The Education of James Endres Howell

Professor Jack Vanden Heuvel in our department does a toxicology module at the end of our First Year Seminar each year.

The exclamation point at the end of the course is a group project where the students produce an article on a toxicant that Dr. Vanden Heuvel submits to Toxipedia, a great online toxicology reference and educational resource.

To our surprise, melamine---very likely the most famous harmful small molecule in the world right now---did not have an entry.



So the students in the Fall 2008 section 002 of VB SC 050S wrote one, and now anyone can read it.

Toxipedia.org: melamine

I am surprised and delighted at the positive response to my remarks at today's assessment conference sponsored by the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence. Thanks everybody!

All the credit for the success of the pilot program using blogs in my First Year Seminar goes to the Blogs at Penn State folks, especially their tag aggregation facility which allows making RSS feeds of particular discussions.

Examples: VBSC050assignment, VBSC050discussion, metacognitive-journal

Please get in touch if you have any questions!

Sorry, folks. If you don't post it by the end of the day today (5:00 pm), then it doesn't count.

In response to my query, Rachel suggested:

The missing experiment would be giving people herpes and see if they develop Alzheimer's.

You're on the right track. But there are (at least) three huge problems with that experiment.

1. Fully 98% of the population is already infected with HSV1!
2. The study would have to follow the experimental subjects for decades in order to observe symptoms.
3. No human subjects committee would ever approve this experiment---it would be criminal to try to give people Alzheimers!

Who can suggest a better experiment?

Please tag your post VBSC050discussion.

Scientists in England have made what appears to be a major discovery. They are claiming that a virus---namely herpes simplex 1, the virus that causes cold sores and that is endemic in no less than 98% of humans---"is a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers."

If that conclusion is true, it seems fair to use that favorite shopworn headline grabber from the newsroom and call it a "breakthrough." But these results have been published in the relatively unknown Journal of Pathology, not in a "high-impact" journal like Science or Nature or Cell. Why not? There's a key experiment missing.

What's the missing experiment? You ought to be able to spot it just by reading the paper's abstract. (Big Hint: You would not be allowed to do this experiment with human patients.)

BONUS If you've missed class or failed to earn all the participation points in class, now is your chance to catch up. BONUS

Please tag your post VBSC050discussion.

1. What did you learn from Brandon's presentation?

2. What remains unclear?

Please tag this post metacognitive-journal.

Choose one question to answer:

1. What is the Fc chain on an IgG antibody molecule? What is its function? Why is it called Fc?

2. What are the functions of the spleen in the immune system?

Please tag this post VBSC050assignment.

Choose one.  Please tag this post VBSC050discussion.

My suggestion:

Sara said that Gallo "stole" Montagnier's results. What was the controversy? Is it fair to use the word "stolen"? Who should get the credit for the discovery of HIV?

Sara's suggestions:

1. One interesting aspect we did not talk about is HIV resistance.  New World Monkeys and few humans have been discovered to be resistant to the virus.  Research the genes/mutations involved and speculate:
2. What roles do the receptors play in this case?
3. Do you think there could be a way to replicate these mutations and impose a new kind of gene therapy or vaccine?
4. Why does the virus take a shorter amount of time to infect and display worse symptoms in children?
5. What is the LTR promoter and in what step(s) does it pertain to?
6. The fact that whether somebody is HIV+ or not depends on where the person is tested has become a major social issue.  How do you think the United States, and even the world, should become uniform in the way HIV tests are done?  What sorts of quantitative maximum or minimum data should be the standard for whether or not somebody is HIV+?
7. The connection between HIV/AIDS and Psychoneuroimmunology is interesting.  Find an interesting article about the connections between the mind and CD4 levels in somebody who is HIV positive and formulate your opinion regarding whether you agree or disagree to claims, studies, etc.
8. "Even more disgusting is the response of our government. Of the 129 interventions developed and approved by the CDC to address HIV in the African-American community, only one has been designed for gay black men. Twenty-six years into the epidemic and only one out of 129 addresses the group of people most affected by HIV. And, on top of that, funding for meaningful and honest prevention programs has been systematically excised from the federal budget. What is your opinion on the role of governments and the HIV/AIDS pandemic?" What do you think of this statement.?
   

How exactly does a reverse transcriptase inhibitor (e.g. AZT) act as an antiretroviral agent?

Explain the mechanism in terms of the macromolecules that AZT binds and the covalent bonds formed with AZT.

Please tag this post VBSC050assignment.

Sara obviously prepared for her presentation and I am grateful for a great meeting! Please make a post and list:

1. Two things you learned about HIV.

2. One thing you still don't understand.

Please tag this post metacognitive-journal.