Tag Archives: GTAC

Gene Technology Access Centre’s Online courses – Active immunity

At the Gene Technology Access Centre for the “Body at War – Day of Immunology” seminar and workshops, you learned about pathogens, the human body’s response to antigens and how vaccines have been developed to reduce the spread of disease.  You conducted ELISA tests to identify infected individuals and observed diseased tissues through microscopy. A valuable activity was the Immunology Game, which demonstrated the response to antigens at a cellular level and gave you the experience of controlling the movement of white blood cells (dendrites, plasma cells, macrophages and B and T cells) around the body.

GTAC also have several online courses that I would like you to complete this week.

Exploring Protein Structure with GTAC

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The Gene Technology Access Centre have some excellent resources for VCE Biology, including this slideshow and activity sheets “exploring protein structure“.  The image above is one view of a representation of the enzyme amylase, which breaks starch down into sugars. You can see the green alpha-helices, yellow beta-sheets and blue random coils in the secondary structure of this protein. You may also be able to see the ‘co-factors’ or molecules which assist at the active site of this enzyme. Amylase relies on the co-factors calcium and chloride to function efficiently. What are the dietary sources of calcium and chloride?

View the GTAC Bioinformatics Task 4 Presentation and then complete student worksheets #1 and #2. You will need to download the Cn3D software to view the interactive protein molecules.