I read the
article Learning to Diffuse the Aorta
by Gina Kolata. It focused on a disease called Marfan syndrome, which causes
the aorta to swell like a balloon and burst or tear, causing an aortic aneurism
and death. The disease is usually most prevalent in young children because they
do not live long past childhood, and it the kids are usually “Very tall and
thin, with long arms, legs and fingers. They often had unusually flexible
joints, flat feet and teeth that were crowded in their mouth.” The article focused
on a recent discovery that could help slow down aortic growth and help people
with Marfan to survive. They discovered that they had been mistaken in what
they thought was the cause of the syndrome, and that it was in fact a mutation
in fibrillin-1, a protein in connective tissue. In someone with Marfan “the
fibrillin-1 is defective, and the process goes awry. Instead of attaching to
the connective tissue, T.G.F.-beta drifts away from it. Floating free in the
bloodstream, it makes cells behave abnormally, leading to many of the problems
caused by Marfan, including excessive growth of the aorta.” After discovering
what the problem was, scientists discovered that a widely used blood pressure
drug called losartan could help to prevent aortic growth. After several years
of trials, it has been confirmed that losartan is an effective treatment for
people with Marfan.
I found
this article very interesting, but I thought it was a little bit too long and
complicated. There was some unnecessary information that would have made the
article easier to read and understand if it had been left out. It was a
somewhat repetitive in certain areas, and I felt like I was reading nearly the
same sentence, only changed slightly. However, I thought the author did a good
job explaining the disorder and the treatment in depth, and after reading it I
feel like I have a good understanding of the topic.
I thought
that this article related to our study of genetics, because people with Marfin
have a defective gene that causes a protein to malfunction. It is appropriate
to what we are learning in class. In addition, my mom had an aortic aneurism
two years ago that she had surgery to prevent. Like many people with Marfan,
she didn’t know she had it and was very lucky to be recommended to see a
cardiologist by a friend. When she was operated on, the surgeon said that her
aorta had already begun to rupture and that she only had a few more days to
live. Fortunately, she was okay, and now with the discovery that losartan can
help stop the aorta from growing, many more lives will be saved.
I read the review by my classmate Fiona Roediger on the article, “Learning to Diffuse the Aorta”, by Gina Kolata. This article discusses the discovery of the real cause of the disease Marfan syndrome. The Marfan syndrome causes the aorta to swell like a balloon and burst or tear, causing an aortic aneurism and death. The disease is most prevalent in young children because they don’t live long past childhood. It was discovered that Marfan syndrome was caused by a mutation in fibrillin-1, a protein in connective tissue. It makes cells behave abnormally causing the many problems of Marfan. After this discovery, scientists found that the drug losartan could help prevent aortic growth. Fiona did a great job reviewing this article. For example, her format of her review allowed it to be very easy for the reader to understand the review. She Addressed what Marfan was and then discussed the discovery and how it helped. She also used quotes wisely in her review to back up her points about the article. Lastly, Fiona enhanced her review by connecting it to her mother and how she needed surgery for her aortic aneurism. Although Fiona did a great job, a few things could have been done differently to enhance this review. For instance, Fiona could have went into more detail about who made this discover and how they did it. Also, Fiona could have discussed in more detail how the drug losartan is an effective treatment for people with Marfan. Overall, this was a great article review. I thought it was very interesting how a widely used blood pressure drug could help people with Marfan syndrome.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Stoeffhaas
ReplyDeleteI read Fiona’s review of the article Learning to Diffuse the Aorta by Gina Kolata. I thought that Fiona summarized the article well. She made sure to hit all of the key points in the article, including all of the important information, while also condensing it. She made her review interesting, which is very important. She didn’t just restate the article, but wrote an interesting analysis of it. I thought that she did a good job of using examples form the article, putting specific facts into her argument strengthening it and overall making it a better review. She did a good job of making all of the information in the packet simple and easy to understand, instead of being complicated and difficult to read.
For the most part I thought that her review was very good, although there was room for change. First of all there were a few grammatical errors that could have been fixed. Also she could have added quotes. Although she had many good facts from the article, the addition of quotes could have helped to make her review better. Lastly I think that her review was a bit short, she could have added more, possibly through quotes.
Overall I really liked Fiona’s review of the article Learning to Diffuse the Aorta by Gina Kolata. I think that she did a good job, having very few errors besides grammar.I thought that she made her review very interesting and intriguing. I also liked how she picked an article that related to our current topics in biology. As she mentioned it connects to genetics.
I read Fiona's summery of the article "learning to diffuse the aorta". This article was about the serious disease of Marfan syndrome. It usually occurs in young children and causes their aortic vowel to swell and explode leading to death. Fiona did a good job explaining this diseases and why this occurs. her summery includes scientist discovery of a cure for this disease and how it affects the everyday world. Some things Fiona did very well was the description of the disease and explaining all the terms. she also included helpful quotes from her article to support her analysis. Another thing she did well was how she made comments on the article she read and how to improve their writing. some things Fiona could improve on are explaining how the scientist found the cure of Marfan and include a few more quotes. overall I think Fiona did a very good job explaining a hard subject and even connected it to her everyday life to make it more relatable.
ReplyDeleteI read Fiona’s review on the article, “Learning to Diffuse the Aorta” by Gina Kolata which discussed a topic that connects back to our recent study of genetics. The article that was discussed talks about a disease that causes the aorta to swell resulting in it bursting or tearing. Fiona mentioned that the article was lengthy and repetitive but since the article was long in terms of length, she was able to pick out the important information and deliver it to her audience reading her review. Through all of the repetitive information, she was able to summarize the disease without repeating a fact she previously stated. I also appreciated how she connected the article she read back to what we are currently studying in class. When learning about genetics, it’s nice to see how it plays an important role in the real medical world and how one simple gene can cause so much damage. Lastly, I enjoyed the flow of her review and how it wasn’t choppy when switching from fact to fact. Some writers have difficulties learning how to weave facts in without stating them as if they are in a list. One thing, however, that I think she should work on is correcting some grammatical errors by proofreading before submitting her review. Secondly, instead of just adding straight facts, she could add a quote to make her review more interesting. Overall, I enjoyed reading Fiona’s review, especially since it related back to our current studies. I personally enjoyed learning about the disease and putting our information we learn from the textbook into perspective.
ReplyDeleteI read Fiona Roediger’s current event report on the article entitled “Learning to Diffuse the Aorta.” Fiona’s current event report was very well done. She did a good job of summarizing what the article said. She did not leave out key facts. However, she also did not include too much information that would be overwhelming for the reader. She explained the information in the article in a way that was very easy to understand. In addition, I think Fiona did a nice job analyzing both what the article did well and what the article could improve on. Likewise, I like how Fiona related her article to what we are currently learning about. She wrote that the “article is related to our study of genetics, because people with Marfin have a defective gene that causes a protein to malfunction.” Overall, I think that Fiona made the report interesting while providing a nice summary of the article.
ReplyDeleteThe blog contained many good facts and interesting analysis. However, she could have improved the blog. Her blog had too many grammatical mistakes. She should have re-read her report more thoroughly before putting it on the blog. For example, she wrote “The disease is usually most prevalent in young children because they do not live long past childhood, and it the kids are usually very tall and thin, with long arms, legs and fingers.” The word “it” should have been deleted from that sentence. Also, she could have added quotes from the scientists. Although she had many good facts from the article, the addition of quotes would have enhanced her review. Likewise, I wish Fiona explained how the scientist came to find the cure for this disease. She states that there were several years of trials before it was confirmed that losartan was an effective treatment but she does not explain what the trials were. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the blog since I learned a lot from it concerning this new discovery.
I think that Fiona’s current event report was well done and included many interesting facts. I was surprised that a drug, which is widely used to for blood pressure, would also help prevent aortic growth. In addition, I thought that it was very interesting how in people who have Marfan, instead of attaching to the connective tissue, T.G.F.-beta drifts away from it. Overall, I think that Fiona did a very nice job.