Hypertension: A Growing Problem (20 Time Project)

20 Time is a concept that is relatively new and has become a very big part of a lot of professional companies, one of the most well-known is Google. This concept of 20 Time, is where employees of a company (in this case students), use 20% of their time to research and produce something, anything, that interests them and that is productive at the same time. In my biology class, we have been assigned to do a 20 Time project, where we have been assigned to research and address a scientific problem that we are interested in. For my project, I have decided to answer the question: What are the causes and effects of high blood pressure, or hypertension, on a normal person? The main reason I decided to take on this challenge is because my dad suffers the problems of high blood pressure, and I wanted to know why this was happening to him and how I could warn others of this ever-growing problem. In order to answer the essential question that I asked, I will be setting up an experiment where I will take different people's blood pressure. My "test subjects" will vary in age, exercise amount, stress level, amount of sleep, etc. and therefore I will be able to pinpoint the main factors that lead people to have the dangerous medical condition of high blood pressure. In addition, this will also tell me how people can avoid having high blood pressure and the problems that come with it. Furthermore, I will be doing some research in class about how blood pressure affects the average person, in order to spread more awareness about high blood pressure. Over the weeks, I will be collecting data, analyzing that data, researching more about the problem of high blood pressure, and overall spreading awareness of this problem.

Unit 6 Reflection

In Unit 6 we learned about biotech and how it affects our world today. We learned that biotech affected all aspects of our lives, including the industrial and environmental, medical, agricultural, and diagnostic. In addition, we learned that the different technologies of biotech such as PCR, gel electrophoresis, and sequencing allow us to isolate, study, and learn more about DNA and our genetics. One main idea and one of the most important in biotech is recombinant DNA, or rDNA, where plasmids, small pieces of DNA inside bacteria, can be altered to mass produce a certain protein of choice. Recombinant DNA, although simple, is used to make many vaccines and medicines that are used in our world today. One of the most important and controversial topics of biotech is bioethics. This is the study of decision making as it applies to moral decisions that have to be made due to advances in biology, medicine, and technology. Bioethics problems are very controversial in today's world, as a person must be able to weigh the pros and cons and consider values and morals, in order to make an important bioethical decision. For example, a bioethical question would be: should we alter embryos in order to make children more capable and potentially superhuman or should we let them suffer through the normal threats of life? Here we must consider the religious and cultural beliefs of others, weighing the pros and cons, in order to make the best bioethical decision.

During this short but intriguing unit, I learned a lot about the biotech world and grew as a student exponentially. Even though we only did two labs in the entire unit, they taught me a lot about the concepts and how simple yet brilliant they are. In both the candy electrophoresis lab and the pGLO lab I was able to experience biotech firsthand and really understand how simple but powerful the science of biotech was. As I began to understand how we could alter science in biotech to benefit ourselves, I also saw how we could have a negative impact on the world if biotech was used in a bad way. This is where bioethics comes into play because as the biotech world becomes more prevalent, things could grow worse and worse as people tamper with things they aren't supposed to, and in the end could spell disaster for the human race. Going back to my New Years Goal, I feel like I am a step closer to accomplishing it as biotech begins to broaden my understanding of biology and the modern scientific world.