Extended Essay Initial Brainstorming

Biology

World Studies

Biology, Economics

Chemistry, Economics

Interested in Cancer Biology

Could relate to cell cycle inhibition....(Chapter 1)

Plant Biology

Effects of heavy metal concentrations on plant growth?

Microbiology

Antibiotics?

Effects of Metals?

Effects of traditional medicine (e.g. ayurveda?)

Economics of gene therapy? How it has changed the market for chronic/inheritable diseases?

Environmental and Economic effects of GMOs on demand/supply for crops and agriculture? (Could look at USA, even malaysia specifically)

Sustainability of vertical farming? Hydroponics?

Could look at how land is being saved, how minerals are fed into plants through hydroponics and how effective it is....

Could look into Sickle Cell Anemia, Haemophilia (diseases that have already been treated this way in 2014)

Effects of hydroponics on plant growth? How minerals/metal ions can be controlled?

Could also look at cell cycle proliferation (in the case of diabetes/autoimmune diseases that cause cell deficiency)

however issue with ethics in mitogenic factors, can be very dangerous to handle (e.g. AG 1748 can cause severe damage to endocrine system)

Physics, Economics

Could possibly do a cost-benefit analysis of solar power in china, or hydroelectric schemes in India (although this has been overdone in the past, mot as original or intellectually stimulating as other topics)

Impact of 5G/6G networks on consumerism within societies (e.g. china, south korea)

Impacts of cell tower networks (e.g. 5G/6G) on immunity - does radiation from cell towers actually compromise one's immune system as is often disseminated by the media?

Could do an experiment showing the changes in mitotic index after being exposed to about 1 week's worth of microwave radiation (source could be from electronic devices or artificially induced through other means,

Sustainability of hydrogen fuel cell? A potentially interesting topic, often talked about but abandoned by big tech companies (e.g. Tesla) because the technology is "inefficient"

Experiment on shelf life of GMO tomatoes (activity of GM polygalactonurase activity), compare to normal tomatoes to show effects of GMOs on half-life, making suppliers more responsive to demand changes......although would be hard to get GMO/organic vegetables

E.g. Copper, Zinc, Magnesium

E,g, Tulsi Leaves, cardamom spices

E.g. Taxol, Vinblastine, ATIs can be used as inhibitors (need to think of how to access/order inhibitors)

Could compare results on hemocytometer (often used in hospitals to analyse cells/tissue/blood) and spectrophotometer (more analytical, would measure cell count indirectly by measuring amount of light transmitted

Need to check if hemocytometer is available, if school spectrophotometer can measure negative values (as would be expected from fewer cells, if blank solution is normal cell culture)

Could use fission yeast as the cell culture, very fast (only 2-4 hours for replication when eukaryotic cells, e.g. human ones, take about 24 hours to divide). Also a good standard that is easily grown in labs and used for genetics experiments

would need to check if science dept. has access to this

Heavy metals in fertilisers, their effects on consumer health, incidence of cancer as a result (e.g. in Punjab/Tamilnadu recently in 2017/2020).....lots of data available for India, Malaysia as well so secondary data collection easy to do.....however mechanisms of causing cancer can be complicated and may be difficult to address properly (as lead, tin, aluminium, chromium etc. all have different mechanisms)

Need to be careful to keep biology-focus and avoid drifting into genetics/biochemistry......(i.e. focus on cell cycle specifically)

Experiment could be very novel, many different ways to approach -- 1 inhibitor could be used for each stage of the cell cycle (e.g. tubulin stabilisation/destabilisation, CDK inhibitors, DNA synthesis inhibitors).

Economics of Lab grown meat? E.g. lab grown chicken nuggets in Singapore, could be interesting topic but too recent to have meaningful data + conclusions

Antibiotics overuse? Could be focused on USA, where overuse is prominent, how resistant strains have spread in past (through water supplies, food eaten)....but quite a common topic, not much to build on