BME100 f2013:W900 Group10

BME 100 Fall 2013	Home People Lab Write-Up 1 | Lab Write-Up 2 | Lab Write-Up 3 Lab Write-Up 4 | Lab Write-Up 5 | Lab Write-Up 6 Course Logistics For Instructors Photos Wiki Editing Help
OUR TEAM Name: Joslin Jose experimental design and source of biases and errors Role(s) Name: Barrett Anderies student Role(s): Experimental design and subject selection Name: student Role(s) Name: student Role(s) Name: student Role(s) Name: student Role(s) LAB 1 WRITE-UP Independent and Dependent Variables The independent variable is the dose of an inflammation inducing agent lipopolysaccharide. And the dependent varible is the inflammatory protein (Inflammotin). Experimental Design Number of groups: 6 Number of subjects per group: 20 (10 men and 10 women, randomly assigned from the group of 120 (See "Subject Selection")) We will label the groups as follows, and each group will be receiving the listed dose of lipopolysaccharide on the time schedule outlined below: Group 1: 0mg LPS (control group) Group 2: 2mg LPS Group 3: 4mg LPS Group 4: 6mg LPS Group 5: 8mg LPS Group 6: 10mg LPS (prior work has shown that this amount of LPS elicits an Inflammotin change) Experiment schedule and procedure: The experiment will be conducted over a five week period. The experiments are spaced this way in an attempt to avoid subjects developing tolerance to lipopolysaccharide, and thus skewing our results. Also, the long intervals between doses allows patients to recover from the fasting period. Subjects in each group will undergo the experiment at the beginning of each week (Monday). They will go through a 12 hour fasting period prior to the experiment to ensure that their blood does not contain any contaminants from food consumption that could affect with the efficacy of lipopolysaccharide or otherwise interfere with the Inflammotin levels. Prior to each experiment, every subject of each group will have their blood drawn and their baseline Inflammotin levels recorded using an ELISA assay. This way we can determine the average baseline levels of Inflammotin in our subjects as well as record the unique baseline Inflammotin levels of each subject in order to calculate the relative change in Inflommotin levels (if any) in each subject during the experiment. Next, the patients will receive their dose of lipopolysaccharide. After waiting the required time for the lipopolysaccharide to take effect, subjects will have their blood drawn and Inflammotin levels recorded. After all the data have been collected they will be analyzed to determine what is the average minimum dosage required to generate a significant increase in Inflammoin levels in the elderly (50+). Subject Selection Subject selection will consist of the recruitment of 60 male and 60 female subjects who meet the following criteria: • Subjects must be over the age of 50 (the given data given in the lab 1 prompt regarding lipopolysaccharide was for the "elderly," thus we chose to use elderly subjects for consistency). • Subjects cannot have arthritis, or some other condition that requires them to take anti-inflammatory medications. These medications can interfere with the effect of lipopolysaccharide. • Subjects must have a height to weight ratio and body mass index close to the average. We don't know how height to weight ratios and BMI affect the efficacy of lipopolysaccharide, so we will use subjects who are in the average range. Another study needs to be conducted to determine how these factors affect the efficacy of lipopolysaccharide. • Subjects must not have a medical history or condition that could jeopardize their health or our experimental results (allergies, injuries that could worsen under inflamed conditions, etc.) • Subjects cannot have a medical condition that would require them to take medications that could interfere with the lipopolysaccharide or Inflammotin. Furthermore, all participants must inform consent and have a knowledgeable understanding of the experimental design (NOTE: If participants fall under vulnerable population inform consent must be obtained from subjects' legally authorized representative). Recruitment will be random beyond these specifications. Sources of Error and Bias • If the subjects take any other medications such as pain killers, or other daily necessary prescription could possibly skew the test reading. The chemical properties within the mediation could affect inflammation levels. • Genetics can definitely affect inflammation levels. Everyone is different genetically therefore their response to the doses can be different as well. ~ Instrumental and Observational Error may occur due to poorly calibrated devices or human error in reading the data. This could potentially cause our data to be off. Testing multiple test samples would help minimize error in the data. (What are some of the potential sources of error or biases that could affect your results and how would you control for them?)