BigData and Medical Science Project

[bumblebee27]

I am interested in doing a project on BigData and looked at resources in sciencebuddies. I am still not sure which is the best project I should select. I have more than a month to do this project. Any suggestions?

[MadelineB]

Hello bumblebee27,
Working with big data is a fascinating challenge. It seems that you might approach selecting your project by first identifying areas of medical science which are most interesting to you, and then looking for solutions within a specific topic which can be addressed by using big data.

I think you will find ideas for the medical science projects within Science Buddies and then use the information in the background for the project to find references to search the internet for expanding the project to use big data.

Another approach could be to search the internet using terms like high school medical science projects using big data solutions. One area which you might find interesting is:
http://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/pu ... ce-project

Be sure to let us know what you find and if you have more questions!

[bumblebee27]

Thank you very much for replying. It helped us to get started on our project, and now we have a head start!

We have decided on finding which genes are more prone to causing Alzheimer's, and which drugs seem to lessen the effect of Alzheimer's. Can you please teach us how to find data about people with Alzheimer's and what they have done throughout history to try to prevent or lessen its effects?

Thanks again!

[MadelineB]

Hello bumblebee27,

I'm glad that we could help to get you started! For your next steps, I would suggest that you will find a wealth of information on the web. I did a quick search, just using the words in your questions and found many links that look quite promising. For example,
searching "which genes are associated with Alzheimer's" turns up many links, including the following.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond ... T-20046552

http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publi ... fact-sheet

http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/nove ... heimer.htm

Searching "which drugs lessen the effect of Alzheimer's" also yields many links.

Reviewing the information on these links will help you see which researches and institutions appear to be most active in this area. This should also help you to narrow your focus for the project.

Be sure to let us know if you have additional questions.

[bumblebee27]

Hi Madeline,

Thanks for the links. I researched the following websites.

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/alzheimer-disease

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/5663

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/348

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/351

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/5664

http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publi ... fact-sheet
http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_t ... AkfK8P8HAQ

http://www.alz.org/research/science/alz ... AuzQ8P8HAQ

I also found this in science buddies.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

We would like to answer question to some more specific and not see what mutation of the gene caused the disease, but the concern we had was if we have database for us to use.

Some questions me and my partner came up was
1. How does a patient with diabetic or cardio vascular disease mutate to Alzheimer? Will we be able to see what changes in a diabetic patient leads to this disease since not all diabetics have Alzheimer. Is this a good one? Since we have family members who are diabetic and our previous project was on diabetes, we thought about it. Now we want to see how to proceed.

2.Which type of physical exercises have more mental stimulation and avoid Alzheimer?

During the research we found that physical activities help avoid Alzheimer, but no data on which physical activity. It will be nice if we can also do a project to find a particular activity that will help avoid Alzheimer.

Bumblebee27

[MadelineB]

Hello bumblebee27,

You are asking very important questions!

I searched the web using these two search questions:
(1) does diabetes increase the risk to develop alzheimer's?
(2) which types of physical exercises provide mental stimulation and help to prevent Alzheimer?

Here are a couple of websites which address some parts of these questions:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond ... T-20046987

http://www.alz.org/research/science/alz ... d_risk.asp

One comment that is common to all of these is that "There are no clear-cut answers yet — partially due to the need for more large-scale studies — but promising research is under way" and "Most experts believe that the majority of Alzheimer's disease occurs as a result of complex interactions among genes and other risk factors."

I think you said that you had a month to complete your project. It will help if you can ask even more specific questions.
As for how to get access to databases, perhaps you could find researchers who are working in these areas who are at universities or laboratories near you. Here's a link to the Science Buddies "How to find a mentor":

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml

Let us know how this works out and if you have more questions!