Disease Detectives
[Music]
since the beginning of medicine
scientists and doctors have been playing
detective with new diseases
they have to find the who who’s getting
sick the what
what’s making them sick the how how is
it spreading
and the where where did it originate
if you think about it this is dangerous
work along comes a new disease that no
one knows anything about
no one knows what it does how it spreads
or where it came from
fortunately over the years scientists
have developed methods and tactics
to get to the bottom of any new disease
outbreak
this won’t mean an immediate cure for
the disease but it will help identify it
and track it
even though there are several more i’ll
just be focusing on two
genetic analysis and disease modeling
let’s start with genetic analysis
viruses contain deoxyribonucleic acid
also known as dna and ribonucleic acid
also known as rna giving them the power
to evolve
as the viruses and bacteria grow the
molecular material
which is the basic material inside cells
changes
though they don’t live for very long
viruses and bacterias are able to
recreate themselves
in huge quantities this evolutionary
change
which can be very fast is called the
molecular clock
when a virus travels to a new victim it
starts a new branch of that virus’s
genetic tree
then the clock will tick until the
victim is killed by the infection
or until the victim’s body manages to
defeat it
as a part of genetic analysis scientists
observe the genetic sequence
of of the virus in the victim’s body and
compare it
to the sequence of the same virus in
other people who might also be
experiencing
sickness researchers can also assume
that viruses with similar sequences come
from the same place
around the same time giving clues as to
how
a disease traveled from person to person
an example of a disease that genetic
analysis has been
used on is aids or hiv
there’s still no cure but with this
method a medicate
a medication was created to help control
the symptoms
more recently during the cove 19
pandemic
scientists using genetic analysis have
shared their sequencing
of thousands of coronavirus genomes this
is worldwide data
that helps scientists trace the origin
of new outbreaks
identify where and when the disease was
transmitted
and identify mutations for example
there’s growing evidence that of over 13
000 mutations
one of them in particular 614g
has made the virus more infectious
genetic sequencing has also enabled
rapid vaccine development
by helping researchers figure out which
part of the virus is best to target
so now you know about genetic analysis
and its relation to cova 19.
the second method is disease modeling
a disease model is something that helps
track and figure out how a disease will
spread
they’re made up of all the facts and
data that scientists have accumulated
about the disease
even if there’s very little information
to start with scientists can look at
similar diseases and think
what if this one will spread similarly
to that one
however if the data put into the model
isn’t of good quality
then the quality of the information
obtained from the same model won’t be
good either
so a disease model can help analyze a
disease outbreak
and help figure out the pattern of a
spread in a population
modeling can also be used to clarify
complex biological systems
for example scientists have used disease
models
to help develop new and more precise
treatments for many types of cancer
of course this method is also being used
now during the coronavirus pandemic
disease modeling is being used by local
and federal governments
to help organize their resources
the data informs decisions about social
distancing measures
and other needs such as a number of
hospital beds
so it’s greatly helping the situation
now you know a little bit more about
tracking diseases
i hope this was helpful and that you
enjoyed the talk thank you so much for
listening