Chemical Biology and Evolutionary Medicine

Deepen your understanding of chemical biology from an evolutionary perspective by investigating the mechanisms behind Huntington’s Disease.

Teacher: Ariana Boltax

Description

All too often biological questions are approached from one angle at a time, yet in a world that is increasingly interdisciplinary, it is necessary to take a variety of approaches. In medicine, a holistic understanding of disease leads to better treatments and faster recoveries. But how do researchers and medical professionals get to that point? What do they need to know? What do they need to test? What critical thinking and problem solving skills are necessary to ask big questions about disease?

Evolutionary medicine uses Darwinian theory to understand why people get sick. One disease of particular interest is Huntington's, a devastating neurodegenerative disorder that leaves patients unable to control their movements, their emotions, and eventually, their minds. This disease is genetic in origin, and there is no known cure. In this course, we will embark on a journey to design potential therapeutics for Huntington's disease. Like scientists, we will tackle this problem by gaining a better understanding of the fundamental biochemical mechanisms of the disease from an evolutionary perspective. A central focus of this course is the development of critical thinking skills and scientific literacy, so we will prioritize depth over breadth.

Due to the collaborative nature of this class, you should be prepared to participate in interactive discussions, demonstrations, and activities. There will be occasional homework reading and short research assignments, a couple of very brief presentations, and a final in-depth presentation of your proposed experiment.

Tentative list of topics covered

Organic chemistry, hypothesis testing, drug design, molecular properties, protein-protein interactions, evolution of the central dogma of biology, evolution of neurodegenerative disease.

For the application...

Prerequisites

Biology at the honors, AP, or IB level; and one year of high school chemistry; or equivalent knowledge.

Relevant experience

Please list any classes or activities in biology, chemistry, and evolution that you have participated in, as well as any related articles you have read, or research experience.

Core-specific application question

The application question for this class consists of multiple parts. You should provide responses to all parts. These are designed to require some thought, so don’t be discouraged if it takes you a while to come up with good answers. You can do it!

Part 1

You wake up on the floor of an animal hospital to the call of the PA system: "Dr. [Your Last Name] to examination room C." Shocked and confused, you run to the nearest mirror—you are dressed in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around your neck and a veterinary ID badge clipped to your belt. "Oh, Dr. [Your Last Name], there you are! Follow me," says a receptionist. He shuffles you into an examination room to see Queso, a two-year-old neutered male border collie, who has no health issues prior to a two-day history of anorexia, which his owners have described as intermittent vomiting, and general lethargy. His owners indicated that he is up to date on all of his vaccinations. You have yet to perform a physical examination or further tests.

You have five questions to ask of Queso's owners before you decide what tests to perform. Since you know next to nothing about veterinary medicine, you briefly excuse yourself from the examination room and scramble for your iPad. Narrate your thought process and explain your reasoning as you scour Google to come up with five meaningful questions. Use the following questions as a guide: What do you need to know in order to ask the right questions? What decisions will you be able to make about what to do next once Queso's owners answer your questions? Please tell us what search terms you use and link us to the websites you visit.

Part 2

Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

NASA has discovered alien microbes present in the ice caps of Mars. As an astrobiologist, your first question revolves around how the microbes adjust to the rapidly changing, harsh conditions on the surface of the planet. Your colleagues are fairly sure that the microbes, which have genetic material similar to that of life on Earth, adapt to changing environmental conditions via mutation, but there are two competing hypotheses about how the process works:

Hypothesis 1: Microbes grow and then, when presented with an environmental change, some microbes spontaneously mutate to adapt to that change.
Hypothesis 2: Microbes grow and mutate independently of any environmental change, but some mutants are better suited to survive certain changes than others.

Portions of the ice caps start to melt, and you decide to seize the opportunity to test these hypotheses. You know that the wild-type microbe can survive only in freezing conditions, whereas only a few rare mutant microbes can survive at warm temperatures.

(A) Which hypothesis (1 or 2) best describes how microbes on Earth adapt to environmental change?
(B) Design an experiment that would test which of the two hypotheses better describes the mechanism by which the Martian microbes adapt to environmental conditions via mutation. Be sure to account for all experimental parameters, including controls and expected results.