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TASK 7 – FORENSIC ANALYSIS HELPS REVEAL SOURCE OF HIV INFECTION
AUTHORS
Matthew Katatkovic
DESCRIPTION OF TASK
This task is designed to complement the teaching of Forensic science to students in years 9 and 10. They will go online to use Biology WorkBench to complete a phylogenetic analysis, comparing the DNA sequences for HIV from 5 infected women and an infected male. The alignment will be used to construct a phylogenetic tree to facilitate examination of their evidence. Students will then complete a report of their findings.
BACKGROUND
By comparing HIV sequences and taking into account how quickly mutations occur (around 1 million times faster than in humans), we can begin to determine how closely related different strains of virus are. Phylogenetic analysis indicated a Florida dentist had infected six of his patients leading to an out of court settlement. In Sweden, a rapist was convicted of deliberate transmission of HIV when it was shown that the victim carried an HIV strain very similar to the defendant's. And a man in the Netherlands was jailed for injecting his ex-girlfriend with blood from an HIV-infected drug user.
MATERIALS
Webpage – Students open this and follow prompts to work through the activity
Biology WorkBench http://workbench.sdsc.edu/ set up free account in explorer
Instructions for using Biology WorkBench – Click here or follow link in Webpage
HIV sequences - students save to their desktop so they can be imported into Biology Workbench. Follow link from Webpage or click here to save
Article from ‘Science magazine’ - http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5306/1559
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