Research on Cells

Introduction

Cells are the building blocks of life. They are involved in how every part of our bodies function. Our muscles are made of muscle cells, our nervous system is made of nerve cells and so on. Disease or disability can happen when our cells get damaged or even just by growing older. Scientists are researching all kinds of ways to heal cells or to grow new cells which can change the future of medicine and provide hope for people with serious conditions. Can you imagine some of the exciting possibilities scientists are discovering with cell research? 

 

Task

Your job in the WebQuest is to learn about current research involving different

types of cells. You will investigate how scientists studying diverse scientific topics

are adding to the current body of knowledge about cells. You also will explore

questions and answers about the roles that different cells play in our bodies. You

will answer a set of questions to demonstrate what you have learned. Once

you've explored information to increase your knowledge of developments in cell

studies and how cells work in the human body, you'll write a summary about one

of the topics you investigated. The purpose of this summary is to write about a

scientific topic using a style suited for posting on a Web site.

Process

  1. Scientists discovered that changes with structures around nerve cells lead to memory loss when a person agees. These are called perineuronal nets or PNNs. scientists figured out a way to restore them in mice which means they might figure out how to restore memory as humans age

 

  1. Scientists discovered that if they remove fat cells from a human body they can  extract STEM cells from inside the fat cell. STEM cells are unique cells because they can be differentiated and become any type of cell, including nerve cells. For a patient with spinal cord injuries this means that they have new nerve cells to help repair the injury.

 

  1.  In recent scientific studies frog eggs are being injected with nuclei from adult human or mouse white blood cells which turn the frog egg into a STEM cell. 

 

  1. Schwann cells are a type of cell in the peripheral nervous system that protect neurons by wrapping it in a fatty layer called myelin sheaths. When the Schwann cells are absent certain diseases can develop such as multiple sclerosis.

 

  1. Epithelial cells create a bicarbonate solution that neutralizes the acid in the stomach that was created by the parietal cells. The epithelial cells and parietal cells work together to maintain the acid inside the stomach.

Evaluation
Evaluation
  1 2 3 4 POINTS
Task The task was not completed It appears that some effort was made to complete thee task, but important information is missing The task was completed as assigned, but some of the information was faulty The task was completed with great attention to detail. All the information was reported and is accurate 4
Processes Thee process was not followed Thee overall summary was lacking. Answers to questions were not complete.  Overall, the task was completed correctly. Student may have appeared to rush through project or not been thorough. The results show that a lot of thought went into collecting and summarizing information 3
Web summary Summary was sloppy and not well prepared The summary included key information but lacked general cohesiveness Information was presented well but lacked organization Summary was well organized; information was clearly and concisely stated 4

Total = 11

Conclusion

As you can see, there are so many ways that scientists are using cell research to help humans. Not only are scientists answering questions that nobody was able to answer before but also making amazing discoveries while changing peoples lives.

We learned how fat cells can help repair spinal cord injuries, how frog eggs can be turned into powerful STEM cells, why Schwann cells are so important and really important discoveries around memory loss. 



 

Credits