Rose Tran is a grad student at Stanford where she performs research in a lab focused on stem cell specialization and cancer.  Ms. Tran was one of the authors of a paper in 2010 published in the high-profile journal, Cell, regarding the relationships between muscular dystrophy (a muscle wasting disease) and telomeres/telomerase (which we’ve discussed in class!).

1) Please read a short excerpt from an interview with Ms. Tran.

2) Now review a couple paragraphs from Ms. Tran’s scientific article. Start with the first paragraph in the introduction and then look at the summary.

After reviewing these resources, reflect with your responses. You might wish to discuss any or all of the following topics:

1)  What was most interesting or most confusing about the these resources?

2)  What did you learn about muscular dystrophy?  How is it related to fibrosis, telomeres, and telomerase?

3)  What do these resources tell you about the types of people that do science?

4)  What new questions do you have after reviewing these resources?