A War Against Antibiotic Resistance

Posted on February 2, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Ever since the discovery of penicillin, scientists have been in constant battle against the growing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. How did the war start? According to APUC (Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics), bacteria develops resistance through genetic mutations or acquiring resistance genes from another bacterium. By treat bacterial infection with antibiotics, the bacteria without the resistance gene will be killed. However, bacteria with the resistance gene will survive and continue to multiply.

Here’s a more in-depth video:

So why do we care? At 2011, Coates et al. examined the existing antibiotics and concluded that the rate of new antibiotic discovery is much slower than the growing rate of antibiotic resistance. This means that in the near-future, we will run out of antibiotics to even treat a minor infection.

However, according to some of the recent articles, we seem to have the upper hand in this battle. Henry et al. discovered a new therapy of fighting bacterial infection without causing bacterial resistance. The therapy involves creating liposome (vesicles made of cell membranes) decoys in the body for bacterial toxin to bind to, preventing the toxin from damaging the host cells. This buys time for the immune system to get rid of harmful bacteria in the host.

Also, a new class of antibiotic is being developed by Ling et al., and the way they discover the antibiotic may possibly lead to a new ways of discovering new antibiotics.

Everything looks pretty good at this point. New ways of discovering antibiotics and new therapy that will not result in antibiotic resistance will likely lead to the solution of antibiotic resistance.

However, these discoveries may not necessarily lead to a solution of growing antibiotic resistance. The root of the problem remains untouched. For example, the general public should be better educated about the misuse of antibiotics. In an article by Jean Pechere, Jean conducted a survey on patients using antibiotics. The result shows significant misuse of antibiotics in the community Jean surveyed.

The discovery by Henry et al. may look really promising. Treating infections without using antibiotics will prevent the development of antibiotic resistance. However, what if the immune system cannot clear out the bacterial infection effectively, and the patient is required to use antibiotics? A follow-up study is required to test the effectiveness of the therapy on different strains of bacteria.

Overuse of Antibiotics. Source: Flickr Common. Credit to: Ian Weddell

Even though these are great discoveries, we should not view them as solutions to antibiotic resistance, but should keep in mind that great amount of effort is still required to solve the emerging antibiotic resistance. More effort should be put towards educating the public or preventing the overuse of antibiotics.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) listed ways to prevent antibiotic resistance:

  • Practice Good Hygiene
  • Take exactly the amount doctors have prescribed. No more, no less.

 

Misuse of Antiobiotics can cause antibiotic resistance. Picture Obtained from Flickr, Credit to AJC1

-Daniel Hsiao

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Virtual Reality is Becoming a Reality: A clinical application of VR

Posted on February 1, 2015 by | 2 comments

March of 2014 was a memorable month when Facebook bought Oculus Rift, a virtual reality (VR) headset that lets users experience the virtual world literally in first person view. The Oculus Rift was bought for a whopping 2 billion dollars. Why? Because there are countless non-entertainment applications besides gaming and dating simulations that have been, or would be, groundbreaking in their respective fields. For instance, VR has been clinically used for decades to treat patients with phobias.

Palmer Luckey, creator of Oculus, tries on an Oculus development kit (Image: Palmer Luckey wearing Oculus Rift DK1 at SVVR 2014. Wikimedia Commons).

Conventionally, one of the popular methods of treating phobias is through an exposure therapy, otherwise known as a systematic desensitization. As the names suggest, the idea of this treatment is to expose the patient to his/her fear periodically with increasing intensity until the patient adapts and is no longer phobic.

So how exactly is VR useful in exposure therapies? Let’s imagine ourselves in the shoes of a therapist or a doctor trying to design a treatment procedure for a phobic patient.

Obviously, some phobias would be easy to recreate. For example, arachnophobia is a fear of spiders. Patients with arachnophobia would be asked to look at and touch real spiders, which are easy enough to obtain.

A hypothetical high level exposure for patients with arachnophobia (Image: Arachnophobia100. Wikimedia Commons).

On the other hand, some phobias would be difficult, economically unfavourable, or downright impossible to recreate. For example, deipnophobia is a fear of dinner parties and dinner conversations. It would be highly inconvenient for the doctors to find or throw a dinner party every week for this patient.

Therefore, designing a virtual world would open new possibilities for patients such as these. Using a VR console, patients would be able to experience any level of exposure intensities, every aspect under control by the conductor of the VR.

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(Video: Courtesy of Macquarie University)

You may be wondering ‘exactly how effective is a VR therapy?’ If you guessed that it is not as effective as a standard exposure therapy, guess again! Here is a famous research published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology which tested on patients with a fear of flight. The research team found that the patients who were treated with VR exposure had the same positive results as the patients who were treated with standard exposure as compared to those who did not receive a treatment.

Overall, I believe that the increasing availability of VR consoles such as Oculus Rift will change the game for the medical industry, at least in the psychology department. In the past, VR machines were too expensive, so only a few clinics could afford them. Now Oculus Rift is expected to be released this year for the highly affordable price range of 200-400 US dollars. Indeed, this year will be a stepping stone for the great science-fiction-esque future we have all been dreaming about.

– Sean Nam

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Unmanned Aerial Conservationists…?

Posted on February 1, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or, more commonly, drones have been used by the United States military for many years. They are associated with warzones and the subsequent collateral murder of innocent civilians. Attempts to kill 41 men by the US have resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people in Pakistan alone. But what if drones were adapted to conserve rather than kill? NGOs such as SoarOcean and ConservationDrones have been developing drone technology to serve as wildlife protection.

The rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo are home to the orang-utans, a tree dwelling member of the great apes. Their habitat is being converted to palm trees at an ever increasing rate by developers keen to cash-in upon the rising demand for palm oil, a substance that is estimated to feature in half of all packaged products sold in supermarkets. This has led to a fall in orang-utan numbers, from 300,000 to fewer than 50,000. ConservationDrones are working with local NGOs to survey the forest habitat to obtain a better picture of the individuals movements and where they are likely to aggregate in groups. This evidence will provide strong support to pressure the government into protecting certain areas. Previous efforts on foot can be expensive and time-consuming in the dense jungle, whilst a 30-minute flight can capture 900 images of 30-times satellite clarity over a 30 km2 region. A vast improvement upon conservation efforts.

Photo courtesy - National Geographic

Photo courtesy – National Geographic

Drones could also be used to tackle Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, a major concern to Belize due to its detrimental effect upon environmental, social and economical axes. Such practices are often undertaken by distant water fishing vessels from other nations who hide their identity through changing flags in order to obtain the valuable resources from the territorial waters of vulnerable countries without prosecution. The 70 enforcement personnel of Belize struggle to police the 386 km coastline and 200 islands, hence the need for drones. These could catch illegal fishers by surprise to gather evidence for prosecution in court, eventually acting as deterrent from the territorial waters. The $2,400 cost per drone is economically viable but practice must be undertaken and safety protocols established prior to their implementation. Belize could soon be patrolled by the buzz of drones to protect from and prevent IUU fishing.

Blog 1 - Rhino photo

Photo courtesy – Jeremy Smith

The poaching of rhinos across Africa has seen a stark increase in recent years, from 122 deaths in 2009 to 388 in 2012. Their horns are of high value due to their demand for use in traditional Asian medicine. Organised gangs deploy advanced technologies to exploit this illegal market with park rangers out-manned and out-gunned. However, the use of drones could be an alternative combative measure. The Wildlife Conservation UAV Challenge is an international competition whereby robotics teams are tasked with building inexpensive, easy-to-fly drones with an emphasis upon data process for use in wildlife protection. See the following video for more information:

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Video courtesy – National Geographic

For more interesting uses of drones, check out this link!

Toby Buttress

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Drying your hands doing more harm than good?

Posted on February 1, 2015 by | Leave a comment

With the growing need to constantly be efficient in almost every aspect of our lives we could be doing more harm than good. Hand washing is considered the most simple and important procedure to prevent sickness but the method we dry our hands may be counterproductive. According to the Malaysian Journal of Pathology, electric hand dryers dispersed bacteria at a radius of 3 feet from the dryer. In the experiment by the department of Microbiology in Kuala Lumpur, Serratia marcescens (bacteria) was placed under the dryer to stimulate someone drying their hands (in a hospital setting) and the results indicated that the bacteria was blown an average of 3 feet. A more recent study done by the University of Leeds also found that electric hand dryers spread bacteria in a bathroom setting. Using paper towels does consume trees but is the trade-off worth the risk?

bacteria

Picture of bacteria obtained from Flickr – credit to Cesar H.

Using an air dryer, it takes longer to dry hands relative to paper towels which means that people may not completely dry their hands. This being said, it may be possible that bacteria could grow on surface skin. Skin flora can then be transmitted from one person to another in a variety of ways such as the casual hand shake or simply by touching objects after hand washing. Someone could wash their hands and then dry them using an electric hand dryer and have bacteria blown onto their hands that will spread with contact. In other words a non-contaminated surface can become contaminated with skin flora even if the contact surface is not immediately under the dryer. Electric dryers may not only spread bacteria, it may provide an environment for growth.

Head Dryer

Picture obtained from Flickr courtesy of Walter J.

The environment that is in the inside structure of an electric hand dryer provides conditions suitable for growth of bacteria according to Dailymail. Bacteria can multiply in the electric dryer in between uses and then spread by becoming airborne when the dryer is turned on. By using electric air dryers to ultimately reduce the amount of trees that are cut down every year according to the Slate. Paper towels do not cause bacteria to become airborne but they do cause many trees every year to be cut down and are inefficient in terms of the environment. Electric air dryers do provide a good alternative to paper towels but they cause the spread of bacteria. As technology and science continue to improve hopefully a solution to this problem will be in the near future where we can protect the environment as well as ourselves at the same time. It may seem like a small part of our lives – washing and drying hands – but the consequences can potentially be severe. In the end, using electric hand dryers saves millions of trees worldwide and is worth the risk in my opinion. Below is an example video of the efficiency of electric hand dryers.

Kevin Nand

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Can Lucid Dreaming Provide Insight into Psychosis?

Posted on January 31, 2015 by | 2 comments

Psychosis is a serious mental disorder, how can we treat it? A is for psychosis. Source: Flickr Common. Credit to: Al Shep

Are the characteristics of dreaming and the characteristics of the psychosis of mental illness similar to some extent? As it turns out, both dreaming and psychosis share many similar cognitive peculiarities, with the most common being a lack of insight into current mental state. With this in mind, neuroscientists are tackling a new approach that could allow psychotic patients to gain insight into their own pathological state. This approach consists of understanding lucid dreaming, a rare phenomenon where the sleeping subject is conscious that he or she is dreaming, thereby gaining insight into their dreaming state. In other words, scientists believe that by understanding how lucid dreamers come to be aware that they are dreaming, they can use this knowledge to teach psychotic patients to gain insight into their illness.

In my opinion, psychosis is one of the most debilitating conditions of all psychiatric disorders as the majority of people suffering from psychosis have no insight into their pathological state. I believe a good way to study this “lack of insight problem” would be to use lucid dreaming as a new therapeutic approach in order to train patients to gain insight into their own mental states. The idea of such a model has already been proposed to study this loss of touch with reality but was wholly speculative, until recently. Indeed, in a recently published paper, researchers examined the activation of neurons in the brains of both lucid dreamers and psychotic patients. Their results showed that the impaired brain regions of the cerebral cortex in psychotic patients who lack insight into their pathological state highly overlap with brain regions activated during lucid dreaming. That being said, if we further study the phenomenon of lucid dreaming, and how lucid dreamers get to be aware of the fact that they are dreaming, we could use this approach as a viable treatment option for those suffering from psychosis and lacking insight into their disorder.

One such treatment approach is metacognitive lucidity training, where subjects are not only trained to develop self-reflective thoughts but also are also trained to develop a conscious understanding of their own mental state. This treatment has been used in a variety of mental disorders, such as phobias and nightmare therapy, where subjects can improve their capability of self-reflecting. By assessing this therapeutic approach to individuals suffering from schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorders, these patients might learn skills that lucid dreamers gave developed in order to gain insight into their state of mind.

One possible limitation with this type of approach, however, is the fact that this phenomenon of lucid dreaming is quite rare. Nonetheless, I still believe that further research on the topic could be a great tool to shed light on the psychotic state present in mental disorders such as schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia. Source: Flickr Creative Commons. Credit to: Dejenee Shiflet.

Psychosis is most often characterized by a loss of touch with reality and a lack of insight. Schizophrenia. Source: Flickr Creative Commons. Credit to: Dejenee Shiflet.

 

If you feel like experiencing a brief simulation of a psychotic episode, watch the video below!

Source: Youtube. Credit to: braschlosan

Sara Larivière

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Life in a Petri Dish: From Skin Cells to Fertility

The number of partners facing infertility in Canada has doubled since the 1980s; it is now predicted that every one in six couples face infertility. With the numbers rising, due to factors such as obesity and substance use, this issue is becoming increasingly more common in our modern world and scientists across the globe are in a constant race to overcome it.

New research emerging from Cambridge University has provided hope in the form of a new infertility treatment. In collaboration with the Weizmann Institute of Israel, researchers have come forward with a potential new form of in-vitro fertilization. Its origin? Human adult skin cells.

IVF: the insertion of sperm into a human oocyte (egg cell).

IVF: The insertion of sperm with a glass pipette into a human oocyte (egg cell). In-vitro Source: Wikimedia Commons

For the first time, scientists have been able create manmade (reproductive) primordial germ cells, known as PGCs; these cells act as predecessors and are considered the common origin of  both sperm and egg cells. PGCs arise from pre-existing adult stem cells, which is an undifferentiated cell that has the ability to develop into many different tissue types. Their ancestor-like quality that creates a common origin, allows the eventual creation of  many different cell types, such as skin and liver cells.

Kyoto University used skin cells to create mice pups in 2012. Lab Mouse Source: Google

Kyoto University used skin cells to create mice pups in 2012.
Lab Mouse Source: Wikimedia Commons

The team of researchers, led by Hanna and Azim Surani, followed a “recipe” originating from a Stem Cell Lab at Kyoto University, who created mice pups from a female germ cell by re-programming stem cells back in 2012. Based on this, the Cambridge-Weizmann team replicated the in-vitro portion of the experiment, where they grew the cells in a sterile and controlled environment.

The team was successful in making the primordial reproductive cells from human stem cells. The key finding was a gene known as SOX17, who is responsible for directing stem cells into their specialization; this is how primordial germ cells are created. This gene can also direct stem cells into becoming the external layer of skin, therefore showing that the reprogramming of an adult tissue type, such as skin cells, could give rise to the primordial germ cells.

Current British law has banned any fertility clinics in the United Kingdom from using a manmade sperm and eggs to treat an infertile couple, due to both ethical reasons as well as safety concerns. If this law is changed, the creation of a genetically identical sperm or egg cell can be taken from a patient for use in in-vitro fertilization.

Mother and Child Source: Wikimedia Commons

Mother and Child
Mother Source: Wikimedia Commons

This discovery has laid down foundation for all future research; scientists can now compare the development of both sperm and egg cells in both healthy as well as infertile people. Representing a huge step forward in the world of stem cell biology, the researcher’s work, published in the journal Cell, may mean a change in the age at which a woman can stop having children. This breakthrough means that manmade primordial germ cells are capable of passing on an offspring’s genetic code to their own offspring, creating the fundamental bond from generation to generation.

Check out Cambridge University’s video on a similar topic, the derivation of brain cells from skin cells:

Thanks for reading!

Samantha Mee

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Posted on January 26, 2015 by in Biological Sciences, Science in the News

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The A.I. revolution

Posted on January 26, 2015 by | Leave a comment

The advent of Artificial Intelligent robots and their associated repercussions is a hotly debated issue. This is because humanity is on the brink of creating technology that will be able to think, and act according to their built-in perspective on the world. For example, fully autonomous weapon systems such as drones could petrol the skies capable of engaging without human interventions or an autonomous car driving someone to their desired location through a dynamic traffic system. There are a lot of positives and negatives associated with artificially intelligent machines and it’s up to us to decide if it’s worth creating such technology.

Humanity could benefit greatly from AI if controlled effectively. For instance, imagine a senior citizen with bad eyesight and poor reaction time wanting to travel to their daughter’s house 20 miles away. They can avoid taking a taxi and can have their own autonomous vehicle which plans their path and drives them to the desired location safely. This car will not only drive automatically it will have an extremely high reaction time to avoid accidents and will minimize damage if an accident is unavoidable.

 

YouTube Preview Image Credit to youtube user DroidTweak

AI robots can range from mini robots inside the house, which help the disabled perform daily task to autonomous airplanes that can take-off, fly, and land without any pilots on board. All of these have many positive implications for humanity because not only do they provide invaluable resources to those who are incapable but AI robots can perform most tasks better than humans.

Perhaps humanity needs to live with some of their shortcomings to prevent the apocalyptic future that some associate with the arrival of AI robots. According to the well renowned astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking, artificial intelligence could end mankind if we are not careful. He told the BBC:“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” His opinion stems from the fact that humans are limited by slow biological evolution and can’t possibly compete with the intelligent robots. AI robots will “evolve” faster by building better machines eventually overtaking human performance across all domains. They will then become the dominant force on Earth and could eradicate us at their on leisure.

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Credit to youtube user: DNews

Another well-known figure, Elon Musk, also voiced his opinion by saying “we are summoning the demon with artificial intelligence.” His viewpoint is similar to Hawking’s but he believes that their recursive self-improvement will eventually lead them to the realization that humans are detrimental in some regard and thus should be eliminated. “If its [function] is just something like getting rid of e-mail spam and it determines the best way of getting rid of spam is getting rid of humans…” said Musk to name an example.

Credit to youtube user: DNews

Since true AI robots have not been invented we can never really be sure how they will behave we can only speculate. Though great minds like Stephen Hawkings give us insight into the grim and darkside of AI, there is no doubt that the benefits of controlled AI are invaluable to the human race.

Written by Imran Khan

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