Writing Homework Help

Research in the biological sciences is often classified as either “basic” or “applied.” Applied research attempts to create solutions for a particular problem. For example, the research that was done to create vaccines for COVID-19 would be considered “applied research.” Basic research is that which attempts to expand knowledge within a particular field without being directed at solving a particular problem. Importantly, these two types of research are not mutually exclusive as basic research often lays the foundation for the “solutions” that are developed by applied research projects. For example, the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna employed mRNA technology to develop COVID-19 vaccines. This applied work would not have been possible without basic research attempting to understand mRNA biology (which has been conducted by hundreds of scientists over the past several decades). 

For this week’s discussion, I would like to to do some research and answer the following question:

How did “basic research” that helped us to better understand the process of mitosis lead to the development of chemotherapy drugs to treat cancer?

1st postFirst of all basic research is gathering information to come up with and improve scientific theories for better understanding of a topic. It advances fundamental knowledge of the world and is the source of many different scientific ideas. Mitosis is the replicating of cells in an organism. If that system starts replicating and something goes wrong it usually will destroy the cell but in cases that is does not the cell is damaged. This damaged cell will keep replicating out of control and form what we call cancer. Chemotherapy uses different drugs to destroy fast growing cells in the entire body. Cancer is fast growing but, skin, hair, intestines, and bone marrow are also fast growing cells are and often effected my chemotherapy. Chemotherapy stops the cancer from spreading but does not get rid of the existing cells. By using basic research of mitosis and chemotherapy I found all of this information about how they work and how cancer is the rapid production of damaged cells from mitosis. Research like this identifies a problem in the body and gives all of the starting information to propose a hypothesis. Researching mitosis the simple definition is that it is the replication of cells and cancer is when one of the cells id replicated wrong and the organism did not destroy it. Scientists used this information to come up with a solution to stop the rapid production of cancer cells by coming up with a drug to target the fast replicating cells and to stop them from replicating. It is not perfect because it effects many other healthy cells but it has prolonged so many lives. It has made it possible to stop the spread of cancer. Which is really cool and these discoveries like the effects of mitosis and chemotherapy are not the basic research that is now being used to make better treatments for cancer.

REPLY to this one with 100 words

2nd post

Chemotherapy treatment was first used back in the mid 1900s, around 1940. It was invented, or first though of, by a German chemist named Paul Ehrlich. Although it was originally used for treating infections diseases, today we know that it is used to help people who have cancer. Cancer is defined as a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells. When cells split uncontrollably, they cause masses, or tumors. So the main goal of chemotherapy today is to kill cells that are in the process of splitting. The basic science that was necessary to develop chemotherapy is all about mitosis. Mitosis is the process that cells go through when they are splitting and producing daughter cells. The way that chemotherapy works is by damaging the genes that are inside of the cells nucleus. Depending on the drug being used for treatment, it can do this when the cells are producing copies before they split or right when they split. The drug targets the cells that are reproducing, rather than the ones that are at rest. Cancer cells divide a lot more often than normal cells which makes the drugs more likely to kill them. While normal cells are still affected by the chemotherapy treatment, they will grow back and still be healthy. Based on all of this information it is important that the professionals and doctors know a lot about mitosis and how it works. They also need to know what types of drugs work in what part of the cell cycle, or if the drug can kill the cells DNA in any part of the cycle. Over years of research and experiments, scientists and doctors have found a ton of information relating to the cell cycle and cancer. This has allowed them to advance chemo treatment and what drugs to use at what point in the cycle.