Week 2 Preclass
People, Planet, & Political Health
Please read and consider the below before the start of each class. The questions are study-questions and not homework to be graded. Talk about anything you find interesting with your classmates, friends, or TAs, as you like, using Piazza or email the instructors!
Preclass for Monday
People health (what do people need of bioengineers?)
The intersection of Bioengineering and human health is an active and exciting area of research. To better discuss the role that bioengineering can play -in addressing challenges in human health- briefly skim the following, The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine, available from link-1 and also a summary of the same material from link-2.
Q.1. What is the definition of burden of disease?
Q.2. How has the burden of disease for various diseases changed over time?
Next, familiarize yourself with some background information on malaria from the two links:
Q.3. What causes malaria? How is malaria spread?
Q.4. How is malaria diagnosed and treated?
Q.5. What are the challenges associated with ‘drug resistance’?
Optional reading:
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 to Youyou Tu for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria
Optional Link-1,
Optional Link-2
One approach to address malaria via bioengineering is to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), or key ingredients of a medication, via engineered organisms (e.g. an engineered yeast). See optional link for a primary research paper High-level semi-synthetic production of the potent antimalarial artemisinin.
With this in mind, please consider the following articles describing the reaction of the market to such endeavors:
Synthetic biology’s first malaria drug meets market resistance
Q.6. What was the only source of artemisinin before engineered yeast-based biosynthetic production?
Q.7. What were the challenges that the yeast-made drug faced ?
Q.8. What steps might have prevented some of those challenges?
Optional reading:
Interview with Dr. Jay Keasling ‘ whose work led to the industrial production of this important drug in yeast using synthetic biology.’
Optional Link-3
Later we will also talk about Gene-Drives as a potential solution to address diseases such as malaria. If you have time and wish to get a start on learning about gene drives, check out this article The Perils and Promises of Gene-Drive Technology by our very own Michael Specter.
Preclass for Wednesday
Planet health (what does everything else “need”?)
Extinction of Species and Bioengineering
In the 1960s, 2300 northern white rhinos lived in the wild. By the 1990s, their population was estimated to be a few dozen. In 2008, the white rhino was believed to be extinct in the wild. On March 20, 2018, the last captive white rhinoceros (named Sudan) died at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. A team of vets put the 45-year-old Sudan to rest when his age-related health complications took a turn for the worse. Two female rhinos – Sudan’s daughter (Najin), and granddaughter (Fatu) – are the only remaining individuals of their species. Northern white rhinoceros were functionally extinct even before the death of Sudan, since neither daughters are capable of reproduction. Currently, the only way to continue their species would be to artificially inseminate their eggs with stored sperm from Sudan or other males, and implant the resulting eggs into females of the closely related southern white rhino.source-1, source-2, source-3.
Optional reading: An Endling is the last known individual of a species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct Optional Link-1:Endling, Optional Link-2: what do you call the last of a species
Excessive hunting has been the primary cause of the extinction of rhinos. However, across all of life, hunting and poaching is not the only or even the primary cause of extinction and rapid loss of biodiversity. Climate change and moving species around the world (due to human movement) are other significant factors causing the extinction of species. Let’s focus on moving species for now.
While this seems ordinary, we routinely (intentionally or otherwise) move species around the globe at a rapid rate. This movement often brings together two species that have never encountered one another; the two wild species may have long-evolved along distinct evolutionary paths. Their human-assisted introduction can have both distributive and devastating effects. For example, the intentional introduction of Pacific rats to New Zealand had a devastating impact on the population of many flightless birds that had no previous predators.
Another example is the introduction of pathogens. For example, white nose syndrome or WNS a disease affecting hibernating bats that has devastated the population of bats in North America. A fungus discovered in 2008, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (formerly Geomyces destructans) has been demonstrated to cause WNS. Scientists are investigating the dynamics of fungal infection and transmission, and searching for a way to control it.
Q.1. Could or might bioengineering help us revive and restore extinct species? If yes, how?
Q.2.Could bioengineering help us eliminate (or reduce) invasive species?
Q.3. Could bioengineering help us eliminate factors accelerating ecosystem damage or change?
Briefly familiarize yourself with the following project Revive & Restore. As you see, the project seeks to ‘De-Extinct’ and revive woolly mammoths using genetic engineering and cloning.
Q.4. What challenges might the bioengineers face in reviving woolly mammoths?
Q.5. If successful, what challenges might the woolly mammoths face?
Q.6. Could bioengineering help us establish life somewhere else (e.g., Mars)? If yes, who should decide?
*Optional reading: De-Extinction Debate: Should We Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth?. and The Living Planet Index
Looking ahead to Friday’s class and if you would like a thought-provoking essay by Ursula K. Le Guin, please find She Unnames Them __________________
Preclass for Friday
Political health (what does it mean to engineer biology at social scales?)
In getting started please familiarize yourself with the thinking of Hobbes and Rousseau.
Both explored tradeoffs between individual rights and the formation of collective government (i.e., the social contract):
Briefly introduce yourself to Hobbes’ thinking regarding the formation of government via the four paragraphs that start with, “In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation ofstatesand legitimate governments…” link Hobbes
Similarly introduce yourself to Rousseau’s thinking by studying the eight paragraphs that begin with, “Rousseau’s text is divided into four main parts…” link Rousseau
Q.1. How do Rousseau’s assumptions about human nature differ from Hobbes’?
Q.2. How might such assumptions lead to differences in terms of how people are organized, or organize themselves?
Next, please skim the 2018 NY Times article, “As D.I.Y. Gene Editing Gains Popularity, ‘Someone Is Going to Get Hurt’”
Q.3. Do you think bioengineers should be licensed? What most informed your choice?
Finally, please watch the ~5’ video of testimony by bioengineer Dr. Megan Palmer before the US Senate on the topic of “Securing U.S. Leadership in the Bioeconomy”. Please skip directly to the 52:35’ timestamp to go directly to Dr. Palmer’s testimony.
Q.4. Dr. Palmer offers five recommendations for the Senators. What are her five recommendations?
Q.5. What do you think of her recommendations? Which one sounds best or worst to you?
Q.6. Would you have offered a different recommendation? What and why?
github source code for teaching staff