Laura Sui

Bio 153 lab

1/30/15
Questions:
1) The Author used mice because their genetic, biological and behavioral
characteristics are similar to those of humans. Mice are also easy to maintain,
observe, inexpensive and can reproduce quickly.
2) The author pointed out that there have been no tests of Pseudomonas
bacteriophages on lung infection models. Another question that the author poses
is if the mice are infected with a noticeable lung infection, will the bacteriophage
affect them, and just how efficient is phage therapy.
3) Using a model, the author tried to determine if the bacteriophage therapy would
work and how efficient it is.
4) The hypothesis made was that if the bacteriophage is isolated from the
environment, then it would be suitable for therapeutic use in an animal lung
infection model.
5) The independent variables of the experiment were how large the bacteria-tobacteriophage ratio was that was given to the mice and the dependent variable is
how long would the mice survive.
6) The controls of this experiment were how old the mice were (8 weeks), the gender
of the mice (since they were all male), all of the bacteriophages were diluted into
a phosphate-buffered saline solution.
7) Figure1 shows that 100% of the mice that received the bacteriophage to infection
bacteria ratio greater than .1/1 survived, which supports their hypothesis that the
bacteriophage therapy was effective.
8) Figure 1 shows the ratio of bacteriophage-to-infection-bacteria that was given to
the mice and their survival rates based off that. Figure 3 shows the amount of time
that the mice survived after the infection was initiated. The author claims that the
PAK-P1 bacteriophage treatment, even in higher doses, was harmless to the mice
after 10 extended days of observation and that bacteriophages multiplied inside
the lungs of both infected and infected bacteriophage-treated animals. I believe
their claims are reliable because their evidence is mostly backed up with reliable
images and graphs.
9) The final claims made by the author are: the experiment demonstrates that
bioluminescent technology is effective in studying infections kinetics and
bacteriophage treatment, and bacteriophages can prevent infections from
occurring if administrated at least 24 hours in advance. These claims do seem
reasonable, considering the numbers and figures that support the claims.
10)
These results matter to humans because if bacteriophage treatment is
successful for mice, that means there is a chance that it will also work on humans
and we can take this kind of technology and advance it in order to prevent or cure
other similar bacterial infections in humans.