Unit 6 Reflection

Unit 6 was all about biotechnology, the application of biology. It is"the study and manipulation of living things in order to benefit mankind". Today in the modern world, biotech is used in many different fields: industrial and environmental, agriculture, medical and pharmaceutical, and diatonic research. We also went into extensive detail about gel electrophoresis that can be read in previous post. We learned about polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which is a process to amplify a specific DNA region. It's usually used to detect diseases and such. rDNA, recombinant DNA, is similar to PCR except it is specifically to insert DNA of one organism into the DNA of another organism. A main topic that was enforced repetitively was the idea of bioethics. That is the study of decision that have to be made because of advances in biology, medicine, and technology.


I thought this unit went by a lot faster than the other units. Maybe it's the personal interest I had with the concept of biotechnology and bioethics, but there were also many weaknesses. The ideas about polymerase chain reaction and rDNA did take me a while to have a grasp on the material. A major setback this month was being absent on a lab day, which meant I had to understand what pGLO is and how it works on my own. It's really hard to catch up when you are not there, especially on an important day.

The first lab of the year we did was the Candy Electrophoresis Lab. I learned that you need to follow the procedure very carefully or it will mess your entire lab. On another note, I had no idea that the dyes in candy were as artificial as regular dyes. The other lab was the pGLO Lab, which made me learn how to communicate with my teammates. Like I said before, I wasn't here for the lab, so I had to talk to my classmates outside of school. I really want to learn more about bioethics and how it affects the world now. I had a question that really isn't important but what does pGLO have to do with biotechnology? It been only a few weeks, but I feel like I've been taking MORE naps and been on my phone a lot MORE. I think I'm going to try to sleep earlier now and limit the amount of time on my phone. I don't have any self discipline, which makes it harder to take away these "necessities".


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