Creation of Resistance

The inspiration for my work is that of a 1512 Fresco of a Biblical story about the creation of Adam which is also the title in Italian “Creazione di Adamo” by the great sculptor Michelangelo. While Michelangelo’s version is a Fresco, my work reverts back to a sculptor and my media is Fred Meyers carrot cake and REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups. The next time you’re in Rome, Vatican City, stop by the Sistine Chapel, go inside   and look at   center of the ceiling. In the center of the Popes church, you will see Horizontal Gene Transfer,   not the mere Creation of Adam, but the Creation of Resistance from all of the ill-effects of human antibiotics and the Genesis of Bacteria’s dominance over life on Earth to come.

Of course your Hospitals instruments are clean

Tribble-like amyloid plaques of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease acquired from eating prion-infected beef. Credit: Sherif Zaki; MD; PhD and Wun-Ju Shieh; MD; PhD; MPH CD

 

Link:  

Summary:  This article is probably the scariest one you will ever read in your entire life and you may already be infected but wont know it for a decade or more. Although we spoke very little of prions this semester this sinister rogue protein is 100 % fatal in every case to date. Prions are proteins that are miss folded and have the ability cause other proteins to miss fold likewise. Most people recall the outbreaks of the so call MAD COW formally known as Creutzfeldt-jakob Disease and as soon as we forgot we ate hamburgers again but ingestion is not the only way to get a rogue prion. Prions once attached to surgical instruments are not killed by autoclave or harsh chemicals and can be passed on to the next patient. The article talks about several cases of such transmissions and the fact that the new CDC guidelines say to simple destroy the instruments after surgery. You can see how problematic this is when a patient is asymptomatic and a disease that can take up to a decade to manifest.

Connections:  In class we talked a lot about how to kill microbes with heat, pressure, and chemicals. It’s terrifying to think bleach wont kill but that’s kind of the point of this article, but prions are not really alive anyway just a rogue proteins waiting to strike.

Critical analysis:   I love this article and wish it would make the cable news networks but thats unlikely unless the D man tweets about it. Although the article is not in a   journal but more of a fun to read type magazine, they do have a citation from the ” Acta Neuropathologica Communications” in which the journal article was   published.  

Question:  How comfortable are you to have your next surgical procedure ?

 

Bacteria That Target Tumors

Article:  

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2019.01.037

Summary:  

A genetically modified strain of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S.Typhimurium) is being studied as an anti-tumor agent.

Connections:

Over the last few weeks it seem like the over whelming topic in class is about how bacteria is going to get us, how to we kill it, there are a few good ones but only because the keep the bad ones from taking root, but in a classic cold war style operation these researchers have flipped a strain of bacteria to our side.

Critical Analysis:

When I first read this article I thought it was like something from a science fiction novel but this type of treatments are over 100 years old. William B. Coley was injecting streptococcal into patients over 100 years ago. While I’m not sure exactly why, this type of treatment gave way to expensive cancer fighting drug and radiation treatments. Now this particular case was more successful in lab animals than human trails this approach is making a come back.

Question:  

Do you think the answer to killing cancer is bacteria and is just not pursed because there no money in it?

 

 

Lab 6 WAR -Micro to Macro

Jimmy Maynard F03

 

War is my artistic intent with these two painting. The first one is of a bacteriophage which represents the on going war between bacteria and viruses that is going on all around us but cant be seen by our naked eyes. The second is the type of war we hope to never see such as Pakistan and India who both have nuclear weapons and seen to always engaging in conflicts like the downing of two of Indias Air Force fighters just a few days ago.

As far as the materials used, most of the materials did not work. The inside capsid head of the bacteriophage I used my own bacterial isolate that despite being gram negative will not grow EMB plate or the MAC plate. I used E. coli because it has that nice black outline effect.

The Poison Apple

 

 Article:    “Fruit Processing Plant Linked to Deadly Listeria Outbreak” reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Richard Chang

 Source:  Scientific American/ Reuters

http:/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fruit-processing-plant-linked-to-deadly-listeria-outbreak/

Date Published: Jan 12 ,2015

Summery:   The FDA says it have discovered two strains of Listeria monocytogenes in a California apple processing plant related to 7 deaths and injured dozens who ate caramel coated apples. According to the CDC people were infected across 11 states and sickened 32 people total.

Critical Analysis:  The part of this story I find so profound is that from our early lectures in this class that Sir Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery made his observation over a 100 years ago and we cant made a candy apple without the risk of killing someone. This story is not an isolated case it seems like every week someone is getting sick even killed from salads. This story is just reason 32780 why I’m a meatatarian with no intensions of seeking out PETA any time soon.

Question:    Why would anyone take the risk of eating fruit or salad when candy bars are virtually 100% safe to eat in America?