Please help me with this topic.....?

Question

Hi... in my biochemistry class i received 2 topic to be discussed and to be presented:

a) Infectious diseases challanges for health care systems.

b) Biochemical and genetic aspect of genetic engineering in prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Please clarify for me the topics and please suggest some subtopics that i can present for 2 hours for each topic and please email any related journals or articles to me at [e-mail]. your help is much appreciated... Thank You.

Answer 1

Off the top of my head:

a. Infectious disease agents are constantly evolving as we find vaccines and treatments for them (that is why the flu vaccine has to be updated each year, HIV is evolving in a similar fashion against treatment options). Discuss.

1. Antibiotic resistant bacteria (see MRSA, etc.)

2. Distributing vaccines and medication to underserved/low-income areas (see the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Southeast Asia, not to mention low-income communities in the U.S.)

3. People who refuse to have their children vaccinated due to religious/moral/pseudoscientific reasons, such as the belief that the MMR vaccine causes autism (Google "herd immunity")

b. Is pretty broad. Genetic engineering is currently being used to make insulin and other products (these are prokaryotic), and genetically engineered plants and animals are a hot topic (these are eukaryotic). Crops and farm animals can be engineered to be resistant to pesticides or droughts, to produce more milk, more meat, etc. People fear that genetically engineered organisms are dangerous for a variety of reasons.

I've heard that some genetic engineers are trying to create a red calf to speed up the coming of the Apocalypse as predicted in Revelation. I kid you not.

Good luck!