Notes

March 12, 2012 Notes

March 21, 2012

Ellis Island was used to bring millions of immigrants to the United States.The much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a magazine.

It is located in Jersey City, and New York City. It is located there because it would e easier to transport different immigrants there.

From 1892 to 1954 twelve million immigrants entered the United States. They entered from a portal of Ellis Island, a small island in the New York Harbor.

No, I do not think any of my ancestors traveled through Ellis Island.

April 2, 2012

For my spring break I stayed at home with my family. I stayed with a friend Saturday and Sunday. The first day I stayed with my friend we went to his baseball game. The next day we went to church and played basketball. Once I got home I just layed around and Wedesday and Thursday some friends came over. We played football and baseball. That is all I did really.

Micah Fields April 27, 2012 Biology

Genetic Diseases or Disorders I chose to research a disease called Canavan disease. It is an autosomal recessive degenerative disorder that can and will cause on going damage to the nerve cells in your brain. It is one of the most common degenerative cerebreal diseases of infancy. It is categorized in a group of genetic disorders called leukodystrophies. Death usually occurs around the age of 4 years old. Some kids may survive to their teens or twenties. There is not a cure for this disease. Symptoms of the disease appear in early infancy and it grows rapidly. It could include feeding difficulties, loss of previously acquired motor skills, mental retardation, and abnormal muscle tone, such as floppiness or stiffness. Some more symptoms are poor head control, and meaglocephaly (abnormally enlarged head). Seizures, blindness, and paralyses may occur also. It is caused by a defective ASPA gene which is responsible for the production of the enzyme aspartoacylase. There is no cure for this disease, or a standard course of treatment. There is an experimental treatment using lithium citrate. Once a person has Canavan disease his or her levels of N-acetyl aspartate chronically increase. When the treatment was tested on a human, the human reversed during a two week wash-out period after withdrawal from the lithium. This evidence form the test of the treatment suggests that a larger controlled trial of lithium may be warranted as supportive therapy for younger children. There are also experimental trials of gene therapy. A healthy gene is cloned to take place of the defected gene that is causing the Canavan disease. Research involving triacetin supplementation has shown a promise in a rat model. Triacetin can be enzymatically cleaved to form acetate. Once that is done it can enter the brain quicker and more readily than the negatively charged acetate. Mutations in the gene for aspartoacylase prevent the breakdown of N-acetylaspartate, and reduce brain acetate availability during brain development. Acetate supplementation using Triacetin is meant to provide the missing acetate so that brain development can continue normally. A team of researchers headed by Paola Leona are currently at theUniversity ofMedicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, inCamden,New Jersey. The brain gene therapy is conducted at Cooper University Hospital. The procedure involves the insertion of six catheters in to the brain that deliver a solution containing 600 billion to 900 billion engineered virus particles.