For many years scientists have been using peptides to create drugs to treat certain diseases. They have found that by linking amino acids together in different ways and altering their function, they may fight diseases. The only problem with this has been that it took about 6 weeks to develop just one peptide, which has made the development of peptide drugs to be a very slow moving process. Recently, a team of scientists at MIT created a new machine that can assemble a peptide in a little over an hour. This is done so that the amino acids are added in a continuous flow system. The new machine has compartments for all 20 different amino acids and is able to pull out the correct amino acid at the correct time. As the amino acid travels to the chamber in which the reaction will take place, it goes through a heated coil that is kept at 60 degrees C. This added heat speeds up the synthesis reaction, allowing the peptide to be formed faster. This new technology has also helped the scientists to create synthetic proteins. MIT scientists have courageously put out there that this may lead to a cure for cancer.
N.O.S. Themes:
Science is based on evidence - the machine has been tested and proved to work
Role of credibility - the article states that the research had been done by credible MIT scientists
Picture: Amino Acid Sequencing Machine
Article Link: http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2014/03/19/fast_synthesis_could_boost_drug_development.html
This is a very interesting topic. I think it's important that there are so many studies out there that are trying to cure cancer, and if this study could lead to a cure, then I think it should continue. In this same article it mentioned that this science could lead to them making short strands of DNA and RNA which could help them to make custom genes which would give cells new functions. I think this is a really interesting topic and it should be continued.
ReplyDeleteexcellent job Jenna
ReplyDeleteThis is incredibly interesting. I think it is for some great causes and the technology is so cool. I can't believe that a team of scientists at MIT reduced the time to create a peptide from 6 weeks to little over an hour with a new machine. You did very well in explaining how the peptide is formed within the machine. I understood it very well. It's also neat how this same machine can create synthetic proteins as well.
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