Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:List the basic components of the bloodCompare red and white blood cellsDescribe blood plasma and serum

By the end of this section, you will be able to:List the basic components of the bloodCompare red and white blood cellsDescribe blood plasma and serum

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally. Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKIs) are a common treatment for lung cancer, but TKI resistance is widespread. TKI treatment also has serious side effects like hair loss, anemia, and hypothyroidism, meaning it is important to identify which patients will benefit from the treatment. MicroRNAs may be a way to do that. MicroRNAs regulate gene expression by blocking transcription or promoting the breakdown of messenger RNA, and because microRNAs are stable in body fluids, they can be particularly useful as diagnostic or prognostic indicators in many applications. In the context of anti-cancer drugs, microRNAs are frequently directly involved in the cellular response. Profiling their expression could be used to predict the response to anti-cancer drugs like TKIs. The research to date has described numerous microRNAs and their roles in TKI response by lung cancer cells. However, most previous research did not measure microRNAs in serum samples..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn about the separation techniques of sedimentation and centrifugation and investigate whether blood is a homogeneous or a heterogeneous mixture. Working in groups as if they are biomedical researchers, they employ the scientific method and make observations about the known characteristics of urine, milk and blood. They probe further by analyzing research on the properties and fractionation modes of blood. As students learn about certain strange characteristics with the fractionation behavior of blood, they formulate hypotheses on the unique nature of blood. Using provided materials —olive oil, tomato juice and petroleum jelly—they design an experiment and construct a blood model. They test their hypotheses by conducting experiments on the blood model, and then propose theories for the nature of blood as a mixture—arriving at the theory of mixture dualism in blood—that blood is a complex mixture system. An activity-guiding handout and PowerPoint® presentation are provided for this student-directed, project-based activity.