point to note

in the last piece of work:
1) thanks to KT, it should be icosahedral head. it is ICO.

2)

3)know that virus can take its envelope from any fellow of the endomembrane system. It doesn't have to be plasma memb all the time!!
But when describing in general, for the syllabus, we will stick to plasma memb as the one best studied.

Eg. Herpes Virus - the nucleocapsid is assembled in the nucleus. The capsid buds off from the inner nuclear memb trasiently before fusing with the outer memb so that you get the nucleocapsid into the cytoplasm where it bud into golgi vesicles containing the viral proteins --> you get an enveloped virus (with membrane) enclosed by the membrane of the golgi vesicles. The virus is released by exocytosis/fusion with cell membrane.
It is pretty cool! If u are confused, you got to draw it out!

4) Hijack - what does it possibly entail? (this is not a comprehensive list)
a) destroy the host's genome --> no competition
b) modify host's RNA polymerase for its own use
c) produces its own viral polymerase and disable host polymerase
d) produce viral-related sigma factor and destroy host cell sigma factor (for phages) - linked to b) ; you are going to learn about sigma factor soon!


Ok!! That's all I have !!

Sorry folks but was away in Hongkong with my parents until Wed. Great trip but no need to do my travel blog since I fell sick on Day 1. But it was a great trip! :)

Cheers

Clearing Up

Was told that I should update this blog more often.
I did not realise that pple do drop in because this blog has gone relatively quiet for about 2 years before the unexpected surge in traffic this year due to the pressing need for more time to discuss several topics.
Also, even since I started my lecture series, there was barely enough time to sleep, eat and mark so blogging has to take a back seat.=)
yesterday felt like the end of a marathon when I collapsed on Thurs night after NDP celebration and dinner with my class. I finally see more of the camwhoring side of them with the 1-8 poses :).
Even the next day on Friday when I slept in a little later, I felt a little wasted in the afternoon and a short nap just to get back into the rhythm again. It was too much for me lah - staying up until 3-4am for the entire wk and not including those usual late nights that accompanied lectures last wk.

But I was glad that lectures went well and most of the students seemed to be able to get the big idea. And with it, I felt my own development and growth as a lecturer over the past few years. The ability to draw connections and try to convey materials in its beautiful simplicity without assaulting the senses with too much details. well...at least two students from another class told me that they were able to understand and did not sleep in my lectures. It was actually always exciting to lecture just that the preparation could be really exhausting. Haha, I think I am just slow in that because I like to imagine and rehearse my lectures in my head as I prepared the powerpoint slides. But like my bro said, this flow of ideas and thoughts can be very important - just the way I would expect my student to be thinking as they process the information or write it down. The logic and beauty of life.
I think I am going to miss lectures for a while.

This wk was spent on clearing my backlog of marking and reorganising the virus material(and preparing bacterial answers and mcqs). I would get home in the evening, slept for an hour or slightly more just so that I could be awake later in the night and wee hours of the morning to clear the marking and to work out some notes/amendments I promised to provide. So much to work on so that I can leave in peace, knowing that I have wrapped up this challenging topic nicely so that students will have an easier time studying it and therefore appreciating it. Virus can be quite cool! Sighz...so much more I want to and can teach them. But then I know they will be in good hands :)

Got to stop here. too tired. hahah will write on the farewells another time. I still have a list of stuff to clear :) Eeks!