Each year, hundreds of millions of people get sick from diseases like Zika, Dengue Fever, and Yellow Fever that are spread by mosquitoes. Some scientists are investigating the possibility of curbing these mosquito-borne diseases by genetically modifying the mosquitoes, such that they become less able to either reproduce or to carry the disease-causing microbes. Should genetically modified mosquitoes be released into the environment to combat these viruses?

Each year, hundreds of millions of people get sick from diseases like Zika, Dengue Fever, and Yellow Fever that are spread by mosquitoes. Some scientists are investigating the possibility of curbing these mosquito-borne diseases by genetically modifying the mosquitoes, such that they become less able to either reproduce or to carry the disease-causing microbes. Should genetically modified mosquitoes be released into the environment to combat these viruses?

Biology Today and Tomorrow without Physiology (MindTap Course List)

5th Edition

ISBN:9781305117396

Author:Cecie Starr, Christine Evers, Lisa Starr

Publisher:Cecie Starr, Christine Evers, Lisa Starr

Chapter10: Biotechnology

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 2CT

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Why do scientists worry more about new strains of viruses like influenza and coronviruses as potential causes of deadly human pandemics, but they never talk about the next big Herpesvirus strain deadly pandemic? Which of the statements below helps partially answer that? We already have effective vaccines for Herpes. Influenza and CoV have more genes, more complex gene expression, and can undergo genetic recombination or reassortment, while Herpesviruses are more limited. Only humans get Herpesviruses, while animals can get Influenza viruses and Coronaviruses. dsDNA viruses aren't very transmissible and even when they are, they're not deadly. Influenza and CoV are RNA viruses which results in having higher mutation rates -- they can more easily jump between host species. Herpesviruses are dsDNA viruses and usually very host specific. O O O O
In 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of bacteriophage preparation that can be used on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products to kill Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that causes listeriosis. Some people may have concerns about the use of phages in foods. From what you have learned about bacteriophages and viruses, why do you think we do not have to be concerned about the presence of bacteriophages in food?
Which of the following highly contagious viruses is a single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus with a helical capsid and envelope and is transmitted by coming in contact with respiratory secretions? "This is a highly contagious respiratory illness transmitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes virus particles into the air," the health department said in a written statement. "It's so contagious that if one person is sick and spreading measles, nine out of 10 people around them who aren't immune will get it, too." Group of answer choices a. Measles b. Parvovirus c. Coxsackie virus A d. Rhinovirus
How common is ABV in the USA? In the United States, over half of adults have been infected with ABV by age 40. Once ABV is in a person's body, it stays there for life and can reactivate. Match terms with descriptions based on the text above. You can use an answer more than once or not at all. "Over half of adults have been infected with ABV by age 40." ABV could belong to this group of viruses: A. Human Papilloma Viruses B. Incidence of ABV C. Herpesviruses D. Prevalence of ABV by age 40
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) set up a study to determine whether large doses of vitamin C would shorten the length of time it takes to recover from a cold. Three thousand volunteers were split into two groups. For two weeks, members of Group A took 3,000 mg of vitamin C daily. Group B received 3,000 mg of a placebo. At the end of the two-week period, the researchers inserted live cold viruses directly into the noses of all the volunteers. The volunteers in both Group A and B continued to take their daily pills. All the volunteers got colds, and there was no significant difference in the length of time the colds lasted. What is the experimental group in this example? Select the best answer. Group B. Three thousand volunteers. Group A. The live cold virus. Length of time the colds lasted. The vitamin C. Size of pill (3000 mg).
Some older vaccines used a weakened strain of the pathogenic virus in the injection in the hope that the weakened virus would induce an immune response without causing disease. The virus vectors used in genetic engineering have all the harmful virus genes cut out and replaced with the foreign gene, such as one that makes a protein that is absent in the human patient. Which type of viral vaccine would you prefer to take as the safest option? Why? Some Covid 19 vaccines in development use the adenovirus, a common vector used in gene therapies, to inject the mRNa for the spike protein into human muscle cells. Why might vaccines using a virus vector be more likely to need only refrigeration and not deep-cold storage, given what you know about viruses?
Coronaviridae is a virus “family.” There are actually many different coronaviruses within this group, including less pathogenic virus strains that cause the common cold. Many people in this course have likely been infected with one of these other coronaviruses. A common feature of coronaviruses and other RNA viruses (think influenza virus, HIV, etc.) is that they mutate frequently. This is because the viral enzymes that copy the genome during replication can’t fix mistakes. Given this information, how might we be able to distinguish the SARS-CoV-2 strain from some of the other, less concerning, coronavirus strains?
Zika virus infection among pregnant women can cause birth defects such as microcephaly in the newborn child. Imagine you are the mayor of a small suburban town in Florida in which mosquitoes are known to carry Zika virus. What would you do to prevent Zika virus infection in your town? If you decide to use an insecticide to kill mosquitoes, what type or class of insecticide would you use? Why?
There have been recurring cases of mad-cow disease in the United Kingdom since the mid-1990s. Mad-cow disease is caused by a prion, an infectious particle that consists only of protein. In 1986, the media began reporting that cows all over England were dying from a mysterious disease. Initially, there was little interest in determining whether humans could be affected. For 10 years, the British government maintained that this unusual disease could not be transmitted to humans. However, in March 1996, the government did an about-face and announced that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad-cow disease, can be transmitted to humans, where it is known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). As in cows, this disease eats away at the nervous system, destroying the brain and essentially turning it into a spongelike structure filled with holes. Victims experience dementia; confusion; loss of speech, sight, and hearing; convulsions; coma; and finally death. Prion diseases are always fatal, and there is no treatment. Precautionary measures taken in Britain to prevent this disease in humans may have begun too late. Many of the victims contracted it over a decade earlier, when the BSE epidemic began, and the incubation period is long (vCJD has an incubation period of 10 to 40 years). A recent study concluded that 1 in 2,000 people in Great Britain carry the abnormally folded protein that causes vCJD. In spite of these numbers, the death rate from vCJD remains low. It is not clear whether this means that the incubation period for the disease is much longer than previously thought, or whether they may never develop the disease. If you were traveling in Europe, would you eat beef? Give sound reasons why or why not.
There have been recurring cases of mad-cow disease in the United Kingdom since the mid-1990s. Mad-cow disease is caused by a prion, an infectious particle that consists only of protein. In 1986, the media began reporting that cows all over England were dying from a mysterious disease. Initially, there was little interest in determining whether humans could be affected. For 10 years, the British government maintained that this unusual disease could not be transmitted to humans. However, in March 1996, the government did an about-face and announced that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad-cow disease, can be transmitted to humans, where it is known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). As in cows, this disease eats away at the nervous system, destroying the brain and essentially turning it into a spongelike structure filled with holes. Victims experience dementia; confusion; loss of speech, sight, and hearing; convulsions; coma; and finally death. Prion diseases are always fatal, and there is no treatment. Precautionary measures taken in Britain to prevent this disease in humans may have begun too late. Many of the victims contracted it over a decade earlier, when the BSE epidemic began, and the incubation period is long (vCJD has an incubation period of 10 to 40 years). A recent study concluded that 1 in 2,000 people in Great Britain carry the abnormally folded protein that causes vCJD. In spite of these numbers, the death rate from vCJD remains low. It is not clear whether this means that the incubation period for the disease is much longer than previously thought, or whether they may never develop the disease. What measures have been taken to stop BSE?
Although the virus that causes smallpox has been eradicated, there are still stocks of the virus, which are kept in labs in the US and Russia. Why may someone argue that these stocks be destroyed?
Which of the following models best depicts how the genetic information in a retrovirus is eventually translated into proteins? A) DNA in the retrovirus → RNA in the host cell → Proteins B) RNA in the retrovirus → DNA in the host cell → RNA in the host cell → Proteins C) RNA in the retrovirus → mRNA in the host cell → Proteins D) DNA in the retrovirus → mRNA in the host cell → Proteins