Hi Guys

I've gone back to school (well, evening class) and am studying A level Human Biology.... yes, I know, at my age...!

I know some of you are Bio peeps (Diane, Suz.) I have to do an essay for my AS coursework and have to choose from these two titles:

a)Gene Technology can only be of benefit to mankind

b)Lifestyle causes Cancer

I need to have a range of 5 sources from 3 different areas (text book, journals, library books and at least one source should be IT based. We are allowed to use internet versions of magazines.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please as I'm sure it will take me AGES anyway because I'll keep getting distracted with interesting articles!

Oooh Helen, I might be marking your exam paper. MMMMMWAAA HAA HAAAAAA!!!!

A good place to start is icr.ac.uk, as they often have news on their most recent studies. My work website is mcri.ac.uk, but I'm not sure on what info you'll get from that. Ours is more basic research that is applicable to cancer. Also New Scientist website. I can also send you a couple of articles in pdf form if you give me your email address? Good luck!

Di

Can't help with the gene one....

If you want to do the lifestyle/cancer one then you could start by looking somewhere like the Soil Association webpages and follow the links to research on cancer + pesticides. I seem to remember John Humphries talking about it too in his book "The Great Food Gamble" and I think he referenced it properly so you can follow them up. Can lend you the book next weekend if any good.

And wasn't there that study recently on the benefits of organic farming? Seem to remember it was in the weekend newspapers at the end of October, possibly a University of Newcastle study.

All the "5 a day" stuff is bound to get you some references eventually although I can imagine you having to trawl through a lot of dross on the way!

Some other stuff on http://www.aicr.org/site/PageServer although not sure how much of it is referenced properly

I'm no expert on this stuff, but I found "The Secret History of the War on Cancer", by Devra Davis (2007), Basic Books, www.basicbooks.com to be a good read on environmental causes of cancer. There's probably some useful stuff in the references, and amazon carries it.

Good luck with the course - one learns much better and more efficiently later in life - I couldn't beieve how much easier I found it all as a re-tread!

Rita

...........where is my brain? - and of course, Colin campbell's "The China Study" and info on the website of The Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine.......
Rita

Thank you everyone, I'll go and check some links now.

Diane - You know the question where I put 'vein'? Well I meant 'artery' ok?!! Just so as you know and can make allowances!
My email address for the pdfs is helenwest2001@yahoo.co.uk

Catherine - Thank you for the offer - yes please.

Rita - Agree about the re-tread, I just find it takes me longer for things to sink in these days... has to get past all the trivia floating around in my grey cell I guess!

Thank you again all, you are great

Ooh, I'd choose the first one...or the second one...good topics!

You mean references? or sources to start looking for things?

Um, journals - well, obviously the one I worked on for 10 years of my life would be a good source 'Trends in Biotechnology' look it up on science direct - lots in there about pharmacogenomics (personalised medicine), ethics, cloning, genetic manipulation etc etc.

Thinking about the sorts of topics in the first one there would be a huge range of sources although it depends which gene techologies you decide to focus on.

E.g. some examples of advantages of gene technology:

All these topics will have different sources but a basic biotech text book would cover a lot of them. eg Basic Biotechnology - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basic-Biotechnology-Colin-Ratledge/dp/0521549582/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1201020034&sr=8-1

- insulin is a prime example - genetic engineering bacteria to produce insulin so that don't have to get it from pigs
- drug production - genetically engineer bacteria/fungi etc to produce large quantities of antibiotics etc
- engineer bacteria to produce hydrogen to use as fuel
- engineer plants to produce more energy when turned into biofuel
- genetically engineer viruses so that they are harmless but can use them to inject drugs to kill cancer into cancer cells (bacteriophages for example in cancer therapy)
- genetic manipulation of cows so milk more healthy etc.
- genetic technology so can cure babies of things before they grow up (SCID babies etc)
- people working on finding which gene causes scar-less-healing so can turn it off and then have wounds that don't scar (eg for burns victims or injuries etc)
- better understanding of causes of disease
- understanding of factors that make people more susceptible to disease
- tailoring treatment to people (pharmacogenomics)
- benefits of GM food in being able to grow drought/pest/ resistant crops to feed third world countries
- genetically engineer bacteria to degrade oil spills
- genetically engineer bacteria to stop deterioration of paintings and old monuments etc
- genetically engineer pigs for xenotransplantion

Eeeeek, anyone else feel a sense of Brave New World coming on.....?

Sorry, having a closed-minded sort of day!

Those are all things we do already - so its a Brave Current World :0)

Would it be too off-topic to ask if any of you boffins know of a good solid refutation of the "Eat right 4 your Type" eat-according-to-when-your-blood-group-evolved stuff? I have a colleague who has read the book and is convinced she needs to eat pounds of meat a day! I haven't been able to find a lot (let alone in Spanish or catalan!), because no-one takes it seriously!
Thanks,
Rita

This link explains it (why its dodgy!), has refs etc
http://www.westonaprice.org/bookreviews/eat_right.html

Very many thanks, Suz . this is an interesting article which I hadn't got from Google - the antiquity of blood groups really does hole d'Adamao below the waterline. I'll pass it on.
Rita

Thank you Suz for all the info. You are brilliant. Will start to investigate.

Still can't decide which to choose ...!

I think you should do both, post them here and then we'll tell you which to submit (and learn lots in the process.... evil cackle!)