Drosophila Melanogaster as a Model Organism :)

Hi everyone! :)

Today, I'm gonna share a post about Drosophila Melanogaster and three different experiments in which Drosophila was used as a model organism.

This text is also one of my lab reports for BIO 106 and to be honest, I wrote it at only one night. Because of that, there can be some grammatical problems :D However, I hope, you will enjoy that and learn new things from the text :)

DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

According to the evolution theory, it is thought that all living cells have a common ancestor cell and during the evolution of all living things, most of the basic properties of this ancestor cell have been conserved. That means, all species have mostly similar genetic properties and the differences between them are the results of small changes in their genome. As a result of that, especially in experimental biology researches, different species can be used as a test subject instead of each other. However, a certain number of organisms and cells which have different advantages about different experimental properties such as rapid reproducing, simplicity and transparency, are widely used as biological models in different experiments. In addition to that, because these chosen and determined species are used commonly by different scientists for different experiments, they can be examined deeply and scientific knowledge about the genetic properties of these species is very detailed. As a result of their different benefits, these species such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae are used as model organisms in biological experiments especially which are about human biology.

Drosophila Melanogaster is also one of these model organisms which are commonly used in experiments about human diseases and development stages. The usage of Drosophila in biological experiments have different advantages and disadvantages depending on the expectations from the experiments.

The most important benefit of Drosophila is that its genome was completely sequenced and published, and it contains a lot of conserved gene sequences which are similar with human genes. In addition to that, 75% of the genes which are related to different kinds of human diseases also can be find in its genome, too. As a result, Drosophila is commonly used as a model organism in drug design experiments for different human diseases.

The rapid life cycle of Drosophila is also an advantage of this model organism. Because from a single pair of this organism, it can be obtained more than a hundred of offspring which has identical genetic properties in about 10 days under laboratory conditions. In addition, to breed this organism under laboratory conditions is completely easier comparing to other species. They don’t need to have a complex diet to grow and they are not so expensive to study.

To have changing developmental stages such as embryo, larva, pupa and adult is a benefit of using Drosophila in different experiments. Because each stage of its development can be used for different researches such as about neuronal development and morphological changes. In addition to that, the adult stage of Drosophila has a complex systematic structure which has similar properties with human body systems and this property makes them also very useful for experiments about human development.

On the other side, Drosophila melanogaster has polytene chromosomal structure: its chromosomes are very big and they have light and dark colors of lines on them. As a result, its chromosomes can be observed under light microscope easily. And its body structures can be also observed with and without light microscope easily in different researches.

In addition to its advantages, Drosophila has some disadvantages for some biological experiments. One of its disadvantages is that even though they have similarities, the anatomy of Drosophila is actually very different. In addition to that, the fruit fly doesn’t have a complete adaptive immune system and they are not very useful for these type of experiments. And, Drosophila also doesn’t have some neurotransmitters and receptors which are important for neurological human diseases and this can be a disadvantage of using Drosophila instead of other species.

However, even though Drosophila Melanogaster has some disadvantages, its benefits are completely higher and it is commonly used in different kind of experiments about human diseases. One of these experiments, in which Drosophila was used is about the malignancy cancer investigations and different therapies for it. Even though some anatomical and physiological properties of Drosophila are quite different from humans, malignant tumors have a lot of similar effects on humans and Drosophila. The cells in both species firstly have changes in their developmental progress and their growth isn’t under control anymore. At the end, the tumor cells become immortal and cause the death of the patient. As a result of these similarities in stages of malignancy cancer in both species, different treatment options were tried on the Drosophila to be used in humans and by using these similarities and widely studied genomic properties of Drosophila, it was tried to understand the different molecular bases of malignancy.

Another experiment which was performed by using Drosophila Melanogaster is mapping the human cancer pathways. The human cancers develop through different stages such as mutations in cell – cycle, cell – death pathway and interactions about tumors, and to observe these steps of tumor formation easily, a model organism which has simple properties such as Drosophila was used. According to the results of some other experiments, by using the high ability in Drosophila to study interactions of tumor suppressors and oncogenes and, to generate tumor development and metastasis models; the hallmarks of cancer in Drosophila was determined, the pathways which promote the self – sufficiency was studied by using information about the effects of genes in Drosophila to self – sufficiency in growing and proliferation processes. And then, by using the different and well-studied cell signaling pathways of Drosophila, the effects of restraints against different processes such as cell proliferation, cell growth or the effects of blocking them was observed and the important cancer pathways such as Ras^ACT and Nothch^ACT were examined.

Drosophila Melanogaster is an appropriate model organism for modelling the neurodegenerative diseases and Parkinson’s disease is also one of the neurodegenerative diseases which were modelled by using Drosophila in an other experiment. The Parkinson’s disease is a disorder about movement and it is the result of losing the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra part of the brain and also the result of filamentous intraneuronal inclusions formation. The gene α – synuclein is related to this disease and it is also effective on accumulation in Lewy bodies which are the filamentous intraneuronal inclusions. In order to express a genetic approach for Parkinson’s disease by using Drosophila, in this experiment firstly, the normal and mutant α – synuclein genes of Drosophila were expressed. After that, the loss of dopaminergic neurons in adulthood and Lewy bodies which contain α – synuclein were produced. In addition to that, a locomotor dysfunction was also generated in Drosophila and the results were observed and then used for modelling the disease by using the effects on Drosophila Melanogaster.

See you in another post! :)

LOVE YOU <3

Kumsal

About the Terrifying Month :D

Hello everybody! :)

It's me Back Again!:)

Approximately since the winter break, I couldn't find any time to write about the classes, lab days and other stuffs in my pretty hard education life :D

However, our second midterms and finals are coming like they are some parts of an invincible army! :D

In May, I have 11 exams ( 5 Midterms and 6 Finals), a lab report about the "Model Organisms" to give, a power point presentation for my Modern German Literature class and two different articles about Graph Theory Applications for Brain Cancer(glioma) to read for the Chapter I'll write.

You see, this month is completely terrifying and I really don't feel that I'm ready for it..

The exams start on this Tuesday and I REALLY have to study! I haven't written my lab report yet and haven't also prepared my power point presentation, too. And honestly, I have thousand pages to read about everything :D

I hope, I can handle it and start my summer holiday and my summer internship with having a good mood. Because, I really have to fix my GPA in this semester to be able to apply great universities for Erasmus next year! Actually, I'm kinda nervous about that, but I really want to handle it and show myself that I can do anything when I want to! But I don't know..
I hope that everything goes perfect! :)

After this terrifying month, I want to write everything about what I learned and made in my second semester! I'll share my lab reports, especially the introduction parts which take ALWAYS more than 4 hours to write! :D In addition, they really include great information about basic laboratory techniques which we learned in this semester! :)

So see you soon and alive (HOPEFULLY) :D

LOVE YOU <3

Kumsal

The Story of This Week! :) (FIRST LAB, SICKNESS, WELCOME PARTY)

Hello everyone! :)

I know I wrote last time that I will share with you my weekly plan for this week. However, I couldn't as you see. Because this week was more complicated that I thought at the beginning! 

Here is the story:,

Monday began as usual. I took my Physics and Chemistry Classes. After that I bought my Chemistry Lab notes to study before. And than I joined the problem session for Chemistry but honestly it was a disaster! So, that wasn't very useful to learn or to repeat something. After that I came home at 7pm but I was feeling very bad and tired. I couldn't understand what was happening and I tried to study physics a little bit (VECTORS! -_-) and than I went to bed.

Tuesday was my first LAB DAY! :) Because of that I was very cheerful and exited! :) And it was really enjoyable but a little bit tense. Because I always had to be very careful to not break something etc. The topic for this lab was the solution and some basic chemicals. So, as you can see in the pictures, we worked with different chemicals and we tried to define their chemical properties when they are heated, mixed with water and their acidity/basicity. At the end of these experiment we had to solve a problem. Our professor had prepared an unknown mixture for all of us. And to finish the lab, we had to solve what was in it. And as you can guess, we had all different mixtures! :/ 

Honestly, It was very hard at the beginning. Because I broke my test tube, which is fulled by my unknown mixture! I got panicked, of course! :D But after that I could clean it up and solve the mixture! We haven't learned the results but I hope my answers were true!

After the lab day, I got sick! I got fever and I was feeling completely horrible! So, I couldn't go to class next day. At home, I slept all day long and even I did so, I couldn't get well completely :( However, I had to go to class on Thursday because we had a departmental welcome party and a problem session for maths,too. So, I went! 

The welcome party was a pizza party, actually. And the pizzas were very delicious! :D But the things that I've learned about the department during the party were much more important than the pizzas!! :D

Here they are:

>> Firstly, I've learned that I can join an Erasmus Program during my 3.year. So I have to apply at the beginning of next year! And of course, I have to have an enough high GPA and a complete social life to be accepted! The most important thing that I've heard was about the University of Amsterdam! Dım dım dım! What is very important about this university? So, this is the highest ranking university in the list of our Erasmus universities list!! And this college accept only one student in a year! So, this situation really motivates me now!! :) THIS IS MY NEXT GOAL! I'll work and study for this :)

>> Second thing that I've learned about is the Biology Lab Attendance! If we can talk with a professor in our department and can get an acceptance, we can join a research lab even if we are in our first semester! :) So, after I've learned about that, I made a research in our department website. And I saw that we have a research about cancer mutation in genes! Ta daaa! THIS IS MY SECOND NEXT GOAL! I want to get in! As a result, I wrote a very long e-mail about me and why I want to get in this lab to this professor and now I'm waiting for his answer. I made my B Plan, too. If he won't write anything to my e-mail until Tuesday. I'll go his office to introduce myself to him! :) Maybe this can work :)) 

So, my Thursday passed like that and yesterday I had a Bio111 class. In this class, we learn about the people which studied about chemistry or biology and gained a Nobel Price and their researches! It is a very interesting and enjoyable topic, I believe and the class was very instructive, too. 

Yesterday, we talked about Christiane Nüsslein- Volhard and her researches about Drosophila! :) You can read about her life and research here ,too. I really liked her and I hope that you'll, too.

In conclude, now it is weekend! And I need a complete plan to study my lessons! So, I woke up at 8 a.m and made this plan for the weekend :) ! Now, I want to start with physics because on Monday I have a Physics Problem Session! So if I have a problem about some questions, I can ask them here! :)

I wish you all a pleasant and perfect weekend! :)

SEE YOU SOON AND LOVE YOU! :) <3

Useful Apps For Students :)

Hello everyone! :)

My first week at the collage has gone! :) And honestly, I can say that it wasn't as easy as I thought before.
I believed that I won't need to study at least in the first week but no! I studied everyday and I had to do that because if I didn't, I couldn't control all the stuff that I have to learn!
So, it was a kind of tiring week but not very bad :)

After a summary of this week, let's talk about the apps I use :)!

Firstly, I want to introduce you : SCRIBD! 
Scribd is the world's biggest online library that all the students can use and reach via an App. In this library, I can find all the documents and books about my classes and I believe that you can find everything about any kind of stuff! :) In addition, it can be used for all papers and homeworks at the collage easily. And, it is free!

Second App I want to talk about is : MATHWAY!
Mathway is an App which can be used for all mathematical problems and algebras in Math Classes! It can solve a lot of problem step by step for you and show all the formulas that we have to remember all the time in Math Classes! So, especially the students who get a scientific education can use this app all the time and everywhere! Take a look at it!

Next App is a time controller in a different way: FOREST!
Maybe, you've heard about Forest but I want to explain it, too. Because it is the App which I use the most! Forest, as I told before, is a time controller App but it is more useful than others, I think.
The App gives you a little place to built your own forest and if you want to have trees you have to study in particular times. For example, if you study for 30 minutes you can get a little tree for your forest but you have to do nothing with your phone during these 30 minutes. Because, if you close the App it stops and you have to begin from the start! So, you can't do anything during this time with your phone and you have to control yourself! It is completely useful! :) Let's create your own forests! :)

The other App I want to explain is : The CRG
If you are in a scientific department at the collage, this App is completely useful for your Chemistry lessons! Because with this App, you can see and study all the chemical reactions that you have to remember for your exams! You can study with that and learn all the reactions every time everywhere!

If you want to learn something different : KHAN ACADEMY
I believe that most of you know about Khan Academy! Normally, it is a website which can be used for learning about every topic online via readings and videos! And this website has an App now, too. So you can read all the stuff that you want to know about and follow different lessons with your mobile phone! Try it! It is completely useful! :)

The last App I use very often is: PL@ANTNET
As you can see on its name, it is a biology App which can be used by every biologist and molecular biologist! By using this App, I can learn everything about all the plants around me! What I mean is, I take a picture of a plant that I see in the road and search on this App's database. And than, it shows me the latin name of this plant and everything technically about it! I really love this App, Because after I started to use it, I've learned very interesting things about a lot of different plants! :) So you can try it even if you just want to read about your flowers in your house! :)


Yes, this is the end of my post but the beginning of a new week! :) I hope that your week will completely perfect for you!! :)

I will share you what I plan for this week in my next post! :) So, see you then!

LOVE YOU <3

First Day At the University!

Hello everyone!

Yesterday was my first day at the college and it was completely awesome! :)
Actually, I was a little bit nervous because that was the first time that I listen everything in English during a class.
In addition to that, my first class was Physics! Completely HORROR for me!
However, to be honest, It wasn't so bad. In fact, It was interesting in some ways :)

First of all, I felt amazing, when I came to class. There were a lot of people who are the same department with me! :) And I really liked them :)
That's cool, because I was nervous about that,too : What if I wouldn't like my classmates?! But, they were actually very cool! I liked them! :) <3

During the class, I took my notes in English and taking English notes was not horrible as much as I expect! Yeah, sometimes I couldn't understand every words that the professor said, but not important! I understood the topic!

After the class, I bought my first university book from Bookstore : Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics --> Serway/Jawett

I have not viewed in it deeply, yet. But, I rewrote my class notes clearly, after the class.
So, before the exam, I won't have to write study notes again! :) If I can do it daily during the semester, it will be perfect and completely easy for me to study for anything! I hope I can! :)

This post will be a diary for this time. But after that post, as I mentioned before this post, I'll share the useful Apps that I use regularly, with you! :)

So, SEE YOU SOON! :)
Take care of yourselves! :)

LOVE YOU! :) <3

Which Websites Can We Use? :)

Hi everyone! :)

Today I will share with you some websites that we can use during our college time and most of them are really very useful for us :)

Yesterday, I made a huge investigation to find different useful websites that can be helpful for learning something easily or finding something about or for my future tasks at the college.

So, here are the results:

• Google Calendar: I know that you think Google Calendar is a typical online calendar that everybody can use. But these website, actually, can be very helpful to organize our tasks, meetings, jobs and classes etc. Distinctly from other typical calendars, Google Calendar is completely trusty and it can be synchronized with a lot of different websites and apps which had produces by Google, too. So, it is more useful and more helpful that you think! Look at it for once and try, than you will see the difference :)  

• Wolfram Alpha: Wolfram Alpha is  "a computational knowledge engine" that can calculate  every single basic math problems that you have to solve! Step by step, you can see the solutions of problems and it is very very helpful when you cannot understand something during the class. In addition to that, you can ask and search in different topics like biology, chemistry and astronomy etc.  Here is the link!

• Lynda: Lynda is a perfect website for learning something new from video courses! It is like an extensive video library that can be very effective to learn something and to gain different skills easily. Mostly, you can learn different skills centered around computing and media production. Normally, you have to pay for using the website. However, its free trial is not very short - 10 days- So, you can try and use it for free! :)  Here is it! :)

• Stack Exchange: If you have questions about different topics like biology, chemistry, programming etc. , Stack Exchange can find a great solution for you. This website is a collection of question and answer communities. So, if you have a question, you can find the solution most likely on this website!  Let's Try It! :)

• Sleepyti.me: This website is very simple but can be useful for some of us. Because it uses the sciences of REM cycles to calculate the optimal time that you should go to bed to feel good and well-rested in the morning! :) I like it and want to try during this week! You can try, too. Here!

• Coggle: Coggle is a mind-mapping tool that can be used for learning and teaching something in a clear way. Actually, it is not very easy to explain it with words, so you can watch this short video to understand it easily. And here is the website!

• Cheatography: As you can understand from the name of the website, Cheatography is a website that collects all the cheat sheets about any topic. So, you can find some brief information about your classes and can be useful for other things, too ;) So Let's Try It! :)

So, these are the websites that I find helpful for college in some ways. And most of them have their Apps for mobile phones,too. That means, you can use them easily and regularly if you like and want! 

I hope they will be beneficial for you,too. 

In the next post, I'll share with you some different Apps about studying and biology itself that I always use :) 

Until the next time, Have a nice Week!

See you soon! :)

LOVE YOU <3

Having A Habit Tracker! :)

Hi everyone! :)

I hope, you have a nice weekend! :)
Today I'll share my habit tracker for my first month of college year with you!
But first, what is a habit tracker?

If you're a planned living person like me, I believe that you plan everything in your lives. But I mean really EVERYTHING! For example, besides your homework, tasks and meetings, you also plan your free times and daily habits, too.
What I mean with daily habits are actually very simple things like drinking enough water, reading enough pages everyday and writing a diary regularly etc.

So, a habit tracker helps you to organize your simple and daily needs :) And of course, you can use that for forming a new habit into your lives.

For example, if you want to make yoga for at least 30 minutes everyday. You can write that to your habit tracker.

And than, in a long period of time you can mark the days on which you make yoga 30 minutes or more. So, after a month, you will be able to see and control your steps and you can see how many time you make yoga etc.
For me, it is usually supportive to do what I planned before. Because at the end of the month, I don't want to see what I didn't do. And I feel more comfortable and more proud when I mark something that I did! :)

At the end of the post, you can see how I made my habit tracker and you can search on Pinterest for different ideas,too. I believe you will get inspired! :) So, if you want to form a new habit or only want to organize your daily habits, you can easily use a habit tracker to motivate yourselves!

And here is my own Habit Tracker! :) Let's make one for yourself,too! :) It will surely work!!

Have A Nice Week! :)
See you soon! :)

LOVE YOU <3

What I've Been Planning for My Future? What I've done and will be doing?

As I said in my first post, being a successful molecular biology and genetics student has been  my dream since I began to high school.

Because of that, I've been planning my future for a long time.

Since I decided to be a part of this department, 

*First of all, I learned German and English in high school. Because I've thought if I want to have a successful academic career in the future, I have to be able to speak three or more languages fluently.
As a result, I wish to learn one more language during my university years :)

*After that, I chose a university in which I can learn all subjects in English. Because it is real that English is the most common language for most science departments all around the world. So, all my classes will be in English this year!
Honestly, it is a little bit scary for me, because i never can be completely sure that I'm ready to listen all the things in English all the time. And I always think about, what if I cannot or don't understand something because of English?
So, I hope that I can get used to that in a short span of time. And I also hope, this blog will be useful for my development in English, too.

* In addition to learn different languages, to get a successful academic career I completely believe that I won't be a geek student during these years. So, of co
urse, I have to study for having a great GPA, but GPA is not always enough for being a successful student. On the contrary, I have to improve myself in different areas but classes, too.
For instance, being a member of a club and having different hobbies can work for that. For myself, I chose to be a member of our Debate Society and our Science Club at the university. And I really got a lot of perfect friends and different skills from these clubs :)
In addition to that, reading, photography, cooking and handmade crafting are my hobbies! :) And of course, this blog will be one of them, too :)

*Besides the hobbies and different languages, I believe that extra courses can be useful for getting different experiences,too. Last year I took a course for C, C++ Programming and Graph Theory. Because it is obvious that during and after the college I always need to be able to understand coding and programming for my job. As a result, I tried to learn at least the beginning of coding etc.
That was very helpful but I wish and plan to improve that in this year,too :)
And than, in my country there are some open universities in which students don't have to take classes but learn everything at home from books,video classes etc. and than take exams like other universities to get a GPA.
In this year, I've begun to study "Management" from one of these universities, too. It will be like taking a course for business i think. And after 4 years I can get a second university diploma! Yey!
I wish that it will be useful for my career,too.

After all these things, the first school year of mine begins on this Monday! And I'm very excited! :)

> As a habit, I always live planned, so I bought an agenda for myself and I've been making a study journal for this year.
About this study journal, I will post a different text,too.
So, maybe you like it and want to use it, too.
>And I believe that having a peaceful study place is very important to be successful. So, I bought and did myself different kind of stuffs which make me happy and get concentrated.
(You can see my desk on the picture :) )

In addition to that, I think that different websites, apps, note taking skills and study programs etc. are very helpful for a college year. So, after that post, I will write about

• Useful study types
• Practical apps and websites for students
• Note taking methods
• Having an agenda and study journal
• Having a habit tracker
• Having a peaceful study place and how can we have that
• Different Youtube channels for all kind of sciences (mostly Biology of course)
• Pause and work controllers
• How can we keep important things in our mind easily?  ... etc.

Actually, writing about all these things will be very exciting for me, too. Because I will be learning during these times to :) 

So, we learn and read together, if you want to join me,too ! :)

In addition to these stuffs, naturally I'm going to share different videos and video explanations which I like and find useful, and my class notes, work notes and different papers about everything! :) 

So, we really learn, work, study and read everything together! :)

I wish you will enjoy with me, too :)

See you soon! Bye!

LOVE YOU :) <3

A Journal of A Molecular Biology Student :)

Hello everyone!

My name is Kumsal and I'm a first year Molecular Biology and Genetics student at Bogazici University in Turkey.

I'm 20 years old and I've been working for this since I've begun to high school and now here it is!
I'm very excited to be in this department and to learn new things about biology! And because of that, i want to share everything about that,too.

As a result,

Here is my first text of my online biology journal! :)
I hope that you'll enjoy reading my experiences and the things that I'll learn and I've learned.
I'll share all of my lab experiences, biology and chemistry news all around the world and my study plans everyday.

I hope that you'll enjoy as much as i do! :)

LOVE YOU! <3