Question

Please for the love of my sanity somebody help me! I have to write a biology essay and I am completely stumped. HELP?!?!?!

Answer 1

on which topic dear??

Answer 2

Okay it's something to do with mutations and the assignment is on breast cancer. But my problem is that they give u charts and questions and my mind is basically refusing to compute anything.

Answer 3

is it like a pop quiz and stuff??

Answer 4

No its an assignment for my online class. I have to read this information and write an essay about it. At least I'm fairly sure that's what I'm supposed to do. But I can't seem to understand it.

Answer 5

whats the exact question of the assignment ? may be then some one can help in a better way

Answer 6

Here let me try and post the link.

Answer 7

http://learn.flvs.net/webdav/educator_biology_v15/module03/03_06c_a.htm

Answer 8

I think this website has information you are looking for:
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/breast-cancer
See the third paragraph

Answer 9

I dont suppose you could explain what it is saying because I dont think I do. Could you maybe put it into tenth grader terms? Please?

Answer 10

Is anyone still there?

Answer 11

I'm still here, just give me a few minutes to type a response

Answer 12

okay thank you.

Answer 13

"I sort of just googled all of this information from wikipedia and that website I gave you. Not sure if the details will be useful for your paper, but I believe it should give you an idea on how to start."

Cancer occurs when genes that control cell growth and divide are damaged. This is why when you hear about cancer, you hear about tumor formation. Tumors (or neoplasms) are basically abnormal proliferation of cells that result from uncontrolled growth. Note that not all tumors lead to cancer, they can be benign, pre-malignant (carcinoma in situ) or malignant (cancer) (you can read more if you want here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplasm).

So, how do these genes become damaged? Well, it usually results from a build up of genetic mutations in those genes that control growth. Most of these mutations are acquired during a person's lifetime, and be present in only certain types of cells. These types of changes are called somatic mutations because they cannot be inherited by offspring. In some (albeit less common) cases, mutations can be inherited from the parent, which increases the likelihood for the offspring to develop cancer.

Genes that are associated with breast cancer are BRCA1, BRCA2, CDH1, STK11, TP53, AR, ATM, BARD1, BRIP1, CHEK2, DIRAS3, ERBB2, NBN, PALB2, RAD50, and RAD51. From the description above, we can assume that most of these genes are associated with cell growth and division (I'm making a big assumption here; not sure if they all are related to this).

Let me know if you need other details.

Answer 14

I also think it would be helpful if you could post the charts you were talking about.

Answer 15

The charts were on the link i posted.Thank you for writing that. It ws much more understandable than the other thing.

Answer 16

Could you upload a screenshot? for some reason it wont let me see the histogram

Answer 17

I don't know how to do that.

Answer 18

Thats ok, ill try my best to answer without it.

So for the first question for your essay, I think I've addressed it in my wall of text above. The next question above asks which mutation is more dangerous BRCA1 or BRCA2? If you look at the data, it seems that the BCRA1 gene looks more dangerous for a few reasons:

-the onset of cancer happens at an earlier average age
-a larger proportion of patients must undergo surgery
-a greater percentage have died

Answer 19

The third question kind of relates to my question above. Basically if you have the BCRA1 mutation, there is an increased correlation to die from breast cancer after being diagnosed.

Answer 20

The 4th question I can't answer bc I can't see the top graph

Answer 21

5th question, you would need data on the percentage of deaths with surgery and without surgery. We don't know if surgery has a negative or positive effect on the death percentage (though we would like for it to be negative)

Answer 22

6th question, the lower the average age the more earlier the mutation acts

Answer 23

7th question I'll leave for you to think about. I'll just mention that remember that some breast cancer are inheritable, and to also think about the age that most parents would want to have a child. Is it before or after the average age of of the onset of breast cancer?

Answer 24

Wow! You just made my life a whole lot easier!!!! Thank you sooooo much

Answer 25

no problem