Fly Genetics Personal Statement

DROSOPHILA CULTURE We will study basic principles of Mendelian inheritance with the use of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster [the name means “black-bodied fruit-lover”]. Drosophila was one of the first organisms to be studied genetically: its small size, short life cycle (10 ~14 days at 25oC), high reproductive rate (an adult female can lay 400-500 eggs in 10 days), and ease of culture and genetic manipulation have made it perhaps the best understood animal genetic system. Many different species, and a large number and wide variety of naturally-occurring and artificially-induced genetic variants are available. The partial genetic map in Appendix B describes the location of all the mutations used in

During her short time at the rural hospital, Eddy received care from multiple healthcare workers. When she first entered the ER department she was experiencing pain and fear. The nurse was efficient and professional which reassured her that she was receiving proper care. The patient care technician aided her in changing into her hospital gown and conversed with her, which helped Eddy compose herself. The nurse and technician were also attentive to Eddy’s husband and informed him on what was happening. This gave Eddy some comfort knowing that her husband was there to help her through this experience. She would describe her overall experience at MGRMC at a positive one. The staff were professional and efficient which relieved some of the anxiety she was feeling and helped her trust those that were delivering her care.

I assist a graduate student in a biology lab working to find genes and mechanisms involved in sperm competition between different strains of Drosophila. I have worked ten hours a week this summer and will continue with those hours during this coming school year. My tasks include identifying and separating individuals by sex, setting up crosses and dissecting males to determine their fertility. Much of what I do requires fine motor skills, attention to detail and a great deal of patience because there are countless tiny flies and larvae to handle. The experiment has proven very educational, and I have learned much about fly genetics and evolutionary processes.

I was trained in an inner city hospital. It was a good place to train as a medical student with a vast array of pathology but most of my patients were of low socioeconomic status. During my third-year medicine clerkships, I had many sad stories where patients had abandoned medical care because they could not afford the advanced laboratory workup and imaging studies when referred to outside hospitals. I thought to myself that there should be an area of

table one, the data comes within one or two tenths of the 3:1 ratio. Therefore,

In general, all living organisms rely on evolution by natural selection to better adapt to their environment. This adaptation requires mutations, or changes in DNA, that improves reproductive success, referred to as fitness (Tortoise approach works best, 2015). Therefore, fitness can be described as organisms that are proficient in producing off springs and fruit flies produce more off springs than tortoises so, they have a greater fitness. For the most part, I learned that a fruit fly life cycle begins when the female lays her eggs on a piece of fermenting fruit or sweet organic material. In fact, a fruit fly can lay up to 500 eggs, making it difficult to control the population and they’re hatching into small what larvae. For the most part,

The event begins when the first speaker, Gustavo Junco, who spoke to us about the purpose of the STEM program through his passion for STEM, a TED Talk about Ignorance and through the use of drones and how it can change the future of not only the STEM program, but for other majors as well. Dr. Kimmel and Professor Ospina began the second session of the event by first starting off with a survey of the students understanding of the education program through text, and that was a very interesting idea that I will most likely use in the future. We then joined into an activity called The Marshmallow Study where students were joined into groups to build a tall and stable structure using raw pasta, tape, string and a Marshmallow on top. That activity

Drosophila melanogaster is a species of fruit fly, used as a model organism in genetics research. We used this species to test the pattern of inheritance of two traits; eye color and wing type. With Mendelian Genetics, we assume genes are not linked. Thus, our hypothesis is that the genes are not linked. We ran two crosses, one with a wild type female and mutant male, and one with a mutant female and wild type male. We then proceeded to look at the two generations following this original cross; the F1 generation, or children of original cross, and the F2 generation, created when the flies from F1 were crossed again (essentially breeding the children amongst each other), using wild type females with wild type males, and wild type females and mutant males. Looking at our results in a chi square test, we find that we reject the assumption that the genes are not linked for cross 1, and accept that they are not linked for cross 2. However, we know that the trait for eye color is X-linked, and the trait for wing type is autosomal, so they cannot be linked. Thus, something must have gone wrong in our lab procedure.

In an indirect way, the club also encouraged the students to do other STEM-related activities outside of school like Math League, FTC Robotics, or the STEM fair. The two seniors and I were only catalysts for this club. How much the middle schoolers positively reacted to it was something I thought I could only dream of. Last year there were only twelve participating middle schoolers. This year when I came to present at the first Science Olympiad meeting, I was welcomed by those same twelve faces along with thirty more eager ones. I didn’t think the club would expand as fast as it did, but I’m excited to share another year of Science Olympiad with more middle

For my field trip, I decided to visit the Sciencecenter in Ithaca New York. The science center is a nonprofit organization, the center was found in 1983. Where mostly volunteers from local elementary schools performed hands-on experiments for children. Today the Sciencenter is known as a museum with over 250 different exhibits/ experiments, they also have many different events that take place such as Story time for preschoolers and events that have to deal with science in nature, innovations, chemistry and much more. The Sciencenter offer’s activities for children of any age! Although the Sciencenter is mainly volunteer based, the executive is Charles Trautmann. The Sciencenter is located at 601 1st street in Ithaca New York, the hours are

Our science class will quite often take us outside, with our feet and hands in the dirt. Occasionally, we even find ourselves in the kitchen, learning that by mixing just a few ingredients together, they can make a delicious meal or dessert. I try to ensure their day is full of fun education.

At the first island, palatable species will proliferate assuming appropriate resources. The palatable, brightly colored fly species will have no effect on its coloration because there are no predators. Thus, the species does not need to mimic the unpalatable species, so there will not be any Batesian mimicry. On the second island, the palatable species would decrease the coloration and exhibit drab coloration because bright coloration would be evolutionarily unfit due to easy predator recognition. Predators would not know to not eat the fly since there are no unpalatable species present to act as warning. At the third island, the brightly colored flies would experience the same or brighter coloration according to unpalatable species because

At the end of Year 10 I completed my work experience at the Monash Children’s Hospital. Although I mostly observed, on the first day, simply seeing a list of emergency numbers ordered from interns, registrars, residents and finally surgeons to call made me realise the long, hard road to reaching my goals. Along with grasping an idea of the time commitment the career involves in the work hours and the level of experience, I also saw snapshots of the highly stressful situations in the hospitals of doctors and nurses frantically running towards the wards in a code blue situations. I have also seen patients under critical conditions, screaming out and refusing treatment. However what I remember most from my time there was the way the doctors

With Drosophila melanogaster being an excellent paradigm for research in gene expression and exploration, many genetic tools have been created in order to utilize the fruit fly’s valuable characteristics in both spatial and temporal control of gene expression. Numerous tools used to study D. Melanogaster derive from the UAS-GAL4 gene expression system, and the system has proven to be quite simple in terms of spatial control of gene expression. When using the UAS-GAL4 system for temporal control, however, things get a little more complicated, and thus a modified version of this system was created. This gene expression system is known as the GeneSwitch GAL4 system, in which an adapted GAL4 protein is fused to a progesterone steroid, and GAL4

Children by nature, are curious and inquisitive. Engaging children in science, along with identifying their understanding and inquiry skills is a vital skill required by educators. Educators who provide children with rich and engaging science exploration, play and investigation during their early years of development are bestowing children with the knowledge and understanding of science and improving their cognitive development (Campbell, Jobling & Howitt, 2015). To engage children in science is best done by finding a child’s interest and expanding on it. The child in the following case study (parent permission, appendix 1) has displayed interest in the outdoors and with experimenting with change. During the science inquiry activity, we investigated Chemical science, identifying how materials can be combined to create a chemical reaction and a different substance using sand and kitchen items. The experiment consists of changing the composition of sand to make a new substance that has different physical and chemical properties (Aitken, Hunt, Roy & Sajfar, 2012)