Our 8th graders learned about vaping from a scientific approach this week. They conducted a lab from Washington University that looked at the effect of the substance in e-cigarette vapor on Tetrahymena. Tetrahymena is a model organism that is used to help scientists study diseases. It has been shown that substances that have a damaging effect on Tetrahymena cilia cells might also affect human cilia, like those that are used to move harmful inhaled material out of the lungs. The students saw that the when the smoked vape juice was added to the tetrahymena the cells began to slow down and eventually die, whereas the control sample with nothing added to it continually stay healthy and moved quickly.
