We believe that behind every invention and discovery there is always a curious mind working. This section of BioNE, is dedicated to all those young curious minds who have been thinking and working on unexplored possibilities in the horizon of biological sciences. Today’s learning process is no longer confined in books, rather it is based on questioning beyond the existing knowledge and searching for relevant answers. Here, we are inviting all those curious minds to put up questions and bring up a joint platform to share their ideas.
Q1. What do you mean by nanobiotechnology?–Joyshree Dutta. XI A
Answer: Nanobiotechnology is relatively a new area in science which considers nanomaterials for biological application. Materials at their nanoscale show remarkable properties unlike its macro size. This property has been harnessed by scientists to build materials for biological system. Nanobiotechnology has already marked its presence in vaccines and biomaterials with better efficiency. You will be happy to know that very recently muga silk nanofibers experimentally were used to replace damaged nerve.
Q2. Is there any vaccine which can provide immunity to all viral diseases?–Pradunya Sarma XI B
Answer: Before answering, I must say it’s an interesting and thought provoking question. Unfortunately, there is no such vaccine as of now. It is challenging because of the fact that viruses are highly diverse with high rate of evolution. Viruses can change their genome with high rate of mutation and thereby making it almost impossible to build a common vaccine. However, there are combined vaccines targeting more than one disease.
Q3.Can DNA from chloroplast and ribosome be used for fertilization instead of nuclear DNA?— Sunanda Chakarborty XI B
Answer: Lets revisit the concept of fertilization. Every oocyte and sperm has haploid (n) number of chromosomes. It is only when diploid number (2n) is restored by fertilization, the embryos are formed. If we consider chloroplast, although it contained DNA, it does not contain all genes to help develop an embryo. It cannot replace the nuclear DNA. On the other hand, ribosomes are made up of proteins and rRNA but do not contain any gene.
Q4. In DNA pairing, why do bases combine with their complementary bases?–Subhajit Basak XIB
Answer: It’s a very insightful question. Hydrogen bonding holds the two DNA strands together. This determines which nucleotides will form complementary base-pairs between them. Adenine and thymine both are able to form two hydrogen bonds and so it makes a pair between them. Similarly, guanine is able to form three hydrogen bonds and so it lines up with cytosine, which is also able to form three hydrogen bonds.
Q5. Autoradiography and fluorescent labeling of probe, which out of these two is safer?–Debopriya Choudhury XII
Answer: Autoradiography and fluorescent labeling are techniques to learn about the localization of a biomolecule in-vivo or in-vitro. Autoradiography is a much older and classical technique where radioisotopes are used. Fluorescent labeling does the same job but uses chemicals which can emit fluorescence. Fluorescence is non-hazardous in comparison to radioisotopes, which also often require permission from authorities.
Questions of this issue were received from students of Kendriya Vidalaya, Khanapara, Guwahati, Assam. Please mail your questions to bione@vetbifguwahati.ernet.in
