Protein Synthesis: For the first part of the project, we had to research a certain protein, and how it became a functioning protein from a DNA sequence. To do this, we had to learn about Central Dogma, transcription, translation, and folding, which are the steps of getting from DNA to protein. The protein that we chose was insulin, the protein which allows your body to use the sugar you gain from foods and use it or save it for future use. Once we had all of this, we had to get the DNA sequence for insulin. All of this information then had to go into a presentation, which we then presented to the teacher.
Homeostasis: The second part of the project was with a different group, and in my opinion far better. We started by researching homeostasis, and what it did for our body. We the picked one thing that homeostasis regulated, like body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate, and design an lab around it. We chose blood pressure becuase we had seen an article on how music affects blood pressure and were interested by it. Our group then collectively decided we would do an experiment on how different styles of music affected a person's blood pressure. We took some time to think and came up with the hypothesis that the more intense the music, the more the subject's heart rate would increase. However, our results did not show this. We decided to ask the subjects to rate the songs based on how much they liked them. This brought to light another, better result. Our data showed that the more a person liked a song, the more their heart rate decreases. We then put this into a poster and lab report. You can see these as well as our protein poster below.
Terms and Definitions: Protein: A long chain of amino acids that perform most of the funcitons in the cell
Central Dogma: The process in which a fully functional protein is made
Transcription: The copying of the genetic code for the protein from the DNA to the mRNA
Translation: The process by which the amino acids, based off the code on the mRNA, are brought to the ribisome to make an amino acid chain
Folding: The process where a polypeptide chain folds to create a fully functional protein
Homeostasis: The process of keeping stable internal conditions in the body
Blood Pressure: The pressure of the blood on the artery walls
Reflection: I feel that the second project we did here went a lot better than the first one, but overall they both went pretty well. Frist of all, I joined the frist project when we were almost done so it was very challenging for me to catch up but in the end it worked out. Second, the first group I was in didn't have amazing communication and therefore it made it challenging for us to complete the project. Between these two projects, theres some things I did well, while also a few things I did wrong. Something I did right, at least for the second project, was really communicate my feelings about the project we were doing which allowed me to thrive. But something I could improve on is how much effort I put into working.