Random one
Hello people who actually read this, sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things at school have been pretty hectic and so I've had to prioritise and sadly as this is one of my extra things it has to go towards the bottom of the list.
Anyway beside the point, so last week I had my final interview for university at the University of Edinburgh. The interview went OK, I have to say I do love the university the city is just beautiful and the facilities they have are wonderful. So the interview must have gone better than I thought as today I received an offer from Edinburgh, which has just made my week.
So last week I presented a thought experiment I did at a chemistry symposium with 6 other schools, it was a fantastic experience and was a great life skill, even though I dislike talking in front of a lot of people. so my thought experiment had the title of. Can we create a test for osteoarthritis using chemiluminscence. So what I would be proposing would be for us to determine the proteins found in the different layers of cartilage within the joint which are exposed during the different stages of OA.
So initially I looked into the different layers of cartilage and found that you get superficial cartilage which is just the very top layer then you get articular cartilage which makes up around 40-60% of the cartilage layer and is the first line of resistance to compressive forces, then you get the calcified cartilage which has the highest resistance to compressive forces, under that you have subchondral bone which is exposed in the latter stages of OA, it is in these stages that the subchondral bone actually becomes thicker, and the human or animal is in chronic pain which is what my test aims to prevent.
So what is chemiluminscence? well it is the production of like from a chemical reaction. So with what I'm proposing you would attach the chemiluminescent molecule to an enzyme which is complimentary to the proteins found in the different layers of cartilage I thought maybe a different colour for the different layers. they when the enzyme substrate complex forms between the protein and the enzyme the chemiluminscence will be reacted to form a high energy intermediate which emits photons.
when the high energy intermediate returns to its ground state that is when the light is emitted. So this test is a lot like the ELISA test however instead of dyes I'm proposing to use fluorescence.
Now for a tiny bit of chemistry, so the bonds between the protein and the enzyme would be hydrogen bonds or disulphide bridges, these would form between the polar parts of the amino acids which make up the proteins. For this to work we will have had to determine the exact structure of the proteins using NMR , IR spec, mass spec and a myriad of other tests. This would then allow an enzyme to be found or made which was complimentary to the proteins so that it could form an enzyme substrate complex by the induced fit model.
at this point I suggested that if we could create this test then maybe we would be able to create a synthetic substance that could replace the cartilage, upon thinking about this I decided it would only work for the very early stages before the bone starts to thicken and only in humans as it can be controlled.
Now I realise that this has many different problems for example how would you see the luminescence through the skin, well the answer is you wouldn't, you would have to remove a sample of the test fluid a few minutes later and maybe add an amplifier like iodo-phenol. Also you could argue that you can just use dye but I think that chemiluminscence is cooler. So the whole reason I thought of this test was because I know that horses go under quite a bit of stress to be X-rayed as they have to be sedated and also I've had personal experience with horses suffering from OA and even though there is no cure at least if you catch it early you can treat it. So this test would be able to be done quickly without the use of radiation so neither the vet or horse is exposed which is good as radiation doesn't have great affects on your health. Also in the world of medicine it would mean that places where an X-ray machine can't be accessed can still carry of this test and provide treatment to people diagnosed, not only this but also it would mean less pressure on hospitals and the test can be done in a doctors appointment so there would be less people waiting around at hospitals so less pressure on hospitals.
So there you go just a little random blog hope you found it interesting I know the whole idea is bonkers and any intelligent people reading this blog can probably find a million faults but I just thought it was cool. thanks for reading.
Anyway beside the point, so last week I had my final interview for university at the University of Edinburgh. The interview went OK, I have to say I do love the university the city is just beautiful and the facilities they have are wonderful. So the interview must have gone better than I thought as today I received an offer from Edinburgh, which has just made my week.
So last week I presented a thought experiment I did at a chemistry symposium with 6 other schools, it was a fantastic experience and was a great life skill, even though I dislike talking in front of a lot of people. so my thought experiment had the title of. Can we create a test for osteoarthritis using chemiluminscence. So what I would be proposing would be for us to determine the proteins found in the different layers of cartilage within the joint which are exposed during the different stages of OA.
So initially I looked into the different layers of cartilage and found that you get superficial cartilage which is just the very top layer then you get articular cartilage which makes up around 40-60% of the cartilage layer and is the first line of resistance to compressive forces, then you get the calcified cartilage which has the highest resistance to compressive forces, under that you have subchondral bone which is exposed in the latter stages of OA, it is in these stages that the subchondral bone actually becomes thicker, and the human or animal is in chronic pain which is what my test aims to prevent.
So what is chemiluminscence? well it is the production of like from a chemical reaction. So with what I'm proposing you would attach the chemiluminescent molecule to an enzyme which is complimentary to the proteins found in the different layers of cartilage I thought maybe a different colour for the different layers. they when the enzyme substrate complex forms between the protein and the enzyme the chemiluminscence will be reacted to form a high energy intermediate which emits photons.
Now for a tiny bit of chemistry, so the bonds between the protein and the enzyme would be hydrogen bonds or disulphide bridges, these would form between the polar parts of the amino acids which make up the proteins. For this to work we will have had to determine the exact structure of the proteins using NMR , IR spec, mass spec and a myriad of other tests. This would then allow an enzyme to be found or made which was complimentary to the proteins so that it could form an enzyme substrate complex by the induced fit model.
Now I realise that this has many different problems for example how would you see the luminescence through the skin, well the answer is you wouldn't, you would have to remove a sample of the test fluid a few minutes later and maybe add an amplifier like iodo-phenol. Also you could argue that you can just use dye but I think that chemiluminscence is cooler. So the whole reason I thought of this test was because I know that horses go under quite a bit of stress to be X-rayed as they have to be sedated and also I've had personal experience with horses suffering from OA and even though there is no cure at least if you catch it early you can treat it. So this test would be able to be done quickly without the use of radiation so neither the vet or horse is exposed which is good as radiation doesn't have great affects on your health. Also in the world of medicine it would mean that places where an X-ray machine can't be accessed can still carry of this test and provide treatment to people diagnosed, not only this but also it would mean less pressure on hospitals and the test can be done in a doctors appointment so there would be less people waiting around at hospitals so less pressure on hospitals.
So there you go just a little random blog hope you found it interesting I know the whole idea is bonkers and any intelligent people reading this blog can probably find a million faults but I just thought it was cool. thanks for reading.
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