Scientific MOOCs follower. Author of Airpocalypse, a techno-medical thriller (Out Summer 2017)


Welcome to the digital era of biology (and to this modest blog I started in early 2005).

To cure many diseases, like cancer or cystic fibrosis, we will need to target genes (mutations, for ex.), not organs! I am convinced that the future of replacement medicine (organ transplant) is genomics (the science of the human genome). In 10 years we will be replacing (modifying) genes; not organs!


Anticipating the $100 genome era and the P4™ medicine revolution. P4 Medicine (Predictive, Personalized, Preventive, & Participatory): Catalyzing a Revolution from Reactive to Proactive Medicine.


I am an early adopter of scientific MOOCs. I've earned myself four MIT digital diplomas: 7.00x, 7.28x1, 7.28.x2 and 7QBWx. Instructor of 7.00x: Eric Lander PhD.

Upcoming books: Airpocalypse, a medical thriller (action taking place in Beijing) 2017; Jesus CRISPR Superstar, a sci-fi -- French title: La Passion du CRISPR (2018).

I love Genomics. Would you rather donate your data, or... your vital organs? Imagine all the people sharing their data...

Audio files on this blog are Windows files ; if you have a Mac, you might want to use VLC (http://www.videolan.org) to read them.

Concernant les fichiers son ou audio (audio files) sur ce blog : ce sont des fichiers Windows ; pour les lire sur Mac, il faut les ouvrir avec VLC (http://www.videolan.org).


The ghoulfriends are having it their way!

Heath and Deuce didn't show up for physical deaducation today. Everybody kind of wondered what they were up to. Hadn't they told the ghouls that they would not attend physical deaducation courses as long as those remained normies-free? Heath and Deuce did want to have normies jump in. Skultimate roller maze as a monster-only event was a thing from the past. Everybody agreed on that. Why couldn't their physical deaducation teacher just see it? "Too dangerous bla bla..."

The drop dead gorgeous ghouls were dreaming of singing "Best song ever" with nobody less than Niall, Liam, Harry, Zayn and Louis!! Having offered their help on this, Heath, Cleo and Deuce had invited the One Direction boys band for lunch today at the creepeteria!! As soon as Clawdia heard about this, the stunning news, it scared the daylights out of her, and her full-moon-scenery mood was all over the place! She howled at the boys like she would howl at the moon and guess what? There it was! Drop dead gorgeous ghouls and their One Direction normie friends were all having it their way... There are stories you just can't explain... "The story of my life!", said Cleo. Fair enough: she's been around like, forever...

It was quite something, seeing the hottest Normies and ghouls and their boyfriends singing together:

"She told me in the morning she don't feel the same about us in her bones
It seems to me that when I die these words will be written on my stone"

"Now who's talking about physical deaducation?" Heath, Deuce and Cleo were so happy about their brilliant idea. Now were Louis and Lagoona already an item?? (so it seemed)... Whenever she was around Zayn, Rochelle forgot about her boring "Code of Ethics" and trust my word, this was good news to everybody! Draculaura, Clawdia, Frankie Stein, Venus and the other ghouls'n boys were singing and experiencing:

"Although I am broken, my heart is untamed still".

What a fangtastic slice of life!

Clawdia wanted to sing in tribute to their young Canadian beauty queen friend who had died recently of cystic fibrosis, a disease she referred to as "66 red roses". That dear dead friend, a normie drop-dead gorgeous girl, was called Eva. 

Clawdia singing "Let me be your star" in tribute to Eva:

http://ethictransplantation.blogspot.fr/2013/07/smash-and-bombshell-musical-in-memoriam.html

It was decided that One Direction and Monster High ghouls and boys would write a song together, now wasn't that huge?

Louis et Zayn were now guest students, attending a few Mad Science sessions at MonsterHigh Institute of Tech Salem. The ghouls were enjoying themselves immensely when their Prof told them he wanted some special class sessions about "science and society".

Oh boy, this was mad! Louis and Zayn felt like they had tons and tons of great stuff for new songs, and they pulled out their iCoffins. This was awesome news they wanted to share right away with Niall, Liam and Harry. The MIT Salem Mad Science Prof told them that the "science and society" sessions that were now taking place would be streamed online, for the whole world to see!

The ughsome student ghouls and boys and their prof covered lots of incredible stuff during these special Mad Science sessions. Niall, Liam and Harry of course got invited and joined in. The task is far from being easy and I may ruin my reputation as a decent writer...

well, since anyway, I've already ruined my reputation as a decent singer...

I will try to recount this event for the benefit of my readers.

In the future, high speed internet ghosts might be able to get their DNA back. How will we do that? By making double stranded RNA (like DNA, but with uracil. Encodes proteins). We will be able to build back the whole genome of a ghost, using just a fragment of energetic DNA floating around in space! Ghoulia said she could already spot favorable places for energetic DNA or e-DNA TM, floating around in space. Then Abbey said that she could engineer some specific double stranded RNA that would bind to the ghost's DNA fragment, read it, copy it, amplify it, and even find some crucial mutations in this DNA -- mutations that might cause a person to die. Then it was shown that Abbey, Clawdia and Lagoona, with the help of their Mad Science prof, were able to engineer or restore the whole DNA material of any random ghoul, even if that ghoul would come from a very distant and ancient past. Of course, doing the same thing with ghouls from the future would be kind of fun too, but much trickier. MIT Salem staff and students were still working on that, and it might take some time... They had already found out about a couple of cool tricks...

Unchain ghosts thanks to the DNA ribosome! Well, doesn't that sound like a fun thing to do? Phosphate and sugar backbones instead of bones and the clanking sound of chains...

"Now, student ghouls, if you want to save ghosts, you have to donate your DNA data!," said the prof.
"- How about we create the ughsome Ghoulish Genome Project?," asked Robecca Steam. Clawdeen said she wanted to create her own genomic fashion brand. What if fashion had something to do with our genes? In what ways? She wanted to look into this. "Hang on to this, Clawdeen," said the prof. "We'll come back to it later. You might be onto something." Liam and Harry were impressed that even Rochelle, whose strong suit definitely wasn't science, had been able to claw her way to some prestigious MIT Salem diploma: she had just earned herself a MIT Salem MOOC certificate! Of course Abbey had to help her a little bit: there had been some sophisticated math to use for the "population genomics" part of the exam. Lagoona had helped her with the bonding laws in and between atoms and cells and amino acids. Being a hydrogen bonds specialist anyway, Lagoona had a natural talent for all these things. Mad Science appeared to be teamwork, and the One Direction boys were enjoying this! Hadn't each of them failed in their X-Factor audition as individuals, but ultimately won as a group? Mad Science teamwork at MIT Salem sounds like fun, really!

Rochelle was The Expert in science and society. Her love for accuracy in language and ethics in science seemed to work wonders for class discussion sessions. She came up with this item for class discussion. Money and ethics. Let me give you one good piece of advice here: never ever get Rochelle started on that...


"DNA goes to RNA goes to protein. This is what we call the central dogma in Mad Science," said the prof. However, Operetta suspected that ghouls from the future might be able to sing in ughsome musicals, provided they could get their own DNA back. Following that train of thought, she suspected she would have to flip the central dogma round. "Fold a protein and unfold a ghost! Fold a protein and beat a disease! Ok, Operetta, hang on to that thought," said the prof. "We might want to try it. Class, how could we do that?" Ghoulia said we could find DNA fragments out of thin air, then put these fragments in a CRISP machine, a micro array machine, with a bit of chemical made by Lagoona. Then... on-off-cool-heat and repeat it four times... and you have it: the whole genome of some ghost! Harry was taking loads of notes. "- If you want to find out about some ghoul's disease, you get a fragment of his or her DNA, do PCR machine, amplify this fragment and analyse the disease, and monitor it. That makes perfect sense," said the prof. Jekyll and Abbey said they would be interested in finding about the ghoul's disease.

One month later...

Thanks to the No-Bel Prize their Mad Science Prof had just won as the leader of this ughsome Ghoulish Genome Project, they were able to buy PCR and CRISPs machines for everybody to use, provided their motivation was to serve the sequel of the Ghoulish Genome Project: the Ghoulish Cancer Genome Project! "Thanks to this project we have been working on throughout the year, 214 and a half ghouls got their genome back. I think the normies will be envious of that," said the prof as he gave a wink to Niall and Louis who were sitting in the front row during this lecture. They both shrugged. "That's fine with us. As long as it's good work, who couldn't agree with it?" Then Clawdeen and Draculaura talked about the progress they were making in their group project: "We have an ughsome Gene Tank thanks to our motto: DONATE YOUR DATA. We believe the normies have conducted a glorious Human Genome Project, however, they have a crummy 'donate your data' program. We want to learn from their mistake, that's why Clawdeen and I both remain very commited to the excellence of our DONATE YOUR DATA program -- and honestly, boys, we could use your help," said Draculaura. Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis exchanged a quick glance: Draculaura really has a cute voice. Now this was something they wanted to explore... The ultimate fashionistar Clawdeen was already showing her new "Donate-your-Data" T-shirt and accessories brand; in the class a lot of oohing and ahing could be heard.
Then Draculaura went on with her little speech: "Ghouls getting their whole genome back can get their atoms, proteins, cells and skin and hair back... still a bit weak in the bones, though... I am the specialist you need when it comes to restauring the beta-globin gene, the blood cells. Now, what you need to know is that microbes, bacteria and junk DNA are very important for evolution. Bacteria are so clever. They've been around like, forever, a bit like Cleo."
"- Am I the only one who's getting tired of this?," whispered Cleo to Deuce, sitting right next to her and taking notes for her, as usual. Cleo just hated paper (and computer) work. Except when it came to computer coding and programming. She was a techie, but still struggled to be acknowledged as such.

"- There's no such thing as junk DNA," said Abbey. 
"I wonder if junk DNA and junk food are correlated in some way?," thought Operetta. She could scare people out of their life when singing on stage, but was extremely shy when it came to talking in public. She usually just kept to herself, but Niall seemed like he could make her shyness vanish... Well, let's just say that a new kind of chemistry was getting discovered, but hey guys, this is what MIT Salem is about. 

" - Junk DNA is what helps to make our face, its appearance! A nice face is important, which makes the use of the word 'junk' inappropriate. This is the daughter of the 'Phantom of the Opera' telling you this! Plus, you can stuff your face with junk food," thought Operetta, but she kept that thought to herself.


Frankie Stein then talked about "life at the speed of light". Bolts! That was quite something, too! She did a hands-on demo with some digital devices that could capture electromagnetic waves, make digital molecular photography or cristallography. "We are moving toward a borderless world in which electromagnetic waves will carry digital information. Those waves of information will move at the speed of light and, guess what... they will carry the data of our body and even map our neurones, etc. Our whole body and brain will be digitized... at the speed of light!" Cleo was surprised to hear this, as she thought of Frankie as a specialist in organ transplant of some kind. "Cancer treatment and medicine in the future will be targeting gene mutations, not organs. Did you know that cancer is a genetic disorder, not an infectious disease, with susceptibility passed on from parents to children? Clearly, the genes will matter here... So will pedigrees... Oh by the way, would you rather donate your data, or your vital organs?" Frankie with her super duper technology and her knowledge about the revolution in medicine that was happening right under their feet thanks to genomics -- the science of the human genome -- struck the boys as such a clever and visionary personality. They were immensely impressed with her. No kidding, Frankie was one of the brightest students of all MIT Salem...

 


Later at the MIT Salem creepeteria, boys and student ghouls discussed about some really nutty idea: "We need an ughsome clawsome genomic musical hitting Growlway! Forget about Growlywood!" Everybody was getting terribly excited about the new, disrupting project... wait for it!!...

... the ughsome and clawsome creative destruction of medicine! 

THANKS FOR READING AND LISTENING!
https://www.facebook.com/catherine.coste

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