Me and my two friends from the Department of Entomology.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Saturday, June 8, 2013
My First Scholarship
Me at the Undergraduate Award Ceremony (May 9, 2013) receiving my Hilldale Award (the first scholarship in my life), with the chancellor, Mr. David Ward. I received the scholarship for my research project on the Manduca juvenile hormone binding protein.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
The Two Assumptions of Heritability Studies
Evolution cannot occur without at least some traits being heritable. Heritability is a measure of parent-offspring resemblance; so a trait with high heritability has a high genetic component to it, right?
No.
This is one strange and paradoxical thing about heredity studies: heritability is defined as something specific to a certain population in certain circumstances. It is neither a property of an individual nor a property of a trait.
In parent-offspring correlation studies, heritability is simply the slope that measures the resemblance between the average trait value of the two parents and the trait value of the offspring. In twin studies, heritability is the correlation between the trait values of the twins.
From my reading about scientific and philosophical articles on heritability, I figured that two assumptions are implied in those studies without even being mentioned:
(1) Parents and offspring always resemble, instead of differ from, each other. (In other word, the slope of heritability on the parent-offspring graph is always positive.)
(2) Heritability can never equal to zero. This is because of how the math works out. Heritability is a correlation: a covariance over the product of two standard deviations. Covariances and standard deviations are always positive numbers.
Think about it: pick any measurable trait, its heritability will be a non-zero positive number, even if in reality it does not have genetic component. So what does heritability really tell us?
What would our evolution looks like if parents and offspring always tend to differ, not resemble, each other? Would we evolve backwards? Within one generation, the evolutionary response in the offspring will shift in the opposite direction as the selective pressure; however, the response will be cancelled in the grand-offspring generation under the same selective pressure. Just thinking about this weird scenario gave me a giggle fit in my philosophy-biology class.
No.
This is one strange and paradoxical thing about heredity studies: heritability is defined as something specific to a certain population in certain circumstances. It is neither a property of an individual nor a property of a trait.
In parent-offspring correlation studies, heritability is simply the slope that measures the resemblance between the average trait value of the two parents and the trait value of the offspring. In twin studies, heritability is the correlation between the trait values of the twins.
From my reading about scientific and philosophical articles on heritability, I figured that two assumptions are implied in those studies without even being mentioned:
(1) Parents and offspring always resemble, instead of differ from, each other. (In other word, the slope of heritability on the parent-offspring graph is always positive.)
(2) Heritability can never equal to zero. This is because of how the math works out. Heritability is a correlation: a covariance over the product of two standard deviations. Covariances and standard deviations are always positive numbers.
Think about it: pick any measurable trait, its heritability will be a non-zero positive number, even if in reality it does not have genetic component. So what does heritability really tell us?
What would our evolution looks like if parents and offspring always tend to differ, not resemble, each other? Would we evolve backwards? Within one generation, the evolutionary response in the offspring will shift in the opposite direction as the selective pressure; however, the response will be cancelled in the grand-offspring generation under the same selective pressure. Just thinking about this weird scenario gave me a giggle fit in my philosophy-biology class.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Standardization of production and purification of Manduca hemolymph JHBP (Abstract)
The abstract of my research project for applying the Hilldale award (my project hasn't have a result and conclusion). Many students have attempted on this project and didn't work out a desirable yield of rJHBP. If my future work is anything useful, the results will contribute to the scientific community. It's kind of hard to believe I'm doing it.
The hemolymph juvenile
hormone binding protein (hJHBP) is a specific Lepidopteran protein that binds
and transports juvenile hormone (JH). JH plays a number of crucial roles in the
regulation of insect development and reproduction. This project will employ a
transformed E. coli cell line to
express recombinant JHBP (rJHBP). Immunological analysis, cell preparation, and
protein purification will be explored to produce and purify rJHBP of optimal
quantity and quality. Binding studies will confirm the functionality of rJHBP.
The results will provide a stable supply of JHBP for future studies on the
binding and target cell docking mechanisms and contribute to increasing our
knowledge of insect physiology and pest control.
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