This web page was produced as an assignment for Genetics 677, an undergraduate course at UW-Madison.
Popular Press vs. Scientific Article
The purpose of a scientific popular press article is to make available the information of the last advances in various scientific fields; it must explain what the money from taxes is used in, what are the advantages of the research, and what are the last results. It is very important that it conveys the information in a way that is understandable by non-scientists. In the other hand, the scientific article should inform the scientific community of the new discoveries so that such knowledge can be used to shape future experiment designs. At the same time a detailed description of the methods used and the results should be given so that every reader can decide whether to agree with the article or not.
The popular press article I found was written by D. Cameron [1] and was titled: New Protein Provides Clue to diabetes. This article is the popular press release of the discovery by the Lodish team described in the Nature paper: Functional clonning of TUG as a regulator of GLUT4 glucose transporter trafficking. Cameron started the article by giving a short summary of what he was going to talk about. Then he goes on to give an introduction about diabetes and some statistics associated with it. GLUT4's role is explained and TUG's discovery is explained. Having already mapped and sequenced SLC2A4 in 1989, scientists were trying to find other molecules that would interact with its protein product, GLUT4. Lodish's team found TUG, a molecule that is thought to regulate GLUT4's activity in year 2003. The way they did it was by designing a GLUT4 protein with two fluorescent tags, so that they could know its intracellular location. Then they tested about 2.4 million proteins to see if they could change the normal intracellular distribution of GLUT4. Towards the end of the article, they propose a mechanism in which TUG acts as a tether for GLUT4 and releases it in response to insulin. Cameron finishes by stating the potential of TUG as a target for drugs and how its licensing to pharmaceutical companies was underway. I think the article can be followed easily by everybody and it gives out the important information. For curious minds this article does not provide enough detail on the discovery process and the techniques involved. This details could have been added without obscuring the meaning of the paper too much.
Obviously the popular press article did not provide enough detail to fully understand the experiments simply because it was not meant for that. I think it made a good job in giving out the important points that non scientist would care about. Something that I would have liked to see is a brief explanation of the protein screening which was oversimplified. The article is good also because it gives an introduction of diabetes, which provides readers a good reason to support the research. The scientific article in the other hand gives all the details about the experiment and describes the complexity and validity of the experimental design in a very complete and well organized way.
The purpose of a scientific popular press article is to make available the information of the last advances in various scientific fields; it must explain what the money from taxes is used in, what are the advantages of the research, and what are the last results. It is very important that it conveys the information in a way that is understandable by non-scientists. In the other hand, the scientific article should inform the scientific community of the new discoveries so that such knowledge can be used to shape future experiment designs. At the same time a detailed description of the methods used and the results should be given so that every reader can decide whether to agree with the article or not.
The popular press article I found was written by D. Cameron [1] and was titled: New Protein Provides Clue to diabetes. This article is the popular press release of the discovery by the Lodish team described in the Nature paper: Functional clonning of TUG as a regulator of GLUT4 glucose transporter trafficking. Cameron started the article by giving a short summary of what he was going to talk about. Then he goes on to give an introduction about diabetes and some statistics associated with it. GLUT4's role is explained and TUG's discovery is explained. Having already mapped and sequenced SLC2A4 in 1989, scientists were trying to find other molecules that would interact with its protein product, GLUT4. Lodish's team found TUG, a molecule that is thought to regulate GLUT4's activity in year 2003. The way they did it was by designing a GLUT4 protein with two fluorescent tags, so that they could know its intracellular location. Then they tested about 2.4 million proteins to see if they could change the normal intracellular distribution of GLUT4. Towards the end of the article, they propose a mechanism in which TUG acts as a tether for GLUT4 and releases it in response to insulin. Cameron finishes by stating the potential of TUG as a target for drugs and how its licensing to pharmaceutical companies was underway. I think the article can be followed easily by everybody and it gives out the important information. For curious minds this article does not provide enough detail on the discovery process and the techniques involved. This details could have been added without obscuring the meaning of the paper too much.
Obviously the popular press article did not provide enough detail to fully understand the experiments simply because it was not meant for that. I think it made a good job in giving out the important points that non scientist would care about. Something that I would have liked to see is a brief explanation of the protein screening which was oversimplified. The article is good also because it gives an introduction of diabetes, which provides readers a good reason to support the research. The scientific article in the other hand gives all the details about the experiment and describes the complexity and validity of the experimental design in a very complete and well organized way.
| lodish_et_al_2003.pdf |
References
1. Cameron, D. (2003, October 15). New protein provides clue to diabetes. Eurekalert! Retrieved from: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/wifb-npp101503.php
2. Bogan,J. S., Hendon, N., McKee1, A., Tsao, T. & Lodish, H.F. (2003). Functional cloning of TUG as a regulator of GLUT4 glucose transporter trafficking. Nature, 425: 727-733. Retrieved from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6959/full/nature01989.html
1. Cameron, D. (2003, October 15). New protein provides clue to diabetes. Eurekalert! Retrieved from: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/wifb-npp101503.php
2. Bogan,J. S., Hendon, N., McKee1, A., Tsao, T. & Lodish, H.F. (2003). Functional cloning of TUG as a regulator of GLUT4 glucose transporter trafficking. Nature, 425: 727-733. Retrieved from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6959/full/nature01989.html
Carlos Gil del Alcazar, [email protected], last updated on 2/23/10
