Nobel Prizes

The New York Times is running an article entitled, "3 Win Nobel in Medicine for Gene Technology." The article states, "The technology allows scientists to establish the roles of individual genes in health and disease. Mice have been likened to pocket-sized humans because they have the same organs and their genes are about 95 percent identical in sequence to humans. Scientists have developed more than 500 different mouse models of human ailments, including those affecting the heart and central nervous system, as well as diabetes, cancer and cystic fibrosis." The article reports, "Gene targeting technology can inactivate, or knock out, single genes to study development of the embryo, aging and normal physiology. So far, more than 10,000 mouse genes, or about half of those in the mammalian genome, have been knocked out, the committee said, and ongoing international efforts will make knockout mice for all genes available within the near future."

Read the Article!!

Discussion Starters for Younger Children

• Ask your students if they've ever won an award or a trophy. Do they know anyone who's ever won an award or a trophy? Whom? Why do they think that people like to win trophies?
  
• Consider asking students to draw a picture of a trophy that they can award to somebody else. Ask them to decide for what they want to give the trophy. Try and make sure that every student gets a trophy. This is a great opportunity to celebrate students' skills.
  
• Do your students think that it's important for doctors to know how to heal sick people? Why/why not? If doctors don't know how to heal a sickness is it important for them to learn how to do so? Why/why not? What might a doctor do to learn how to heal a sickness?
  
• Challenge your students to determine one new thing that they want to learn how to do. Students can help one another master these new skills.
  
• Ask students to consider how they are similar to their mothers. How are they similar to their fathers? How are they similar to their brothers and/or sisters? Do students think they are more similar to their own parents or adults who live down the street? Encourage them to explain their thoughts.
  
• Students might ask their parents how they are similar to their own parents, the students' grandparents, and report back to the class.
  
• Have your students ever been told that they could not do something well and then they surprised others by doing this thing well. What did they do well? Why do they think that they were able to do this well? If somebody tells your students that they won't be able to do something well, should they still try to do it? Why/why not?
• Ask students to develop skits in which they demonstrate that sometimes people can do things that they didn't even know that they could do.
  

Discussion Starters for Older Students

• Vocabulary terms to discuss: Ailments; Mutations; Physiology; and, Culmination.
  
• Animal rights activists might argue that it's not fair for humans to intentionally cause mice to develop illnesses. Do your students agree with this argument? Why/why not? What do your students think it is OK to do to prevent human illness? What is it not OK to do? How does one draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable practices?
  
• Ask students to develop graphic organizers in response to these questions. The graphic organizers can be presented to the class.
  
• Ask your students to imagine a conversation between Dr. Capecchi and his mother after he won the prize. What might they have said to one another. How might their common experience in NAZI Germany influence this conversation? (For the purpose of this discussion it does not matter if the doctor's mother is deceased.)
• Students could write these conversations.
  
• What lessons do your students think can be learned from the bestowing of these prizes? Why do students think that these lessons can be learned?
• These questions could prompt an interesting class discussion.