Scientist Spotlight #4

• Due Sunday by 11:59pm
• Points 5
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• Available until Feb 11 at 11:59pm

Scientist Spotlight: Irma Gigli

We will soon be turning our attention to the skin system, and in applying our A&P perspective on the human body, we will be discussing the functions of critical cells and chemicals in the skin.  To get introduced to some of those cells and molecules, we will review a few resources on one of the lesser-known skin functions: immune defense.  Irma Gigli is a dermatologist (skin scientist) and immunologist (immune system scientist) who formerly led the department of dermatology at UC San Diego's medical school.  She is from Argentina and overcame numerous challenges in her career, including visa issues that forced her to leave the United States.  Dr. Gigli is one of the first researchers to have explored the immune system functions of skin cells and wrote hundreds of articles on that subject, as well as articles on other skin system topics.

1) Please click here

Download click here to read the biography of Dr. Gigli from the book "Notable Hispanic American Women," by Diane Telgen (p. 177-178).
2) Then, click here Links to an external site. to read a summary of immune system/skin interactions from PLOS (Public Library of Science).  Pay special attention to information on the skin's layers and types of skin cells, as we will be studying those thing soon!  While this article was not written by Dr. Gigli, much of what is known in the article is a result of research Dr. Gigli performed.
3) Finally, please take a quick look at the abstract of one of Dr. Gigli's articles by clicking here

Links to an external site..  This includes some terminology that is a beyond our goals for Bio 40A, but it serves as an opportunity to see an example of some important original research.  Do NOT worry about understanding the whole abstract or looking up unknown words.  Instead, simply try to look for whichever words you might have heard before and what the broad ideas might be.

After reviewing these resources, write a 250 word or more reflection with your responses. You might wish to discuss any or all of the following topics:

1)   What was most interesting or most confusing about the these resources?

2)   What can you learn from these resources regarding the cellular composition of the skin and the molecular/physiological activities in the skin?

3)   What do these resources tell you about the types of people that do science?

4)   What new questions do you have after reviewing these resources?

 

Now that you've gotten to check your ideas by seeing some of your classmates' responses, let's take an opportunity to record your final thoughts for now.  Your response might be the same or different from in the previous discussion, but please re-write (or paste in) your complete answer.

Screen Shot 2018-10-04 at 11.49.08 AM.png

You run into your old friend, Aaron, who tells you that (strange as it sounds) he and his identical twin brother Jared got married to identical twin sisters! He says it’s going to be really exciting, because both couples just had baby girls, so his and Jared’s kids will also be identical twins!

Using your understanding of meiosis (e.g., including crossing over/recombination & independent assortment), what do you say to Aaron in response?

(Hint: since the important processes here act on pairs of chromosomes, it can be helpful to use "within pairs" or "between pairs" or "from each pair" frequently in your responses!)

      

Now that you've gotten to check your ideas by seeing some of your classmates' responses, let's take an opportunity to record your final thoughts for now.  Your response might be the same or different from in the previous discussion, but please re-write (or paste in) your complete answer.

Screen Shot 2018-10-04 at 11.49.08 AM.png

You run into your old friend, Aaron, who tells you that (strange as it sounds) he and his identical twin brother Jared got married to identical twin sisters! He says it’s going to be really exciting, because both couples just had baby girls, so his and Jared’s kids will also be identical twins!

Using your understanding of meiosis (e.g., including crossing over/recombination & independent assortment), what do you say to Aaron in response?

(Hint: since the important processes here act on pairs of chromosomes, it can be helpful to use "within pairs" or "between pairs" or "from each pair" frequently in your responses!)

 

Week 4 - Inheritance: Explain

Chromosomes, Traits, and Cell Division

Screen Shot 2018-09-10 at 1.58.29 PM.pngYou might recall the diagram to the left from last week's module.  We confirmed then that

Tendonitis an animation YouTube

goblet cell

 For example, a goblet cell is a mucous-secreting unicellular “gland” interspersed between the columnar epithelial cells of mucous membranes (Figure 4.7).

https://histologyslides.med.umich.edu/Histology/Digestive%20System/Intestines/176_HISTO_40X.htm

Epithelial tissues

 Epithelial tissues are nearly completely avascular.

 For instance, no blood vessels cross the basement membrane to enter the tissue, and nutrients must come by diffusion or absorption from underlying tissues or the surface. 

Glandular epithelium: Google

 Glandular epithelium: This type of epithelium is specialized to produce and secrete (release) substances. It's found in your glands, which are specialized organs that can make, store and/or release substances such as hormones, proteins and water. Sep 11, 2021

4.2 Epithelial Tissue

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Explain the structure and function of epithelial tissue

Distinguish between tight junctions, anchoring junctions, and gap junctions

Distinguish between simple epithelia and stratified epithelia, as well as between squamous, cuboidal, and columnar epithelia

Describe the structure and function of endocrine and exocrine glands and their respective secretions

Most epithelial tissues are essentially large sheets of cells covering all the surfaces of the body exposed to the outside world and lining the outside of organs. Epithelium also forms much of the glandular tissue of the body. Skin is not the only area of the body exposed to the outside. Other areas include the airways, the digestive tract, as well as the urinary and reproductive systems, all of which are lined by an epithelium. Hollow organs and body cavities that do not connect to the exterior of the body, which includes, blood vessels and serous membranes, are lined by endothelium (plural = endothelia), which is a type of epithelium.

Epithelial cells derive from all three major embryonic layers. The epithelia lining the skin, parts of the mouth and nose, and the anus develop from the ectoderm. Cells lining the airways and most of the digestive system originate in the endoderm. The epithelium that lines vessels in the lymphatic and cardiovascular system derives from the mesoderm and is called an endothelium.

All epithelia share some important structural and functional features. This tissue is highly cellular, with little or no extracellular material present between cells. Adjoining cells form a specialized intercellular connection between their cell membranes called a cell junction. The epithelial cells exhibit polarity with differences in structure and function between the exposed or apical facing surface of the cell and the basal surface close to the underlying body structures. The basal lamina, a mixture of glycoproteins and collagen, provides an attachment site for the epithelium, separating it from underlying connective tissue. The basal lamina attaches to a reticular lamina, which is secreted by the underlying connective tissue, forming a basement membrane that helps hold it all together.

Epithelial tissues are nearly completely avascular. For instance, no blood vessels cross the basement membrane to enter the tissue, and nutrients must come by diffusion or absorption from underlying tissues or the surface. Many epithelial tissues are capable of rapidly replacing damaged and dead cells. Sloughing off of damaged or dead cells is a characteristic of surface epithelium and allows our airways and digestive tracts to rapidly replace damaged cells with new cells.

Week 4 - Introduction & Goals

 You might recall that our main discussion prompt regarding cancer physiology involved a hypothetical person that "inherited" a mutation related to cancer.  For this week's module, we will take a break from the topic of cancer to explore the mechanisms of inheritance.  This will hopefully give us the cellular and molecular perspective on the origins of our traits.

Given all of the above, we will seek to...

Use the concepts of independent assortment and crossing over to explain why even closely related individuals have different DNA.

 

Tips for this week's module...

The inheritance-related topics we are about to explore are very much brain teasers!  Even if you have studied some of these topics previously, it is often challenging to apply knowledge related to inheritance to novel situations.  

I strongly recommend viewing the resources in this module more than once and trying to develop accurate mental models/visualizations of what's going on. 

 Remember that our focus is always on considering the cellular/molecular perspective.  In particular, when it comes to the elaborate/evaluate quiz later on, I recommend first trying the quiz, then re-reviewing some of the resources with the quiz questions in mind, prior to reattempting the quiz.