Molecular monday #1 - Infectious diseases

Yayy !! It's molecular monday !!

MOLECULAR MONDAY is a new set of series I've started just from today, owing to my job and research experience till date. If you all are familiar with my background, I'm from the field of Biotechnology and Life sciences. I've worked on molecular biology techniques and also on Infectious diseases, including SARS-COV-2.

'Molecular Mondays' will be about molecular biology techniques I've performed, interesting facts about genetics and much more. Every Monday will be at the molecular level , just because writing is in my genes. Hehehe

Topic of the week is 'INFECTIOUS DISEASES.

I'm introducing a part of my work as the first topic of this series so everyone gets to know what kind of organisms, viruses and diseases I've been in business with :P

As the name itself says that these diseases are infectious, they're caused by infectious agents like bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES ARE COMMUNICABLE.

This means that they're contagious and can infect individuals who have been exposed to carriers of the disease.

Giving an example of COVID-19 to make you understand the concept of carriers; as you know that SARS-COV-2 can infect a person when he comes in contact with an infected person or a carrier of the virus, imagine being annoyed by someone at the point when you start getting headaches. That's how you get infected by something infectious in your surroundings. Got it ? Hehehe. Sarcasm and fun aside, but yes, that's how you get infectious disease, being exposed to an infectious agent or a carrier of the disease.

On the other hand, non infectious diseases are caused by genetic mutations, due to external factors including environmental toxins or lifestyle changes. These cannot be transmitted through exposure by a carrier, but rather by carriers of the defective genes or any other circumstantial factors.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES CAN BE PASSED ON BY GENES AS WELL.

A part of my recent job was about performing molecular biology techniques to diagnose if the patient's genes carry a virus that's affecting their health.

Some of the infectious disease diagnosis I've worked on :

CERVICAL CANCER caused by HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS,

AIDS caused by HIV,

DENGUE caused by FLAVIVIRUS,

CHIKUNGUNYA caused by ALPHAVIRUS,

MENINGITIS caused by a number of viruses,

COVID-19 caused by CORONAVIRUS (SARS-COV-2),

CHICKENPOX caused by CYTOMEGALOVIRUS &

HEPATITIS caused by Hepatitis virus and its types.

All these viruses belong to different families, genus & species and have their own way of causing mutations in the patient's genes. Forthcoming articles of this series will be discussing these diseases in detail.

As I said earlier, every virus infects in its own way with its own unique mechanism, it is the same case with bacteria, fungi and parasites that cause infectious diseases. What doesn't change is preventing yourself from being infected by one. All you have to do is to maintain hygiene, stay healthy, be fit & of course, nowadays maintain social distance to stay safe from infectious diseases and COVID-19.

In the past 6 months, I've dealt with more than a handful of positive cases of all these viruses. Despite increased risk of being exposed to these viruses by handling so many patient samples, I have stayed fit because of maintaining WHO infection control

guidelines and precautions.

I hope I will see you all inquisitive readers on next Molecular Monday. Stay safe till then !

PS : Let me tell you how these 'MOLECULAR MONDAYS' will work. For this week, I've decided a topic on my own and this article was all about it. I've penned down plenty of topics for this series which I'm sure will be loved by all. But from next week onwards, I might write something that my SCICOMM friends want me to write about. I've received messages from individuals in STEM who want to know about my research, my hands-on module training, etc; which is why I've decided to consider everyone's request and write on the topics of your choice. So please feel free to approach me if you want to read about something and have curiosity running in your genes :P

- Rachna Jadhav

@theresilientresearcher