The Story Collider website states that Megan Hatlen \"earned her PhD from Cornel

Question

The Story Collider website states that Megan Hatlen "earned her PhD from Cornell University and performed research in oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Megan is a California native; she was raised in Bakersfield and earned her bachelors in Bioengineering at the University of California – San Diego. When not running experiments, Megan can be found with her wife, Jess, holding their chubby Pomeranian back as he strives to attack anything and everything on the Minuteman Bikeway."

1) Please click here ( http://www.3cmediasolutions.org/privid/92324?key=b6d91676a071476942ea6b78badd266269f2ee25 ) to listen to Dr. Hatlen's Story Collider podcast (a transcript of the podcast is available by clicking here).

2) Then, click here ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180103132700.htm ) to view a very recent news article discussing Dr. Hatlen's study topic, fusion proteins. While this specific research was not done by Dr. Hatlen, it provides insights into the importance of her area of work.

After reviewing these resources, write a reflection with your responses. You might wish to discuss any or all of the following topics:

1)   What was most interesting or most confusing about these resources?

2)   What can you learn about gene fusion, cell organelles, and their relationship with cancer and cancer treatment?

3)   What do these resources tell you about the types of people that do science?

4)   What new questions do you have after reviewing these resources?

Explanation / Answer

The journey of Dr. Megan Hatlen to her doctorate degree is amazing and inspiring; to say the least. However, it is stereotypical of the researchers in the field of science. Going into the field with high hopes of making a difference to the world as we know it, slugging through the years to reach that golden point, being unable to answer simple questions from the family, having an existential crisis when met with recurrent failure and still persevering for yet another attempt. As Dr. Hatlen has correctly pointed out “Science is 99% failure.” It is heartening to know, however, that she did meet with the alluring 1% success, which is what makes the whole journey valid.

The topic of Dr. Hatlen’s research was fusion proteins. These are chimeric proteins obtained by joining two or more genes (which code for different proteins individually). It has been identified that this fusion of genes codes for a fusion protein that sends mitochondrial activity into hyperdrive. The amped up mitochondrial metabolism results in increased energy production which is required by the rapidly dividing cancer cells. The best part of this discovery is development of a novel drug target for cancer. Until now, majority of cancer treatments involved chemotherapy. However, drug resistance was common and the cancer would recur. This new discovery can help create gene therapy as an alternative to common chemotherapy.

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