You conduct an Ames test on a chemical you suspect might be a carcinogen. Following incubation, you find some colonies on your control plate. Why do you see some colonies on your control plate?

The World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated in 1980. This represented a major victory in global health and accomplished a substantial reduction in human misery and suffering, becoming the first and so far only infectious human disease to be completed ended. Imagine you join a team tasked with eradicating the next human disease! Briefly consider each of the following diseases and how you might completely end them so they would never infect another human. Pick only one of these diseases and answer the questions below. A) Malaria, caused by species of Plasmodium, a protist transmitted by mosquito vectors in the genus Anopheles. B) Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by the triatomine bug,  C) Dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease), caused by Dracunculus medinensis, a nematode (worm) that spends part of its life cycle in copepods (small curstaceans) and infects humans when they drink water containing the copepods.  D) Anthrax, caused by Bacillus anthracis, an endospore-forming Gram positive rod-shaped bacteria found globally in soils. E) Rabies, caused by Rabies lyssavirus, an enveloped single-stranded negative-sense RNA virus found in wild and domesticated animals (e.g., bats, raccoons, skunks, foxes, dogs, and many more).   Please answer the following FOUR questions. Number your answers 1 through 4. 1. Pick a single disease from the above list and describe approaches you might use to eradicate it. 2. For that same disease you chose in the previous question, what aspects of the pathogen or its life cycle might make its eradication especially difficult? 3. Of the five diseases listed, which do you think would be the easiest to eradicate, and why? 4. Of the five diseases listed, which do you think would be the most difficult to eradicate, and why? Note there is not a single correct answer, but you should explain and defend your reasoning. Please be sure to number your answers 1 through 4, and answer all four parts of this clearly, in full complete sentences, in full complete paragraphs, one paragraph per question.

Which of the following statements is true regarding comparisons of bacteria and sexually reproducing organisms?

This question has two parts, please be sure to answer both, and number your answers 1 and 2! A patient is resisting the idea of getting the annual influenza vaccine, claiming to have already had the flu shot “sometime in the past decade”. 1. Define “antigenic drift” and “antigenic shift”. Compare and contrast these two terms. 2. Explain why it is important to receive an annual flu vaccine.

Consider a population of E. coli mutants that have a defect in their lacI gene, resulting in the production of a repressor protein that binds to the operator of the lac operon, but does not bind to lactose itself. If you placed these cells in a growth media containing lactose, what would happen?

Shown are phylogenetic trees representing primate cytomegaloviruses (a) and their primate hosts (b) from Leendertz et. al. (J. General Virology Oct. 2009). Why do these trees look the same – i.e., what do these phylogenetic trees tell us about the evolution of cytomegaloviruses and their primate hosts? (Hint: relax! Even though we didn’t explicitly cover this, you can still formulate a hypothesis based on your understanding of phylogenetic trees, evolution, and host/pathogen relationships).

The process by which a bacterium can share a plasmid with another bacterium is called ______.

RNA viruses possess polymerases that lack proofreading ability, whereas many DNA viruses rely on host polymerases for genome synthesis. Compared to these DNA viruses, RNA viruses would have ______.

The process by which a bacteriophage can move bacterial DNA from one host cell to another is called ______.

Please match each of the following terms used in biotechnology with its best definition.