We have just finished a chapter on gene expression, or how genetic information is used to make necessary products in the cell.
For your biotechnology project, I’m going to ask everyone to complete 3 things:
1) View the videos and do the activities on gene expression in your biotechnology project folder
How fireflies make light
Transcription and Translation
Same Gene, Different Organism
2) Watch the video on how the Coronavirus hijacks our gene expression machinery to make itself. This is important, because this video explains how the Coronavirus uses our gene expression machinery.
3) Knowing what you know about gene expression and how the Coronavirus uses our cells to make copies of itself, I want you to pretend you are the scientists trying to come up with a therapy for COVID-19, and suggest one molecule and one molecular process that you would target or inhibit with a new drug to treat patients with the virus, and explain your reasoning for how your new drug would work to inhibit the virus, but not kill your patient.
This would be similar to a potential test question: Using your knowledge of gene expression, how would you design a new drug to treat a patient with COVID-19 in order to stop the virus in their body? For full points, please make sure your drug inhibits the virus without killing the patient–your patient must survive the treatment (i.e. stopping all gene expression in a patient is not a good therapy because the drug would inhibit the virus as well as kill the patient!).