Sixth Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

After having a mid-sem break for the whole 5th week, we learned about totipotency and embryology. Totipotency is the ability of  a individual plant cell/tissue/organ to regenerate into a whole plant under right condition.




Then, we learned about pollination of flowering plants. It was very interesting because after pollination, we learned about zygotic embryogenesis that is very unique. Embryogenesis is the process that produces a plant embryo from a fertilised ovule by asymmetric cell division and the differentiation of undifferentiated cells into tissues and organs.

I am very interested in doing some tissue cultures by using those techniques of somatic and zygotic embryogenesis.

Fourth Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week, Dr. Parames Taught us about the theory that I really like, "The Endosymbiosis Theory". This Theory is actually very unique because of the engulfing of several cells such as aerobic heterotrophic prokaryotes and photosynthetic prokaryotes to produce an early eukaryotic cell. Dr. Parames also showed a video by Mc-Graw Hill about this theory.

The Endosymbiosis Theory Video


We did some activities such as a Venn's Diagram of the relationships between mitochondria and chloroplast. It was a group work. We also need to find the ancestor of mitochondria and chloroplast. It was really fun to do these activities in our group because my group members are really creative and cooperative.
This week, we also learn about the division cycle of plant cells. As usual, Dr. Parames taught us about mitosis and meiosis. She stress on something that is new to us, the Cyclin-dependant Kinase (CDKs). It is important that it activates Cyclin in promoting cell to proceed to another phase.

Seventh Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week, is our last week with Dr. Parames for this semester. We discussed about plant hormones on Tuesday (31st October). We actually have learned about it in our secondary school and foundation year, but in this course, we studied even deeper for the plant hormones topic.

Firstly, we are introduced with the "Signal Transduction Pathway in Plants" as it is the fundamental of plant hormones mechanism. It consists of three pathway, that are "Reception", "Signal transduction" and "Response". The hormones will bind to a receptor (e.g. phytochrome receptor protein, phototropin receptor protein) and becomes activated. Transduction pathway is a series of relay proteins/enzymes that pass a signal until it reaches the machinery of the cell. Response is the result of the transduction pathway. It is most often a change in gene expression or a cellular process affects plant growth and development.

There are 5 types of plants hormones:-

• Auxin
• Gibberellic acid
• Cytokinin
• Abscisic acid
• Ethylene

I was enlightened to study about all of this signals in plants. Auxin is not just inducing growth of the plants by promoting cell elongation, but it also help in delaying fruit ripening. It was something new for me because I had never know about it.

On Thursday (2nd November), Dr. Parames discussed about our Test 1 questions. She was a bit disappointed because there are some students that failed in their test even though the questions given to us are not that tough.

 Thank you Dr. Parames for teaching us for 7 weeks in this semester ! See you next year !

Third Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week, the lecture was very interesting. Dr. Parames taught us about the prokaryotic cells, virus, viroids and prions. Actually, we have studied about this chapter in our foundation year but this time, the exposure is differ because Dr. Parames taught us more than what we have learnt.

Dr. Parames asked us to sit in our group with our group mates. Dr. Parames gave us a task for us to make a mind map about "The Cell Theory" and then discussed among our group members. Arthur was one of the members that gave so many ideas on our task. We also need to do a mind map about similarities and differences of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

We also learned about prokaryotes like archaea and bacterias. Archaea like halophiles, methanogens and thermophiles. After that, she taught us about acellular organisms such as virus, viroids and prions. I was actually terrified by the fact that prions are abnormal proteins that cannot be sterilized by normal method. It is very extreme. 

After class, we went to the Computer Lab for a short quiz. It was really quick because the questions are easy and it was just a short quiz with some questions.

I really like the way of Dr. Parames approaches us with lots of group works.

Second Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

For the second week, by right I should have watched the video titled "Endless Form Most Beautiful". And I did. This video is actually a lecture video given by Dr. Sean B. Carroll,a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the university of Wisconsin, Madison. In this video, the speaker told us about the early Darwin's theory about evolution. How was Darwin developed the theory, how can he do so, what makes him justify his theory and tell people about it. By watching this video, I learned a lot about evolution. I enriched my knowledge about what had happened around us, how does the early species survive and a lot more. Although the  video is quite long, but then it benefits me because  I gained a lot of new and interesting information from the video.

We were also asked to watch another video titled "Selection in Action". This is also a lecture video conveyed by Dr Peter Bruns. This video basically telling us about natural selection and artificial selection. Natural selection is a natural occurrence among the species that favors on certain physical characteristics. No human intervention during natural selection. Whereas artificial selection is man-made processing. It means that human purposely select the species and change their genes in order to get a better species. I am quite impressed with these occurrence because nature is actually taking approximately 1 billion years to make natural selection and it still occurs until now. Scientist and breeders are actually contribute a lot on artificial selection. Many species that we saw today, their genes are not the original one, they have evolved from one generation to another and became what they are now. Surprisingly, I only knew that the great 'rafflesia', its ancestor has linked with rubber tree. As for me it is super weird and impossible because by looking at their physical appearances they don't seem like they have similarities on genes but then it is proven that they do. I laughed when Dr Parames told us about these new fact. All in all, it's a good thing to know about evolution. It has somehow changed my perception on evolution a little bit.

First Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week of lecture, we are actually having some introduction session since it is our first class with Dr. Parames. We introduced ourselves, one-by-one by telling our full name, origin and our Pre-U program that we came from.
Our first lecture was on Tuesday in Bilik Seminar 1.3. Dr. Parames introduced to us about the structure of the program for the whole semester. She also introduced to us briefly about Cellular and Developmental Biology course that will guide us to know more about the origin of life and supposed to master how to differentiate characteristics of various types of cells, organelles, basic physiological processes during plant and animal development.
Dr. Parames uses a very interactive way for us to study. She uses videos such as for this first lecture, she showed to us a video about Simpsons evolving from a pre-historic animal into the human. It was very funny but it shows to us briefly about what we are going to learn.
This week's lecture was mostly about evolution. We studied about Lamarck's Theory about giraffes with long necks and Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
It was very interesting to learn about these theories although as a Muslim, I am not supposed to believe in the theory, but Dr. Parames said that we need to put our believes aside and learn this theory in the view of a scientist.
Overall, it was a wonderful week. I like the way she taught us with some cheerful aura.