Can You Smell If You Have Covid or Cancer?

 Humans have the ability to smell, but not as strong as some of our other mammal species. What I learned is that Human Scent is influenced by many factors, one of them being genetics. The group of genes linked to the body's immune system is important when influencing the production of proteins and chemicals contributing to body odor. Sweat, oils, and other bodily secretions undergo transformations through interactions on the skin surface, creating a unique scent for each individual. 

Odor is composed of organic compounds emitted from the skin and carries information about a person. Researchers who have looked into human scent have inspected these odors, and chemicals to reveal their potential in forensics and healthcare. In the study, they revealed that human scent is all due to genetics. In 1988 research showed that identical twins living in different environments and exposed to different things have the same distinct scent that trained dogs can distinguish which is really interesting.

Medical detection dogs have benefitted the medical community a lot over the past few years. They can detect seizures, diabetic fluctuations, and diseases like cancer, and covid. There are many service dogs who do an incredible job at detecting these things benefitting their owner's overall well-being.  Human scent is very interesting and it reveals a lot about a person, even though we can not be able to identify all those issues unlike dogs can it is still fascinating that there are animals out there that can smell these problems before they happen, and are trained to help individuals with these issues. 

Links: 

Can you smell if you have cancer?

Study of body odor

Genetic Variant May Increase Multiple Sclerosis Severity

 Multiple Sclerosis or MS is a condition in which the insulating coating of nerves and nerve fibers in the brain and the spinal cord are damaged by the immune system. This condition affects about 2.9 million people worldwide and while some people have a relapsing form of this condition, other have a severe debilitating form. Researchers have found a genetic variant that effects the speed in which MS progresses. They found that the people who inherit the condition from both parents, need a walking aid about four years sooner than those who do not which is a substantial effect on a person for a single genetic variant. Researchers analyzed data from more than 12,000 people with Multiple sclerosis and found and screening more than 7m genetic variants that associate with the speed of the condition. It was found that the genes DYSF and ZNF638 were in association with more rapid progression of the condition. While progress has been made in the past few years, new work could help with the development of therapies that could help with the severity of this disease. 

Study tries to Identify the Link Between School Attendance and Genetic Makeup

The purpose of this study was to identify any link in human genes to the length of time people stay in school for. Citing the fact that researchers have linked other aspects such as income and overall health to certain genes, they hope to find a link for education. Although the researchers know that outside factors also affect this, they believe that the genetic makeup affects how neurons communicate to affect performance in school and thus the time spent in education. The source group was more than 1.1 million Caucasians from European descent citing that they required a homogeneous group to maximize the odds of discovering the link. Studying this data, Dr. Benjamin & his team found a number of genetic variations that were common to those who finished a large amount of school while other genetic variations were found that were common in people that left school early. Now the school time isn't only affected by the students genetic code but since they inherit these genes from their parents, the parents would put more or less emphasis on the importance of school depending on the genes they carry. Because of their findings, they were able to create a scale to calculate a genetic “score” for educational success due to these genes that are believed to be linked to schooling success. They tested this scale on 4,775 Caucasian Americans and ranked them into 5 groups based on the genetic makeup they had. From this ranking, the bottom group had only 12% finished college while the top group had 57% college completion. The same grouping was performed on African-Americans and produced inconclusive results citing that gene influence different traits in different populations.

The best way to sum up my feelings about this article would be the saying “correlation isn't causation.” First of all, the fact that they used a Caucasian group only tells me that they may have found the correlation primarily in Caucasians and decided to exclude other groups to make their data seem more relevant. They even say that the purpose of finding European descent Caucasians was to “maximize the odds of discovering the link,” to me this is just manipulating your data pool to benefit your theory. We have seen from the video on eugenics that the theory of linking certain races or groups to non-genetic related factors is nothing new. Despite this, this article somehow this gets posted in the New York times, meanwhile we look back on Kellogg as a crazy but at the core they are looking for the same non-existent genetic links.



Zimmer, C. (2018, July 23). Years of Education Influenced by Genetic Makeup, Enormous Study Finds. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/science/genes-education.html

What's the Likelihood That CRISPR Will Cure Cancer?

        As you may know, after taking biology courses in high school and college, DNA is an extremely important aspect in everything living.  DNA is subject to change, and go through transformations after being exposed to environmental and genetic factors.  Sometimes after DNA is exposed to different influences, its sequence changes, and new genetic codes are created, which sometimes can result in diseases and disorders, one being cancer. 

        CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, is new technology that has the ability to edit and modify genes.  Even though there are multiple gene editing tools, CRISPR is the most precise and practical one, because it has the ability to edit the DNA at the specific spots effected.  With this new technology scientists are able to modify genes and correct DNA sequences at specific locations permanently, and cut out the DNA code.  Our hope is that one day scientists can "be able to easily correct the errors that can crop up in our genetic code, leading to advanced cures for genetic diseases and cancer." (Howley, 2018)

       After research, and using CRISPR, doctor's have been able to alter embryonic DNA to eradicate genetic diseases in DNA sequences.  Experts know that CRISPR has the capabilitiy to change DNA to "cure" someone from a disease, the only thing is that the genetic edits must be made to each and every single cell that's involved in that disease process, which is a difficult thing to accomplish, considering there are millions.  Hopefully, as CRISPR continues to develop and flourish we can develop a way to treat cancer.  Since cancer has the ability to spread and develop all over the body CRISPR would have to change the genetic mutation that caused the cells around a persons entire  body to become cancerous, back to normal.  Dr. Alan B. Copperman, from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has his own approach to use the technology in cancer gene editing, and is already being used to try and treat those with leukemia and lymphoma.  For example, his idea "involves removing some of a patient's own immune cells (T cells), re-programming them using CRISPR and then infusing these cells back into the patient to fight the cancer.  This personalized immunotherapy approach should help in fighting off many different types of cancers." (Howley, 2018)

      CRISPR has a long way to go, and doctor's around the world are working hard to change the lives of those in need, and give patients the opportunity to receive treatment. 

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2018-09-12/whats-the-likelihood-that-crispr-will-cure-cancer

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting

A Single Genetic Switch Changes Butterfly Wing Color

This study is focused around Heliconius butterflies, which are very colorful and live in the tropical regions of central and south America. They often have wing colors that mimic those of other species to ward off their predators. One particular species, Heliconius Cydno, was studied by the University of Chicago, and found to have only one gene controlling whether the butterfly has yellow or white spots on its wings. The researchers created a genetic map using both yellow and white butterflies of this species. They continued to study the various genome sequences to eventually identify a single gene entitled aristaless1. This is the gene they determined was responsible for the switching of colors. If a butterfly had white spots, they had an elevated expression of al1 or it is repressing the yellow pigmentation. When they used the CRISPR gene editing tools they confirmed that when the al1 gene is turned off in embryos of butterflies that should be white, they end up developing yellow spots. 

That is just that species, however. A team at Cornell University are finding a way to "repaint" butterfly wings by using CRISPR and deleting a single gene. A gene called optix is shown to control the patterns of a butterfly's wing. With the knowledge of this gene, scientists can edit and manipulate a butterfly's genetic sequence so that their color pigments show up differently. Scientists are still inquiring why these certain genes play the important roles that they do in color pigmentation. When the genes came about, why there are are only so few of them, and did natural selection and evolution play a role in development of the genes? I believe that the use of CRISPR and the discovery that this gene manipulation could be done in butterflies is interesting because scientists could change the way an organism looks by changing one small gene. More than that though, it gives researchers more of a chance to answer their questions about the development on how different species of butterflies got their specific wing colors and patterns.

Dead but Not Forgotten: Elephant Genomic History

A study conducted by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin recently sequenced the genomes of 14 living and extinct elephant species to try and understand the potential gene flow within this group. This was done by mapping out the genome of living species such as the African forest elephant, the Savanna elephant, the Asian elephants, along with other like species, and then compared them with the genome of extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, the straight-tusked elephant, and the American mastodon. By doing this they were able to see the decent pattern of modern day elephants. One of the many things they discovered was that the straight tusked elephant, which went extinct approximately 120 thousand years ago, and the present-day forest elephants dissented from a related lineage.  Additionally, we have come to learn that in both past and present elephant genomes there seems to be a high amount of hybridization which has led to the group’s current speciation. 

One of the more notable discovers that came from this study was that African forest elephants and the Savanna elephant appeared to have diverged over 2 million years ago and have been genetically separated for around 500 thousand years. This discovery’s significance lies in the fact that it ends the debate of whether these two types of elephants are separate species which, evidently, they are. Because of this, these two groups of elephants can now receive more effective conservation efforts, as they can be specifically geared, and funded, to the individual species environmental resource requirements, and threats (Daley). With the advancements in genomics, both in efficiency and accuracy, demonstrated here with the successful mapping of the elephant’s genome, its applications and implications are vast and profound to say the least.

The article can be found at https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51918/title/Extinct-and-Living-Elephants--Genomic-History-Sequenced/

And here is the link to the original study that http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/16/1720554115