The halfway point

Week 1 may nearly be over, but we have the evictions to look forward to next week! The power is in the hands of the 5,000+ students.

Scientist Bimpe withdrew from the event yesterday, so the first Hormones eviction won’t be until next Wednesday.

Today’s highlights in the Hormones Zone:

• We learnt how artificial hormones are made:

samw : where are the hormones used in injections (such as insulin or some sex hormones) ‘harvested’ from?

heathereyre :  originally they used sheep, but I think a lot of them are now made by genetically modified bacteria that secrete the hormones.

• How hormones deteriorate:

samw : Why dose taking HGH from cadavers lead to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease? Do the hormones deteriorate after death and how long does that take?

keithsiew :  well onces the body dies… it begins to decompose… there are lots of enzymes that break down things like proteins… so if kept relatively warm most hormones could be broken down within 4-6hrs… maybe up to 24… it depends on how stable they are… this is why we often freeze samples to preserve the hormones

• And endocrine disruption explained…

What chemicals cause endocrine disruption?