Yesterday, our school had a field trip. It was not quite often that we study outside school, which was good, for today I had to wake up at a quarter to five. We went to the i3L university (Indonesia International Institute for Life Science) to attend a workshop about bio-entrepreneurship. We arrived at eight, after waiting for the gates to open for about half an hour (which meant I could have gotten half an hour of extra sleep).
As expected, the day started with a presentation about the campus, and some efforts to draw us there after we passed twelfth grade. It was quite a good university--nice architecture, fine courses--I thought. However, I could still very much use more consideration.
How devastated some of us were, when we learned the workshop for bio-informatics was about a CSI case to solve a murder. Perhaps I was among those people, as I do love mysteries (did an essay on Sherlock a week ago).
And then, how delighted some of us were, when we learned that some of us will be transferred into bio-informatics as for some reason unknown to students and teachers, there was no workshop on bio-entrepreneurship. There never were.
And as luck has it, I got bio-informatics. Time to play Sherlock.
Quick stuff about bio-informatics, then. Basically, it is a merging of computers and statistics with biology, "To bring order to chaos," as biological data is immensely jumbled. Computing technology is used to make this process much quicker. By arranging the data with some order, then they could be compared, then future results could be predicted. For example, it could be used to find a pattern of symptoms a virus could cause, thus future infections could be identified from only the symptoms.
Now, we arrive at the part where we used computers to solve a murder.
This scenario was presented to us: a dead man was found at the airport, with signs of internal bleeding. Beside him, a carton of milk was found. Upon investigation, four unidentified proteins were found. Our task is to identify them, and to investigate which one was at fault for the man's murder.
We could simply input the protein string given to a database (through the website, BLAST, owned by the US), and the results came up just several minutes after. See what I meant by organization and computing? The database is presicely what you would call bringing order, and computerization sped that search among hundreds upon thousands of samples.
Now it'll be time for Sherlocking.
It turned out there were four proteins we found: human saliva, which was completely normal. Although, it was strange why the lab that extracted the samples didn't immediately recognize human saliva. The milk was drank through human lips, after all.
The two other proteins came from cattle. Again, strange why it was not recognized by the lab as it is naturally found in milk. Also not guilty, as according to the database, they could only cause an allergic reaction. Seeing that the man drank milk, which for certain wasn't his first time as that was most improbable, he never had an allergy with milk before.
Finally, we arrive at the interesting bit. The final protein was a rattlesnake venom, which could cause the rupture of blood vessels. Immediately fatal. There, we've found the killer.
Our teacher left it at that, but it was strange. We were detectives, we should find out how the venom came to the milk. This what what I came in mind:
The milk was in a carton. thus it was improbable that the venom was there from the factory. Others would have died as well, who drank that batch, and it would be improbable as well to pass quality control. Now, the milk is in a carton, so the vendor should not be a direct suspect but should not be overlooked (vending machines seldom sell cartons). The most probable suspect is someone that sat close to the man, when he had opened the carton (unless proven the vendor opened the carton first).
After that? I have no information. Call Sherlock to investigate. Well then, I digress. Let's return to my day at the university.
After that, we moved on to another part of bio-informatics: designing a protein, in this case, an antidote, for the venom, with a 3d design software for molecules, Yasara. Actually, it was more of a demonstration and game. We were given several prototypes, and predict which one will be most effective. My group got it right: a prototype with an oxygen ion could bond the best with the active site of the enzyme, which contains a zinc ion.
After a quick tour of the campus, we had lunch, and went back to school. Such was the day.
Actually, that digression was more of a topic change, was it not? Ah well.
And then, how delighted some of us were, when we learned that some of us will be transferred into bio-informatics as for some reason unknown to students and teachers, there was no workshop on bio-entrepreneurship. There never were.
And as luck has it, I got bio-informatics. Time to play Sherlock.
Quick stuff about bio-informatics, then. Basically, it is a merging of computers and statistics with biology, "To bring order to chaos," as biological data is immensely jumbled. Computing technology is used to make this process much quicker. By arranging the data with some order, then they could be compared, then future results could be predicted. For example, it could be used to find a pattern of symptoms a virus could cause, thus future infections could be identified from only the symptoms.
Now, we arrive at the part where we used computers to solve a murder.
This scenario was presented to us: a dead man was found at the airport, with signs of internal bleeding. Beside him, a carton of milk was found. Upon investigation, four unidentified proteins were found. Our task is to identify them, and to investigate which one was at fault for the man's murder.
We could simply input the protein string given to a database (through the website, BLAST, owned by the US), and the results came up just several minutes after. See what I meant by organization and computing? The database is presicely what you would call bringing order, and computerization sped that search among hundreds upon thousands of samples.
Now it'll be time for Sherlocking.
It turned out there were four proteins we found: human saliva, which was completely normal. Although, it was strange why the lab that extracted the samples didn't immediately recognize human saliva. The milk was drank through human lips, after all.
The two other proteins came from cattle. Again, strange why it was not recognized by the lab as it is naturally found in milk. Also not guilty, as according to the database, they could only cause an allergic reaction. Seeing that the man drank milk, which for certain wasn't his first time as that was most improbable, he never had an allergy with milk before.
Finally, we arrive at the interesting bit. The final protein was a rattlesnake venom, which could cause the rupture of blood vessels. Immediately fatal. There, we've found the killer.
Our teacher left it at that, but it was strange. We were detectives, we should find out how the venom came to the milk. This what what I came in mind:
The milk was in a carton. thus it was improbable that the venom was there from the factory. Others would have died as well, who drank that batch, and it would be improbable as well to pass quality control. Now, the milk is in a carton, so the vendor should not be a direct suspect but should not be overlooked (vending machines seldom sell cartons). The most probable suspect is someone that sat close to the man, when he had opened the carton (unless proven the vendor opened the carton first).
After that? I have no information. Call Sherlock to investigate. Well then, I digress. Let's return to my day at the university.
After that, we moved on to another part of bio-informatics: designing a protein, in this case, an antidote, for the venom, with a 3d design software for molecules, Yasara. Actually, it was more of a demonstration and game. We were given several prototypes, and predict which one will be most effective. My group got it right: a prototype with an oxygen ion could bond the best with the active site of the enzyme, which contains a zinc ion.
After a quick tour of the campus, we had lunch, and went back to school. Such was the day.
Actually, that digression was more of a topic change, was it not? Ah well.
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