Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. "'Missing link' explains how viruses trigger immunity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 September 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170912134812.htm>.
For my current event report, I decided to read and analyze the article “‘Missing link’ explains how viruses trigger immunity” from the online news source Science Daily. The article discusses the discovery of a specific protein by a Melbourne based research team. Researchers Dr. Tan Nguyen, Dr. Ken Pang, Professor Seth Masters, Professor Ian Wicks, Dr. Michelle Tate and Professor Craig Hunter were all involved in this crucial new discovery. The protein at hand, known as SIDT2, can discover viruses and strengthen immune systems before the disease is able to spread further. The protein is able to, “...detect viral components in their [SIDT2] environment, and initiate an immune response.” This is crucial to all cells that face viruses as without the SIDT2 protein, viruses may be able to bypass the immune system and infect the area before the cell even has a chance to respond. SIDT2 is said to aid RNA by maneuvering it to anti-virus proteins, some of which can be located in different cells, that commence the process of antiviral immunity. Also, SIDT2 is known for removing and transporting dsRNA, double stranded RNA viruses, away from the cell. This, again, is an especially helpful process to the cell as viruses are known for adapting to attempt to completely infiltrate and bypass the immune system of a cell.
Considering the fact that this article describes the discovery of a newfound protein that aids in the identification of viruses in a cell, it is evident that the SIDT2 revelation will have a profound effect on the future of treating different cellular viruses. In the article itself, the researchers responsible for the crucial discovery discuss the aid the protein can have on the future of therapeutics. “As well as being an important part of the intricate 'arms race' between viruses and our immune system, the finding could inform better approaches to delivering a promising new class of therapeutics.” Future studies involving test trials with SIDT2 could lead to further scientific advancements in the fight against certain bacterias and common viruses. Dr. Pang, one of the researchers involved in the discovery of the protein, discussed the fact that finding a way to add the SIDT2 count in one’s cell could help them detect viruses long before they spread. "Now that we know SIDT2 is important in trafficking double-stranded RNA into cells, future RNA-based therapeutics can hopefully be designed to maximise their transport by SIDT2," (Pang). If scientists find a way to help integrate more SIDT2 proteins into one’s body, different viruses may never be able to bypass a cell’s immune system again.
Overall, I believe the article “‘Missing link’ explains how viruses trigger immunity” was a very well written and equally informative report about an unexplored yet crucial subject. The authors easily simplify the advanced science behind the data to allow all readers to be able to interpret the information given. Many of the terms used are also defined and described. The authors go into amazing description when discusses how exactly SIDT2 works when helping a cell activate it’s immune system. In an effort to improve the article, the authors should have discussed how, exactly, the researchers involved in the project were able to identify the protein at work. It would have also been beneficial to ask the researchers responsible for the crucial discovery about how they plan on educating the world on the new, possibly lifesaving, protein.
Robby Schetlick
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Current Events Comment
September 13 2017
Citation: Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. "'Missing link' explains how viruses trigger immunity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 September 2017. .
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170912134812.htm
Mairead Cain’s current event article is called” Missing Link” by ScienceDaily. The report is well written, simple, and objective. One of the things that Mairead does well is explain things in a simple way that any reader can understand. The vocabulary is simple enough that anyone who knows basic biology will understand what she is saying, and her sentences flow well together which improves her organization. For example, in her first paragraph she begins by introducing the context of the article, in this case that they found a new protein, and then lists the doctors involved. She then continues to develop the story step by step by explaining what the protein does and so forth. The second thing Mairead does well in her report is connect what she learned in the article to the current world. Her second paragraph is clear on how the protein can be used in the future to prevent virus infection. She believes that with additional testing and experimentation, the use of “SIDT2” as medicine will become commonplace in healthcare. Her argument for this is convincing because she quotes the doctors in the study with the same levels of optimism. The third thing she does well is implement evidence from the article. None of her points and quotes are forced and instead fit right into her paragraphs. For instance, in her first paragraph she uses an ellipsis to connect her ideas with those in the article when she says “The protein is able to, ‘...detect viral components in their [SIDT2 environment, and initiate an immune response.’” She continues with her own procedure of logic, but still respects the article.
Although the report is generally well written, there are some minor improves that could be made to make it better. The first chance she could make would be to iron out the way she words her thoughts. Although the idea behind them is clear, sometimes the way she puts a sentence together doesn’t make as much sense on its own. For example, in her third paragraph, she calls the study “...an unexplored yet crucial subject.” What she most likely means is that it is a brand new field of study that shows promise, but the way she decided to word it made it seem like she was contradicting herself about the experiment’s existence. Fixing these minor instances of unclarity could really improve the article. The second change she could make would be to make her second paragraph more distinctly filled with her own ideas. It had nice flow because it continued the trend of following the general progression of the article, but this also caused it to feel more like a summary than a speculation or brainstorming paragraph. She could change this by expanding on the ideas presented in the article and writing down some of her own original ideas, even if it sacrifices a bit of the flow of her report.
This event report taught me about SIDT2 proteins and their utility in the immune system. I found it very interesting that scientists have achieved the ability to track down and identify specific proteins and even go as far as to discover their function. I choose this article and report because I was interested in the idea of immunity from viruses. I get sick far less frequently than the rest of my family,so it got me thinking of reasons why. After reading this article, a possible cause for my healthiness might be the increased production of this protein, but it is too early to tell right now. This report brightens my view on the future of healthcare, as it might be the solution to winning the biological race of viruses versus medicine.
Isabella Dibbini
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Current Event Comment
2 October, 2017
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. "'Missing link' explains how viruses trigger immunity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 September 2017. .
Mairead wrote an insightful review of the article “Missing link’ explains how viruses trigger immunity,” from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Mairead created an excellent summary of the article, including all the key points. She highlights the discovery of a specific protein by a Melbourne based research team. Mairead also discusses the researchers who worked on this study: Dr. Tan Nguyen, Dr. Ken Pang, Professor Seth Masters, Professor Ian Wicks, Dr. Michelle Tate and Professor Craig. In addition, she incorporates quotes into her review, making it more interesting. For example she includes that the protein is able to “...detect viral components in their [SIDT2] environment, and initiate an immune response.” After this, she explains the significance of this quote. Also, I was impressed by the connections Mairead made between the article and its affect on society. Based on the discovery of this protein she states “... it is evident that the SIDT2 revelation will have a profound effect on the future of treating different cellular viruses.”
Mairead wrote a great review on this article, however there were a few areas in which she could improve upon. I noticed that multiple people were part of this research team, which made me question what roles each of them played in the discovery of this protein. Also, if she wanted to take her review to the next level, she could include outside research, which would also make her review more interesting. Overall, Mairead wrote an excellent review, but one way she could improve her review would be to add more detail.
By reading this article I learned about the discovery of a specific protein, that I was previously unaware of. Overall, Mairead’s review is very good and shows a great understanding of this article. I am interested to see what happens with this protein in the future, so I will make sure to stay updated on this topic.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTimothy Cushman
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Ap Biology - Current Events Comment
3 October 2017
Current Events #3
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. "'Missing link' explains how viruses trigger immunity." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 September 2017. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170912134812.htm
Mairead wrote a great review of the article “Missing link’ explains how viruses trigger immunity.” Mairead did a great job explaining how the new protein work at finding viruses and helping the immune system fight them. She went into great details about the specific actions the new proteins take, “SIDT2 is said to aid RNA by maneuvering it to anti-virus proteins.” This allowed the reader to better understand at a biological level what was happening. Another aspect of Mairead’s review that was great was how she named all of the researchers that discovered the protein. This allowed the reader to decide how credible the research was based on who was doing it. This also gave her review more credibility because we knew where the research she was talking about came from. Mairead also gave excellent quotes that furthered the reader’s understanding of the article. For example, she quoted that the proteins are able to “...detect viral components in their [SIDT2] environment, and initiate an immune response.” This was helpful because it gave the author's explanation of how the protein worked and was easy to understand. Overall, this was a great review that contained great information and was written well.
Although having a great review, there were a few aspects that Mairead could approve upon. Mairead talks about a new protein that was found and what that means for fighting viruses, however, she does not talk about any testing that was done to prove that this protein was actually helping fight viruses. The reader is left wondering how the protein was discovered and what tests have been done, and on what they were done. By adding the information about the tests done and what they were done on, the reader would be better able to decide if the information about the new protein was accurate to all organisms or just specific ones. A second aspect of Mairead’s review that could be improved was her talking about the importance of the article. She talks about how it is important because of the new protein that aids in the identification of viruses. It would have been nice if she went into details about why this was important, such as, how viruses affect people or statistics on how many people get viruses a year and how many people die a year because of viruses. This little bit of extra information would have allowed the reader to reach an even better understanding of the importance of the information in the article.
I chose to read Mairead’s review because of the title. The title, talking about immunity to viruses interested me. I wanted to learn more about virus immunity to see how this was possible or how it may be possible one day. This article taught me about how something that is seemingly so small may have a large impact on the fight against viruses in humans.