Project Description

Fight against the peach tree gummosis

The implementation of precision medicine in cancer requires precision diagnosis and precision therapy. Given the severity of peach gummosis as a disease of peach trees, coupled with its association with age, and taking into account our school's proximity to the prestigious World's First Peach Garden, we have taken a pioneering approach by considering peach trees as our cancer patients and implementing precision medicine strategies. For this year's competition, we studied the literature and carried out field research to gather as much information as possible. We have completed the hardware part of a simple fluorometer that can be used to diagnose gummosis disease in peach trees. However, we still need to learn as much related knowledge and bioinformatics skills as possible to search for treatment targets, and we need to collect more data to complete the software part of our simple fluorometer.

Inspiration

In 1990, the Human Genome Project, known as the "moon landing project" in the life sciences, was launched and took more than 3000 scientists from 6 countries 13 years to complete. China took on the task of sequencing 1 per cent of the human genome, about 30 million base pairs on the short arm of human chromosome 3. The original intention of the Human Genome Project was to unravel the mysteries of human life, search for laws of inheritance, isolate disease-causing genes and ultimately defeat cancer by comprehensively analyzing the DNA sequence of the human genome. Decades have passed. But mankind's quest to conquer cancer remains elusive and unfulfilled.

Our textbook (P65, Biology Compulsory 2 Textbook) tells us:

The implementation of precision medicine requires precision diagnosis and precision therapy.

  • Precision diagnosis mainly refers to collecting biological samples from patients, measuring the molecular level information such as the patient's DNA through gene sequencing platforms, using bioinformatics analysis tools based on big data to integrate and analyze all the information, visualize and display, and find the gene mutations related to the disease to form precise clinical diagnosis reports.
  • Precision therapy mainly uses genomics and big data analytic technology to accurately search for treatment targets and accurately determine the best drugs and information on drug efficacy.

    • However, our project will primarily focus on peach tree gummosis and use it as a botanical teaching tool. This approach aims to stimulate innovative thinking in high school students about precision medicine.

    Background

      There are many reasons why we haven't chosen to use humans as research subjects:

    • All research involving human subjects must be conducted in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, as well as any institutional rules or guidelines.
    • Some clinical trials cost too much because we need to recruit enough patients.
    • We need to pay more attention when we use animal samples.

      • So why did we choose peach tree gummosis?

      Given the severity of peach tree gummosis as a disease of peach trees, coupled with its association with age (Britton and Hendrix, 1982), and taking into account our school's proximity to the prestigious World's First Peach Garden, we have taken a pioneering approach, considering peach trees as our patients and implementing precision medicine strategies.

      What have we been working on? What do we hope to achieve during the 2024 competition?

    • For precision diagnosis:

      • To study the literature and to carry out field research in order to gather as much information as possible.

      Make a device or devices that can be used to diagnose gummosis diseases of peach trees.

    • For precision therapy:

      • We need to learn as much related knowledge as possible to search for treatment targets.

    References

    • Britton, K.O., and Hendrix,F,F. 1982. Three species of Botryosphaeria cause peach tree gummosis in Georgia. Plant Disease 66:1120-1121

    How we are approaching precision medicine for peach?

  • Human practices for our field research report and science dramas on CRISPR
  • Engineering for our simple fluorometer