Cindy Kwok
Current Events 8
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171108151617.htm>.
I read the article called “Microbial Murder Mystery Solved” which was published by the Boston Children’s Hospital. It was about how our body’s immune cells (killer cells) managed to kill bacteria strains so quickly and effectively. This question was sparked due to bacteria’s ability to evolve and resist many forms of antibiotics. It has been known that one way killer cells have destroyed bacteria was through oxidative damage, which only works in areas with sufficient oxygen. However, in areas without oxygen, researchers at the Boston Children’s hospital, the Wistar Institute, and the University of Michigan have managed to capture a glimpse of the process through a microscope. It was observed that “they systematically killed three strains of microbes: E. coli and the bacteria responsible for causing Listeria infection and tuberculosis”. The cells had “programmed” an internal breakdown and apoptosis for the bacteria by shooting deadly enzymes (specifically granzyme B) into the bacteria. This method works whether the environment contains oxygen or not. The killer cells first seeked out surface markers to determine whether a bacteria had resided in a normal cell. If there were signs, the killer cells would latch onto the cell and cause a hole through which they would inject the granzyme B. As said by the researchers, “It's as if the bacteria's internal factory of life not only loses the blueprints for the parts it needs to make, but also suffers a catastrophic mechanical failure of its assembly line”.
This discovery evidently had many uses for the world. This results from the declining use and effectiveness of antibiotics as newer and stronger superbugs are introduced. By discovering that the bacteria unravels major important proteins that the bacterias need to survive through the injection of granzyme B, researchers have the potential to replicate this process to a higher level to eradicate bacteria without having to continually produce new antibiotics every time a new strain of bacteria comes up. "By discovering the bacterial proteins that killer cells 'take out,' we have identified potential therapeutic targets that could pave the way for a new class of antimicrobial drugs”. This is true especially as through multiple tests, the researchers have found that bacteria has not managed to evolve resistance towards this method, with the only survival method for bacteria is being camouflaged so that killer cells do not spot them.
I liked this article because of how interesting it is. With bacteria strains evolving and becoming a worldwide crisis, it was helpful to have reassurance that this new method could potentially save us from this disaster. I thought the article was very thorough in its explanation of how the killer cells could destroy the bacteria through the use of granzyme B. I also liked how it included the ways in which the new discovery could help the world, which many scientific articles fail to mention. I thought the article could improve by adding images of the killer cells and the bacteria through the microscope to get a better idea of how the process works for those who are more into visuals. I also thought that it would explain some words a little more such as “surface markers” (what they are, how cells manage to locate or determine if they are there, etc).
AP Bio
ReplyDeleteOlivia Scotti
11/15/17
Current Event # 8
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017. .
There were many aspects of Cindy’s review written well. One part of her review that I felt she did particularly well was her description of about killer cells and how they were discovered . For instance she states how “The cells had “programmed” an internal breakdown and apoptosis for the bacteria by shooting deadly enzymes (specifically granzyme B) into the bacteria. This method works whether the environment contains oxygen or not.” Through this summary the reader is able to understand the main point of the article that is being reviewed. Also the reader understands details about how these killer cells work. Another part of the review which was done well was the addition of quotes from scientists who have researched this topic. For example, “.... researchers at the Boston Children’s hospital, the Wistar Institute, and the University of Michigan have managed to capture a glimpse of the process through a microscope. It was observed that ‘they systematically killed three strains of microbes: E. coli and the bacteria responsible for causing Listeria infection and tuberculosis.’” Through this the reader understands what research has been done to understand these cells. This is also allows the reader to understand the tone of the article through direct quotes from the passage. Another part of the review that was done well was her ability to describe how this discovery is beneficial to the rest of the world. For instance she states, “By discovering the bacterial proteins that killer cells 'take out,' we have identified potential therapeutic targets that could pave the way for a new class of antimicrobial drugs.” This strengthened her review because the reader was able to see how research is useful for a lot of the population.
Although there were many parts of Cindy’s review written well there were areas for improvement. One part of her review which could have been improved was her critique paragraph. Although she did mention the negatives and positives of the article I wish she had been less general when stating her positives and gone into more detail. Through adding more specific details about the positives of the article the reader would have had a better understanding of the article. Another part of the article that could have been improved was if she added more details about what granzyme B was so the reader could understand the research more clearly. Also this would help strengthen her description of the research as a whole.
Overall, I felt Cindy wrote a strong review of this article which the reader could easily understand. Her review was written clearly and smoothly which allowed the reader to learn about the topic more easily and understand the research conducted. I enjoyed reading this review because I learned more about what Killer Cells and their effects on the world. Also through adding so many details about these cells the reader was able to clearly understand the benefits of people researching this topic. Overall, I liked how she described the research that was done and the effects on the present world. Through her discussion of this article the reader got a better grasp on the topic and the importance of this new research.
Nina Veru
ReplyDeleteAP-Bio, C-Odd
Current Event 8
11/15/17
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017. .
The article, “Microbial Murder Mystery solved: Researchers have caught the killer”, talks about how our immune system kill bacteria strains effectively. Cindy Kwok wrote a review of this article, while describing some key points. While reading, I noticed Kwok did an excellent job giving some scientific background. For instance she explains how the cells can destroy bacteria by performing apoptosis and by shooting deadly enzymes (usually granzyme B) into the cell. In addition, I enjoyed how Kwok explained the scientific benefits of this new research. The author claims this process reveals major proteins, which can kill numerous bacteria. Therefore scientist won’t have to create a new antibiotic everytime a new strain of bacteria appears. Finally, I enjoyed how Kwok stated her likes and dislikes of the article. For instance, she states that she enjoyed how the author of the original author wrote about the potential benefits of this research, which will ultimately help the worldwide bacteria crisis. In addition, Kwok states how she wishes pictures were included to help those who learn visually.
Although this review was great, Kwok could have incorporated more quotes into her piece. Quotes could enhance the writing by providing more details. I felt that when Kwok did use quotes, her writing was more clear. She included the quote, “‘they systematically killed three strains of microbes: E. coli and the bacteria responsible for causing Listeria infection and tuberculosis’”. I felt that this detail helped establish more clarity. In addition, the ending to Kwok’s writing was a bit abrupt. Kwok ends by stating, “I also thought that it would explain some words a little more such as “surface markers” (what they are, how cells manage to locate or determine if they are there, etc).” I felt that the writing just ended without drawing conclusions on the main ideas made throughout her piece.
After reading this review, I felt that I learned a lot of new scientific research. For example, I learned this process produces many proteins that can help eradicate bacteria. This is ultimately beneficial to science because they will no longer have to keep on creating antibiotics to destroy every new strain of bacteria discovered. In addition, this process will help the major world problem that antibiotics have been losing their effectiveness.
Abbey Thomas
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Mr. Ippolito
17 November 2017
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017. .
The article “Microbial Murder Mystery Solved” is about how researchers have discovered different methods of how killer cells, also called immune cells, kill different strains of bacteria. This article was reviewed by Cindy Kwok, and she did an excellent job. The first thing I noticed about Cindy’s review is how detailed her introduction and background paragraphs were. She went into great depth about how these killed cells use oxidative damage and how cells inject the bacteria with granzyme B to break down the blueprint of the cell. Cindy’s addition of this information made her article clearer, and easier to comprehend. In addition to have good background information, Cindy successfully utilized quotes in her response to the article. She mostly uses quotes from different researchers about what they observed about the immune cells, so the audience gets to read a first hand account of the event. It is easy to misuse use quotes, but Cindy adds them in very well. Lastly, she did a good job at criticizing the article and showing its strengths.
While Cindy wrote a very informative response to her article about the microbial murder mystery, there were some things she could improve upon. First, the introduction to her article was very detailed, but her section about why this discovery is important. She did have a small sentences about the importance, but it was lacking detail. Without the real world context, it is difficult to fully appreciate the discovery. Also, there were moments where her writing was choppy and abrupt. To solve this problem, she could combine more sentences or use better transition words.
Cindy’s piece was very informative and I learned a lot about the methods that immune cells use to kill bacteria. I had never placed much thought on how bacteria are killed by our immune systems or even thought that the methods of killing bacteria were unknown to scientists. The two methods I learned about from Cindy’s article was oxidative damage and the injection of granzyme B, and how these methods are used to kill bacteria strains such as E. Coli. Overall Cindy did a good job for her current event, and she spoke about a very interesting and important discovery.
Luke Redman
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Mr.Ippolito
Current Event #8
November 16th 2017
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017. .
This week I read Cindy’s review on the article, “Microbial Murder Mystery Solved”, which is about how researchers have discovered different methods of how immune cells kill different strains of bacteria. She did a great job informing the reader about the topic at hand, going into great depth and detail about how the cells kill other cells and why they kill other cells, which made the review easier to understand. She also included a perfect amount of quotes in her review, giving the reader enough insight into the article that they could understand the article without having to read the full article. She also does not hold back any criticisms about the article, clarifying her opinion and giving the reader her thoughts on the article.
While Cindy excelled in the areas previously mentioned, there were some areas where she could have improved. Her language was very choppy and did not flow well, making the article harder to read, and therefore less enjoyable. I also wished that she told us about the importance of the killer cells, and what this means for our society as a whole. There is very little mention of importance in her review.
Besides these areas, Cindy’s article was extremely detailed and provided very important information about cells. I never knew that cells could use oxidative damage to kill other cells. I look forward to reading Cindy’s next review.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDavid Weild
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
Mr.Ippolito
Current Event #8
November 17th 2017
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017.
This week I read my classmate Cindy Kwok’s review of, “Microbial Murder Mystery Solved.” This is about how researchers have discovered different ways that immune cells kill different types of strains of bacteria. Cindy did an outstanding job providing background information,about how and why cells are killed off. Because she took the time to help the reader understand this background, the review was very easy to comprehend. Along with this, she provided direct quotes which helped the reader to understand the tone of the article and a direct insight from the author. Lastly, Cindy provided solid criticisms about the article which were not subjective. They were concise and insightful.
Even though Cindy did a great job in most aspects of her review, she could have improved in others.I felt as though her grammar was incorrect at some points. To improve in this area I recommend that she proof read her review before submitting. In Cindy’s last paragraph, I was kind of disappointed with the broad term interesting that she used. I felt that at this point her writing would be much stronger if she went into more specific language to wrap up her review.
In total, I enjoyed reading her review. This was very interesting and I would recommend it to many others to read. I was very surprised that some certain cells were able to use oxidative damage to kill other cells. I look forward to reading Cindy’s next review. I chose this article to learn more about oxidative damage being used to kill cells. This changes my perception of cells that they do not usually kill each other but in this certain case they do.
Cory Ramundo
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippiltio
AP Biology
11/15/17
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer
cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017.
This week I read Cindy’s review on the article "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria." She did many good things in her review including, adding in quotations from the original article. By doing this, she establishes her credibility and makes the reader further inclined to believe what she is saying. She also does a great job of showing the benefits of the research and why it is important. This allows the reader to grasp the importance of the article and how it relates to society. She states, “By discovering that the bacteria unravels major important proteins that the bacterias need to survive through the injection of granzyme B, researchers have the potential to replicate this process to a higher level to eradicate bacteria without having to continually produce new antibiotics every time a new strain of bacteria comes up,” and by including this she is able to reveal the magnitude of importance it has on society. Lastly Cindy does an excellent job of giving background information on the topic. She expands on the background, which allows the reader to grasp a better understanding of the article. By stating, It was observed that “they systematically killed three strains of microbes: E. coli and the bacteria responsible for causing Listeria infection and tuberculosis”. The cells had “programmed” an internal breakdown and apoptosis for the bacteria by shooting deadly enzymes (specifically granzyme B) into the bacteria,” she leaves no unanswered questions for the reader, allowing for a maximum understatement.
Although these were the things she did well there could be some areas of improvement. First off there were some spelling and grammatical issues in her writing, which draw attention away from her main point. This is a simple error that could be easily fixed, but since it was not it was distracting. Secondly, her sentence structure and language that she use did not necessarily work well. The review seemed poorly written in the sense that most of her sentences were short, making the review seem almost choppy.
Nevertheless, Cindy still wrote a good review, and I learned a lot from it. The one main thing that I found extremely interesting was how bacteria was destroyed through the production of protein in this process. This is also extremely important as scientists do not have to keep developing antibiotics to kill bacteria due to this process. All in all this was a great review that gave great insight into how bacteria is destroyed.
Charlie Gay
ReplyDelete11/28/17
Mr. Ippolito
AP Biology
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171108151617.htm
Boston Children's Hospital. "Microbial murder mystery solved: Researchers have caught killer cells red-handed, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of bacteria." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 8 November 2017.
Current Events 9
I really enjoyed reading Cindy Kwok’s review on the article “Microbial murder mystery solved.” She does a great job of including quotes from the article. For example, she wrote “As said by the researchers, “It's as if the bacteria's internal factory of life not only loses the blueprints for the parts it needs to make, but also suffers a catastrophic mechanical failure of its assembly line.”’ This quote adds to the credibility of Cindy’s review and also allows the reader to read information directly from an expert. Cindy also does a great job of setting up her review. She does not go right into talking about the article, but rather first talks about background information to set up her argument. For example, she wrote “our body’s immune cells (killer cells) managed to kill bacteria strains so quickly and effectively.” Lastly, I really liked her opinion on why this article is relevant. When I was reading her review I was at first confused about what this information could be used for. However, when she wrote "By discovering the bacterial proteins that killer cells 'take out,' we have identified potential therapeutic targets that could pave the way for a new class of antimicrobial drugs” it is very clear why this information is so relevant.
Although Cindy’s review was very well written and informative, there are some areas where she could have improved on. For example, she should have stated who said or wrote the quotes that she included. She also should have included the credentials of the people as well. This would have further added to the credibility of her review. Another thing that she could have improved on is that she could have read over her work. She had some spelling and grammatical areas that could have easily been fixed. Also, some of her sentences were a little choppy and could have been edited slightly.
I chose to read this article because it seemed like a topic that was very relevant to our society and to biology. I chose this article mainly because of the title, which was very descriptive and interesting. I learned a lot from this article. One thing that I learned and that I found very interesting was how bacteria was destroyed through the production of protein in this process. This article is very relevant to our society, which talks about how bacteria is destroyed. This article and information could lead to many new antimicrobial drugs. I really enjoyed reading Cindy’s interesting and informative review.