Blog 7: Evaluation of Scholarly Sources

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1878_Adams_Monumental_Illustrated_Panorama_of_History_-_Geographicus_-_WorldHistory-adams-1871.jpg

After looking through many articles on a regular google search, now I need more academic sources to provide an even deeper and hopefully or almost certainly more credible insight onto the topic of gene therapy which is more than just snipping genes.

The purpose of History of Gene Therapy is to give a historical record of this process over time and how it has developed. Unlike the general source articles, this one talks about the use of viruses as a means of injecting DNA into a human cell.

The article is published in Finland and submitted to sciencedirect.com which houses over 2,500 journals which have free access to the public. Apparently it goes through a revising process because underneath the footnotes about the authors are accepted and made available dates in addition to a small banner called crossmark saying that it has been reviewed.

Almost all of the sources the authors cited were previous research articles concerning genetic engineering and/or nucleases. Each one of the sources has a corresponding number which acts as an in text citation when placed in the research article.

The authors of this article are Thomas Wirth, Nigel Parker, and Seppo Yla-Herttuala who all seem to have experience in the field of molecular biology and therapies as indicated by the footnotes under their names.

Their intended audience are any people who have some knowledge of biology at the cellular and molecular level with some degree of chemistry so the range is greater. This could be understood by a person with an above average intellect, but the article does use some esoteric terms as well as many abbreviates which they briefly described in the beginning.

One could find this by accessing Web of Science through the University of Arizona library and typing "gene therapy" into the search bar. Then, refine the search to 2013 and 2014 publications and the article should be 9 on the list.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajc1/10085714333

This next article applies gene therapy to a specific situation in which it could possibility prove to be useful.

The purpose of this article is to show that gene therapy can be applied to lengthen the ends of telomeres so that they wear out less easily. This is done by injecting viruses that inject TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase) into body cells so that TERT could lengthen the telomeres possibly extending life expectancies which makes one wonder if this article is promoting gene therapy.

This article is published in EMBO press which is peer-reviewed scientific journal. The research itself is conducted in Spain. This article probably went through a reviewing process before it could be published.

As for its sources, the article does not use many quotes, but does include many in text citations utilizing the last names of the author's of their sources which all seem to be other research articles.

Then there are the authors who are Bruno Bernardes de Jesus, Elsa Vera, Kerstin Schneeberger, Agueda M. Tejera, Eduard Ayuso, Fatima Bosch, and Maria A. Blasco (hyperlink en espanol) all of whom are involved in molecular biology and medicine.

Their intended audience seems to be more people who are well versed in viruses, telomeres, and gene therapy which includes mostly biologists and some research doctors. The authors define the main terms, but not others which may hinder a non-science knowledgeable person's ability to comprehend the fine details.

This could be found on the EMBO website through the University of Arizona or through a simple Google Scholar search for "gene therapy" and limiting the scope to 2012 publications on the left hand side.