Author: Andrea Wan

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Biological Sciences Final Project Interview Project Issues in Science New and innovative science

Unraveling the Web of Alzheimer’s Disease

In January 2010, Dr. Cheryl Wellington and her team of researchers at the University of British Columbia made great strides by determining a potential treatment to relieve the loss of brain function caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. It is an incurable disease that progressively deteriorates mental function and causes memory loss as well as an inability to effectively communicate, reason and use one’s problem solving skills. Currently, over 26.6 million people suffer from it worldwide.

From a scientific point of view, Alzheimer’s is caused by an accumulation of misfolded proteins in the brain. When these misfolded proteins group together, they produce plaques. As a result, these plaques can cause swelling and damage to the brain, which leads to the symptoms seen in Alzheimer’s patients. In the most severe cases, not only does AD inhibit mental function, but it also interferes with how the body regulates its basic functions (e.g. respiration and heart rate), and this can cause death.

 

AD-2 by Flickr user Zerd: The image above illustrates plaques (red) and tangles (green) in a brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

 

In the podcast below, Dr. Cheryl Wellington gives more insight into Alzheimer’s and how it progressively disables mental function in a patient. She also outlines the steps that people can take in their mid-life to help prevent the onset of the disease.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 

As mentioned in the podcast, there are currently no drugs on the market that can stop the disease in its entirety. However, this is where Dr. Wellington’s research fills a knowledge gap and sets the foundation to find a potential drug that can be marketed to all AD patients.

 Wide Brain by Flickr user Enrique T: An image illustrating the plaque deposits present in an AD mouse.

 

In this video, we introduce Cheryl’s research, explain the drug that she works on and illustrate how she uses mice models to determine the drug’s effect on Alzheimer’s disease.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= q2IZW1fvz2M&w=640&h=385]

 

One of the major difficulties that Alzheimer’s presents is its target population: a majority of people diagnosed with AD are over 65 years old. For this reason, the sufferers heavily rely on caregivers and close relatives for assistance. Consequently, the disease can create extreme stress and hardships within a family and financial burdens on our healthcare system. To this end, even though Cheryl’s research is promising, it is important to remember that Alzheimer’s isn’t part of normal aging: steps can be taken to prevent this disease altogether. By maintain a healthy lifestyle and exercising on a regular basis (especially in your 40’s and 50’s), you can diminish the likelihood of Alzheimer’s taking root in the brain and starting the plaque-building process. But don’t wait until your 40’s to start exercising!  Develop these habits at an early age – you’ll thank yourself later!

 

Further reading:

http://www.cfri.ca/our_research/researchers/search_researchers/researcher_detail.asp?ID=146

Dr. Wellington’s original research paper:

http://www.jbc.org/content/285/44/34144.short

 

Categories
Environment Fun! New and innovative science

One Plastic Bottle Can Light Up My Life

One of the goals of education is to teach students to apply the knowledge they’ve acquired in the classroom to solve problems that exist around the world. Inspired by the Appropriate Technologies Collaborative principles, students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took heed to this concept and developed the “solar bottle bulb.”

In Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, there is a remarkable contrast in the quality of life between the rich and the poor. Specifically, there are millions of homes in the poorer areas without a single light source because very few of these homes have connections to electrical grids, and even fewer families have the resources to pay for lighting and electricity. In addition, the metal roofs of these homes block out all the light.

 

Source: Eco Ideas Net

An illustration demonstrating the capabilities of the solar bottle bulb.

To combat this problem, students at MIT developed a solar bottle bulb to be inserted into the roofs of these homes. It is a one-liter, plastic bottle filled with water and three tablespoons of bleach. In contrast to developing a single hole in the roof that would supply light to a single spot – picture shining a flashlight onto a wall in complete darkness – the water diffracts light 360° and is capable of illuminating an entire room. The solar bottle bulb is able to emit as much light as a 55-Watt light bulb. Furthermore, the added bleach prevents algae, mold and bacteria growth within the bottle.

Because the materials to build a solar bottle bulb are readily available in these communities, installation is simple. It requires sealant, one sheet of metal with a hole (of the same diameter of the bottle) cut in the middle and an equivalent hole cut in the metal roof it is to be installed in.

To make this sustainable innovation accessible, Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Liter of Light), a Philippines-based organization, plans to supply indoor lighting to one million homes throughout the country by 2012. They have currently installed over 10 000 solar bottle bulbs. Moreover, the Manila city government has helped fund the expenses of lighting homes in their city respectively.

 

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ms-oX-kdb8&w=640&h=385]

A video by Isang Litrong Liwanag reposted by SaurabhMore introducing the solar bottle bulb.

 

Although one of the cons of this innovation is its inability to store energy and generate light at night, we need to recall that many of these homes do not have access to light during any time of the day. To this end, any illumination is helpful. Also, this design does not create any harmful pollutants and prevents electrical fires due to the faulty electrical connectors that exist in some homes.

Overall, we should remember not to take lighting and electricity for granted. If it is possible for countries overseas to find sustainable resources and limit their carbon footprint, we should follow in their footsteps and stay green as well! Next time you are the last person to leave a room, turn off the lights and save some energy!

 

Further Reading:

http://www.gizmag.com/pop-bottles-provide-light/19829/

Categories
Biological Sciences Issues in Science Science in the News

The Tasmanian Devil: Brought Down by a Single Bite?

 

The Tasmanian devil is a resilient and notoriously fiendish predator. Weighing up to 26 pounds, this carnivorous marsupial may not seem like a threat. However, pound for pound, its muscular jaws and sharp teeth add up to one of the most powerful bites of any mammal. To this end, it is hard to believe that the species is facing a rapidly declining population – over 60% in the last decade.

Provided that humans have an exceedingly influential role in the ecosystem, it is surprising to find that human-induced climate change, water pollution or land development isn’t the culprit behind this population decline. Rather, cancer (a disease that also targets humans) is the disease that has taken this species by the thousands.

Specifically, this rare and highly parasitic cancer has been named the Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD). Characterized by lesions on and around the mouth, these tumors have been known to spread from the face to the entire body within months. These tumors also interfere with feeding and lead to starvation – the primary cause of death.

 

Source: Australian Geographic, Getty Images

 An illustration of DFTD in a Tasmanian Devil. Based on the size and texture of the tumor, it is easy to imagine how detrimental DFTD is to the survival of the Tasmanian Devil. 

One of the reasons why DFTD is so transmissible is because of the devil’s behaviour: frequently biting each other’s faces while fighting for food or mates. Scientists studying the disease have also found that the cancer cells in these tumors shed, and take root in the wounds of bitten Tasmanian devils. Further analysis has shown that the tumors have a remarkably similar genetic makeup to Schwann cells (cells that cushion nerve fibers in the nervous system). For this reason, the Tasmanian devil’s immune system is unable to detect the cancer cell as a foreign cell, and will not take the necessary steps to mount an immune defense against the disease. As a result, DFTD is able to develop and proliferate throughout the entire body.

 

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57jFF-pk_GA&w=640&h=385]

A video by Al Jazeera English (News Network) demonstrating the preliminary experimental method used to study DFTD. It also illustrates the physical features of DFTD in the Tasmanian devil.  

 

Because the severity of DFTD has scientists predicting that the species could be lost within the next 25 years, it is commendable that humans are making great strides to prevent the extinction of the Tasmanian devil. Not only have scientists been able to receive grants to aid in DFTD research, but also, the Australian government has now listed Tasmanian devils as vulnerable and is drawing up captive breeding programs to save the species from extinction. To this end, we have simultaneously added to the existing knowledge of cancer as a multi-faceted tumor disease and are taking the steps to further study, isolate and find a vaccination. Ultimately, researching cancers in different mammals may help us find a cure in the future for cancers that plague the human race.

 

Further reading:

http://www.tassiedevil.com.au/tasdevil.nsf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20473867

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19956175

Categories
Issues in Science New and innovative science Science in the News

It’s Faster than a Speeding Bullet, but is it Faster than the Speed of Light?

He was the man that explained the world and the universe around us. He was the one who provided us with the fundamental laws of physics that helped us make immeasurable strides in science and technology. He was the scientist who proposed that nothing in the universe could travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But would it be possible that one century later, Albert Einstein’s fundamental laws would be disproved?

 

E = mc2 is the equation describing the conservation of mass and energy, where energy (E) is equal to the mass of an object (m) multiplied by the speed of light (c) in a vacuum. Einstein proposed that the speed of light was an unbreakable barrier: no object could travel faster than 299 792 km/s. But in September 2011 at the Gran Sasso research facility outside of Rome, scientists recorded neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light.

 

This discovery began as an experiment timing 16 000 neutrinos as they travelled from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland) to the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA): a 1300 metric tonne particle detector located 1400m underground at Gran Sasso, Italy. Scientists recorded the speed of light travelling from CERN to OPERA and compared it to the travelling time of neutrinos. Surprisingly, the neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds faster than their counterparts. That is more than a lifetime in particle physics! It seems Einstein’s unbreakable barrier is in fact breakable – with the help of a neutrino.

 

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFzM16w9UOM&w=560&h=315]

 

How has the scientific community reacted to this turn of events?

Although this is a monumental development, it is hard to believe that a majority of the scientific community will accept these results until they can be reproduced several times over with the same accuracy. After all, the fundamental laws of physics have withheld the test of time for a century! To this end, the experimental design and entire research project have been up for scrutiny by world experts and CERN scientists have specifically asked American and Japanese researchers to validate their results. This method of peer review is indispensible in the scientific process and it should be noted that each discovery (regardless of the magnitude or implications of the results) undergoes the same procedure in any scientific field.

 

Doesn’t it feel good knowing that the scientific method and publication processes we’ve learned during our undergraduate degrees correspond to the orderliness and structure of science used in the broader scientific community?

 

Further Reading:  Particles Break Light Speed Limit

 

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