As noted repeatedly in this course, it is imperative to take SIZE SCALE into acc
ID: 196307 • Letter: A
Question
As noted repeatedly in this course, it is imperative to take SIZE SCALE into account when determining which characterization technique to use in the solution of a problem. It is also critical to evaluate data in terms of its statistical significance. You are currently living on a remote island far from other people but with good connection to the web. You suspect your pet elephant has kidney stones (crystalline uric acid particles stuck in the elephant’s urinary system). You also suspect the elephant has some sort of infection that is showing up as a skin rash over parts of its body and a fever. To identify the bacteria causing the infection you isolate proteins from the elephant’s urine but to be useful to the diagnosis you need to determine the protein structure (to establish the pathogen affecting your elephant). Your challenge is to help determine the cause of the disease symptoms affecting your pet elephant by sending enough data to your vet to allow a diagnosis – you have a complete, well-equipped laboratory so making measurements is not a problem.
What data would you send your vet – briefly describe the data and the techniques you used to obtain it.
How would you determine if the crystal structure of particles you isolated were isotropic or anisotropic?
What size scales would you choose to make measurements of the kidney stones, skin rash and proteins?
Briefly state how you would determine that your data was precise and reproducible.
Explanation / Answer
[1] data to be sent to vet which will help in the further diagnosis of the organism-
a) stone size, crystalline structure of stone, composition of stones- x ray diffraction will help in determination of crystalline structure of stones and their size can be determined using a scientific scale, composition can be tested using various biochemical analysis.
b) culture reports- urine and stone culture, blood culture for rash- suitable media can be used to isolate the organism. the isolated organism can be identified using techniques like MALDI-TOF/MS
c) protein analysis reports- protein analysis can be done using various techniques like mass spectrometry, IR spectroscopy etc.
[2] to determine the crystalline structure, x-ray diffraction can be utilized.
[3] kidney stones are measured in mm and usually measured using normal measuring scales. for skin rash, a normal scale can be used, for protein molecular test like determining the length of amino acids can be used.
[4] for reliability and reproducibility of data, three readings should be taken and stats tests must be applied to the readings to obtain significant results.
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