The Importance Of Molecular Biology

“Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. It deals with the interactions between various systems of the cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis, as well as learning how these interactions are regulated by the cell,” (Exploring Careers). Molecular biology deals with almost every part of cellular functions, giving the field of research and work molecular biologists can complete is extensive. Molecular biology and the people who study it are often stereotyped to be very robotic, boring and some imagine them as people who are stuck in a laboratory their whole lives, but this is simply just not the case. Molecular biologists play an important role, not only in the scientific field but also

Diabetes is a disease in which the negative feedback loop that controls glucose level is broken. In a normal person’s feedback loop, “when blood glucose levels are too low, glucagon causes the breakdown of glycogen (a stored form of glucose) in tissues such as the liver and the muscles, which raises the level of glucose in the bloodstream. When blood levels are too high, insulin promotes the uptake of glucose by the body cells and the synthesis of glucose and this reduces the level of glucose in the blood” (Jacoby, et al). However, in people with diabetes, this negative feedback loop is broken. When blood levels are too high, insulin is either not produced enough or the insulin receptor on cells that bind with insulin to open up the cell to glucose does not bind correctly, resulting in high levels of glucose in the bloodstream. The are two types of diabetes, type I and type II. The difference between the two is the cause and treatment for them. Type I diabetes is caused by insulin deficiency, in which cells in the pancreas that produce insulin are destroyed by the body’s own immune system and are unable to create insulin effectively (Jacoby, et al). Type II diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, in which insulin receptors no longer being able to bind with insulin to open up with the cell. Insulin resistance is caused by

“Health disparities are often a result of the socio-economic, poor standard of care, environmental, lack of health education, and poor understanding of disease management within high risks groups,” (Burns) like African-Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaskan Natives. Molecular biologists not only research diseases and publish their findings, but they also advocate for specific diseases and health disparities within that disease to create awareness and support for the disease and the minority group. A health disparity that a molecular biologist might advocate for diabetes would be a disproportionate rate of diabetes in American Indians and Alaskan Natives. American Indians and Alaskan Natives have the highest percent of diagnosed diabetes within their population of any ethnic group in America at 15% or 1 in 7 American Indians/Alaskan Natives (“Statistics About Diabetes”), while white Americans have a rate of 7.1% (Burns). This means that American Indians and Alaskan Natives have more than double the chance of having diabetes than white Americans. The disparity for American Indians and Alaskan Natives diabetics exists because of their accessibility to quality healthcare and relatively high poverty rate.. According to the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, “Six in ten (63%) nonelderly American Indians and Alaskan natives are in working families, but