow, and this is just one- third of the presentation Ian made. Overall, this camp is amazing. The people who run it are experts in the research field and know what they talk about when presenting these topics to us. Not to mention, they add a lot of detail to their presentation, to make sure we know just about everything about that subject. They bring in other researchers, to talk about why they wanted to become a researcher and how they did it, giving an outline of what becoming a researcher is going to look like. You cannot miss the opportunity to attend this camp and I will be re-applying for it next year.
Summary of a Fred Hutch News story
The news story is about Covid affecting people with compromised immune systems, cancer, and diseases that weaken the immune system. Researchers are trying to figure out how to keep these types of people away from Covid and see how covid affects them. Dr. Larry Corey, a renowned virologist, studied covid in a person with antiphospholipid syndrome, he found 31 substitutions of letters in SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences, as well as three deletions — unreplaced dropouts of letters or phrases in the genetic code. Dr. Corey’s colleague, Dr. Trevor Bedford, has found the alpha, beta, and gamma mutations of the Covid virus, the Alpha version came from the United Kingdom, and a possibility that all of these came from immunosuppressed patients, this can happen, since the immune system can’t produce antibodies, and therefore, can’t make anything to fight viruses or other infections. There are some precautions to prevent this from happening. The first suggestion is to take a third mRNA shot. Recent studies by the CDC, suggest that a third short of the mRNA vaccine could help people with problems generating an immune response. Another precaution is nursing homes have people that have low antibody count take monoclonal antibody infusions. monoclonal antibody infusions are man-made proteins that act like human antibodies in the immune system. Large amounts of these could help immunosuppressed patients fight off the Covid virus. The last precaution the article states, is rapid testing. This could help us find new Covid variants quicker and will give us more time to create a vaccine to help fight it off before it spreads to a large amount of the population. Overall, researchers are studying Covid in immunosuppressed and other sick patients, these patients could be a breeding ground for covid to create new variants, and we should keep that from happening.
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