Category Archives: Biological Sciences

Global domination of teleost fish

Posted on December 2, 2020 by | Leave a comment

With humans surviving on every continent, it is easy to believe that we are the dominant species on earth. However, humans live on land which takes up only 29% of the earth’s surface. The other 71% of earth is covered by water. Here a different class of organisms dominate, the teleost fish.

What are teleost?

Teleost fish are the largest group of ray-finned fishes with over 26, 000 species. Approximately 96% of fish on the planet are considered teleost.

Teleost fish are the largest infraclass of Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fish. Image taken from Wikimedia.

Teleost fish are often identified by their:

  • Symmetric forked tail structure
  • Moveable upper jaw
  • Swim bladder
  • Unique eye structure

Teleost fish include many well known species such as rainbow trout, piranhas, and clownfish. Some examples of non-teleost fish include the sharks, rays,  sturgeons, and lampreys.

Sturgeon is an example of a non-teleost fish. Image taken by Melissa Shavlik.

Current reserach with teleost

How did these teleost fish win the evolutionary race against other species and dominate today’s oceans? Dr. Brauner, a researcher in the Department of Zoology at UBC, attempted to solve this mystery through his research article, “A novel acidification mechanism for greatly enhanced oxygen supply to the fish retina.”  which was published this August. In this article, Dr. Brauner explains how the presence of a unique blood vessel structure (choroid rete mirabile), behind the eye is lined with a type of protein (vacuolar-type H+-ATPase) that is part of an efficient chemical mechanism in the eye. These factors allow teleost to be more sensitive to light over their competition.

The eyes of the teleost fish have fewer visible blood vessels in the eye compared to other species. Image created by Chris Betcher.

While the cause of teleost dominance has yet to be proven, Dr. Brauner hopes to find answers to this in the future as well as using this research to help better understand how the acidification of the ocean could affect teleost fish. He also noted that oxygen delivery is a hot topic in the cancer research field and that this mechanism could help us better understand and treat cancer in the future.

Fish Physiology series co-editors Dr. Colin Brauner and Dr. Anthony Farrell. Image from UBC Library.

In the following video, Dr. Brauner elaborates in detail on the eye mechanisms of teleost fish along with explanations on the sheer efficiency inside the teleost fish eyes compared to human eyes. 

How the teleost changed over time

The HOOKED podcast segment features a discussion on the significance of teleost dominance, along with additional evolutionary mechanisms that were developed by the teleost fish species. 

Mysteries of the teleost that have yet to be unlocked.

While the true factors which caused the teleost class of fish to become evolutionary dominant remains a mystery, researchers like Dr. Brauner are using various mechanisms to help us try and find these answers. This could ultimately lead to the uncovering of new truths about evolution, the history of fish, how these fish will be affected by climate change, as well as helping us better understand the species which we share a planet with. After all how can humanity plan for the future without understanding those we share the planet with?

– A collaboration by Michelle Huynh, JD Villareal, Gordon Wu, & Yoshinao Matsubara

Additional sources: The Hooked Podcast uses bubble sound effects and congo sound effects from soundbible.com.

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Outreach Project, Science Communication, Science Communicators, Science in the News, Uncategorized

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A new horizon for cancer research

Posted on December 2, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, even at the time of publishing this article, many people around the world are battling cancer in a fight for their lives. For these people and their loved ones, receiving efficacious cancer treatment is of the utmost priority. It is currently estimated that close to 1 in 2 Canadians will end up developing cancer, and about 1 in 4 Canadians are expected to die as a result of cancer.

Evolution of cancer therapy

Cancer therapy has come a long way, but getting to where we are today would not be possible without the research that started 40 to 50 years ago. In the podcast below Dr. Chris Orvig, a researcher and professor at the University of British Columbia, describes how cancer therapy has evolved over the years and how it has become what it is today.

Concerns of current cancer therapy

Currently, most cancer treatments revolve around chemotherapy, which aims to destroy cancer cells. However, chemotherapy also results in the damage of non-cancerous cells within the body, which causes a host of side effects. The result of this subpar cellular targeting is that patients often experience debilitating side effects such as hair loss, organ damage, and reduction in memory and cognitive ability, just to name a few.

Common side effects of cancer on the body. (Medical News Today)

Targeted Alpha Therapy: A better alternative

In the hopes of finding a more effective cancer treatment with minimal toxic effects, Dr. Orvig and his team of researchers set out to find a viable alternative. In their study published in March 2020, they aimed to determine the effectiveness of targeted alpha therapy, a relatively new form of cancer therapy, using a radioactive metal isotope (actinium-225) and a binding agent for the metal (H4py4pa).

To gain a better understanding of how this mechanism works, the video below has Dr. Chris Orvig going through some of the chemistry behind targeted alpha therapy.

Dr. Chris Orvig and his team found that actinium-225 and H4py4pa are very compatible—in fact, even more compatible than they had hypothesized. Therefore, by coupling actinium-225 and H4py4pa, they were able to have great localization when targeting the cancer cells. However, more research is necessary to confirm the effectiveness of this treatment even though recent trials offer promising results.

Looking forward

Around the world, researchers like Dr. Orvig are constantly working on advancing our understanding of cancer and cancer therapy through novel and innovative solutions. Targeted alpha therapy has become an emerging therapeutic option for cancer patients, and leaves future scientists with many possibilities to develop and expand upon the topic. Currently, there is a lack of effective cancer treatments that result in minimal side effects. As scientists continue to investigate and understand the complex nature of cancer, hope is the sustaining force in this inquiry.

Written by Alessandra Liu, Harman Sandhu, Mehdi Mesbahnejad, Tae Hyung Kim

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Outreach Project, Science Communication, Science Communicators

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Salmon and our Ecosystem

Posted on December 2, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Salmon species are considered an integral part of our ecosystems today but their populations have been slowly decreasing over time due to many external factors such as overfishing. But, what would happen if this decline was so great that all the salmon were gone? 

Chinook Salmon swimming together. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Why are salmon important to our ecosystem?

Salmon are important because they bring in Marine-Derived Nutrients (MDN). To understand what MDN is, we must first understand the life cycle of salmon. Salmon are usually born in freshwater streams up in mountains, such as the Capilano River. Once born, they swim down to the ocean to grow. During their time in the ocean, the salmon feed on zooplankton and fish. At the end of their lives, they come back to their spawning grounds to die. This brings back the MDN from the ocean to the rivers and helps replenish the entire ecosystem. These MDN are consumed by the animals that eat the salmon, the decomposers that eat their dead bodies, and then plants grow from the decomposer’s waste from consuming salmon. 

The Adam Rivers Salmon Run, where millions of salmon return from the ocean to their spawning grounds to breed.
 Source: Wikimedia Commons

How salmon affect our ecosystem:

Salmon in BC are considered a keystone species due to the MDN the salmon bring in. Without salmon, many animals would be left without a food source. Harbour seals, bears, bald eagles and bass are some of their predators who risk having declining populations as a result of the low salmon return. Bears depend on the consumption of salmon so much so that the population density of bears can be up to 20 times greater in areas where salmon are abundant, versus areas where they aren’t. Not only does salmon play an important role in the river ecosystem, but they also play one in the ocean as well. For example, the Southern Killer Whale is a primary predator for Chinook salmon.

Grizzly bear eating salmon in the river. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Current research being done: 

Dr. Andrew Trites and his team have been doing some research on whether harbour seals are causing the decline of Coho and Chinook Salmon. The following video outlines his research in more detail: 

As well, find out potential mitigation strategies that can help save the salmon from the harbour seals in our podcast:

Implications on the Economy:

Salmon are the center of economies and cultures. Coastal human communities depend on salmon for both protein and income. The world’s largest sockeye salmon run in Alaska’s Bristol Bay brings in $500 million each year for commercial, recreational, and subsistence fishermen. In southeast Alaska, nearly 48 million wild salmon are harvested each year, with a combined economic value of nearly $1 billion annually. 

Moving on: 

It is clear that there needs to be action taken to ensure that the decline of salmon species does not occur, and Dr. Trites and his team’s work are critical to understanding the many factors that affect salmon populations. 

 

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The Impact of Sleep Quality on Personal Health and Academic Performance

Posted on November 23, 2020 by | Leave a comment

One of the most often neglected yet crucial components in developing a healthy lifestyle is getting enough quality sleep at the right times. Without sleep, the brain cannot function at the caliber that it is expected to, and can impair one’s ability to concentrate, think clearly, as well as overall mental and physical health. As university students, a lot of our precious sleep time is sacrificed due to the negative influence of electronics and time spent scrolling through social media, that we start to forget how much sleep actually means to us on a day-to-day basis and its impact on academic performance.

Why is sleep so important and why should we care?

Sleep is a crucial part of our lives due to its impact on a number of our brain functions such as cognitive sophistication (includes open-minded thinking, intelligence, and executive functioning), emotion regulation (the way we control our feelings), and social cognition (the ability to understand social cues and the mental processes that allow us to interact in the social world). These developmental milestones are strengthened as a result of adequate levels of sleep and help mitigate some serious health risks including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and Alzheimer’s.

The influence of sleep quality among university students

A recent study was conducted on the relationship between sleep quality and students’ academic scores among a total of 855 university students; 476 were women (55.7%) and 378 were men (44.3%). Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a standardized self-report questionnaire that is completed over a 1-month time interval. As a result, there was a noticeable observation regarding the differences in academic achievements, where students with poor sleep quality obtained lower scores, compared those who had good sleep quality.

PSQI participant conditions
Photo by Toscano-Hermoso, Maria
Source: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2760

What is considered to be the “right amount” of sleep? 

In the following video from a TED series called “Sleeping with Science”, sleep scientist Matt Walker helps us understand the graphical correlation between the amount of sleep we get in conjunction with mortality rate. In addition, Matt elaborates on how sleep quality is independent of sleep quantity and a unique trend that is created from the relationship between these two variables.

Stop snoozing that alarm clock!

While it’s easier said than done, frequently pressing the snooze button on your alarm clock can potentially become a negative impact on your health. In addition to the risk of cardiovascular disease from a result of poor sleep quality, alarms can also be a factor of stress on the cardiovascular system when the snooze button is repeatedly pressed. This is because your cardiovascular system is assaulted time after time, and can accumulate across a lifetime. Hopefully, you can think about this the next time you hear your alarm and push yourself to wake up for that 9 am Zoom lecture.

– Gordon Wu

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AI in Medical Care: Google’s Patent

Posted on November 23, 2020 by | 1 comment

Google is about making a revolution in the medical world. They have obtained a patent to process patient diagnostic data using artificial intelligence (AI). This will align the contents of clinical notes written in different styles to the same format. Organizing clinical notes makes it easier for medical institutions to share patients’ information on Electronic Health Records (EHR). In addition to preventing misdiagnosis due to oversight of treatment plans and medical history, the prediction of diseases and illnesses can be done using data analysis.

Image: Runner 1928/Wikimedia

EHR

EHR has been generalized among US medical institutions to compile and store the patients’ data. A most important part of  EHR data is a clinical note that provides all the information from a patient’s medical history to diagnosis and treatment planning.

However, the way medical professionals write a clinical note is different; some notes are handwritten whereas some of them are voice memos.  Unorganized clinical notes can lead to information oversights and data duplication, which can affect clinical outcomes.

The patent that Google obtained uses a neural network to edit, to systematize, and to interpret unorganized clinical notes so that doctors can make accurate diagnoses.

Image: Own Work/Wikimedia

How the System Works

The patent explains the system called “future health prediction system” that uses neural networks to capture patient data from clinical notes and to interpret the data. It then shows the patient’s diagnosis and findings on future health risks.

One of the abilities of the system is calculating the risk of a certain disease. The system extracts the medical history from the patient’s EHR and converts the data to a variable that the neural network can recognize and process. If the system finds, for example, a disease A in his/her family’s medical history, then it points out that the patient is at a higher risk of developing this disease.

This system will also be useful for preventive care. For example, if a family doctor introduces this system to show patients risk factors for various illnesses based on medical records, it will be able to predict the possibility of certain diseases such as heart attack and stroke in the future. This will allow them to make more preventive decisions, such as recommending a low-salt diet or requesting the use of certain medications, which may reduce the patient’s risk of developing the disease in the future.

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Source: Google

Why is this important?

Doctors who do not have a complete record of the patient may make an incorrect diagnosis, which could result in an inadequate treatment plan for the patient.  The system helps doctors diagnose a patient’s specific illness by simplifying and supplementing the diagnostic process and improving the accuracy of the diagnosis.

These patents haven’t been put to practical use yet, but there is no doubt that they will make a big difference in medical care soon.

ーShunya Sunami

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Why Does Good Music Give Us The Chills? How Music Can Affect Your Mind

Posted on November 23, 2020 by | 1 comment
People enjoying music

People enjoying music. Image: OmarMedinaFilms on pixabay.com

For as long as it has existed in the world, music has been pleasing generations of people who adore the art form.  But, even though many of us listen to music for pleasure, how exactly does music give our brains that pleasure? Until recently, no studies had definitive answers for that question. But, a recent breakthrough study from a group of French neuroscience researchers may have an answer for that question of how music makes us feel good.

What The Study Found

This study differs from previous papers on the same topic by introducing a method of collecting information not used before in this type of research: electroencephalograms (EEGs). EEGs are a collection of sensors attached to a person that is used to monitor a person’s specific brain activity. Below is a short video explaining how the technology works. The study used EEG technology to monitor 18 participants who were monitored for a baseline reading before being given headphones with preselected music that the participant had chosen based on what gives them chills.

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Past research on the topic had already illuminated the possibility of good music affecting human reward centers in the brain, similar to how eating good food or having sex activates human reward centers. But this study was the first to actually monitor some of these reward centers activating in the brain in response to music.

When participants listened to a song that gave them the chills, the scientists conducting the study found that there was a significant increase in theta-waves in certain parts of the brain associated with emotional processing. These patterns of theta-waves, which are normal oscillating brain activity, indicate that the brain starts emotionally processing music once it starts to recognize it. In addition to these theta-waves, the study also states that dopamine (a hormone that is associated with pleasurable experiences) is released in the brain in response to hearing music. These two responses combine in the brain to produce, among other things, the effect of having chills.

Diagram of what an EEG and EEG reading looks like. Image credits: springer.com article “Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Its Background”

So why do our brains do this?

While this study has greatly illuminated the processes that occur in the brain in response to music, there is still not much that is known as to why these processes occur in the first place.

Some of the scientists who conducted this study have noted how interesting it is that music activates our reward centers yet it provides no visible evolutionary advantage that could have led to us evolving this response through natural selection.

Many scientists have theorized what purpose music could have played in our ancestral lives, or if it even played any role at all. It is entirely possible that music was created to exploit existing human reward systems similar to how drugs and junk-food exploit evolved-human reward systems from our ancestral lives. But until more research is done on this topic, we cannot conclude why music gives us the chills.

– Ryan Reiss

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Can music therapy treat dementia ?

Posted on November 23, 2020 by | 1 comment

Have you ever heard a Drake or Rihanna song? Many people would likely say that they have. Music is an art that people across the world listen to daily and while some listen to it for enjoyment, it also provides many health benefits such as reducing stress, anxiety, and improving your mood. But, these are things that you probably already knew about music. Research nowadays has been focusing on how music can be implemented in treating patients. A recent study published by Dr. Hei Long Lam in 2020 found that music therapy can be an effective method in improving the lives of patients that have dementia.

Dementia is a commonly increasing syndrome, which currently does not have a cure. It is also a general term used for the loss of memory, language, and other thinking abilities. Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells and this damage goes on to interfere with the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other which ultimately leads to an array of problems. Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia which is the damage and degradation of the hippocampus (a part of the brain which is essential for memory formation). People who have dementia usually have a difficult time communicating, recalling information and worse of all this condition is progressive, so it will get worse over time.

Image: University of Queensland/google. This image shows how a normal brain compares to a brain with severe Alzheimer’s. As seen in the image the hippocampus has almost completely disappeared.

Dr. Lam found that music therapy can help dementia patients better recall memories, enhance verbal fluency, and dramatically reduces the patients’ depression and anxiety.

In this video, it is seen that elderly people with dementia are able to successfully recall memories and string together many sentences after listening to music 

The reasons for how music is able to such things have been researched extensively by many people. These researchers found that there are two main qualities of music that allow for these results in the patients. Firstly, the music evokes emotions and this can bring back memories. If music is paired with everyday activities there is a chance that dementia patients will recall the memory of how to do the activity. Secondly, as stated in the video above, music is processed and stored in many parts of the brain so musical appreciation is one of the last remaining abilities in a dementia patient. So even for a late-stage dementia patient, playing music is an excellent way of reaching beyond the disease and connecting with the patient.

Music therapy is a great non-pharmaceutical method that can improve many aspects of a dementia patient’s life. Despite these great findings published in the research article, they state that they have only scratched the surface of the relationship between music and dementia. Ultimately they stated that more clinical trials must be done to fully understand the therapeutic value of music therapy.

-Harman Sandhu

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Scientists have Discovered a Cure for Cancer

Posted on November 22, 2020 by | Leave a comment

You have probably seen many articles with similar titles to this one throughout your lifetime, however as you probably know we do not have a cure for cancer. So what were these cures and why is there such a large disconnect between published research and subsequent mainstream articles published on the topic. I recently came across an article from the BBC titled Immune discovery ‘may treat all cancer’ while the title is not directly claiming that a cure was found, it does make the reader think that we might have a treatment which could help cure all types of cancers. When reading through the article the author talks about how scientists found a type of immune cell which can be modified so that it can detect and kill multiple types of cancer cells while leaving normal cells intact. If we look at the original research article we will find that the researchers genetically modified human immune cells so that they would have an extra receptor that could recognize and kill multiple types of human cancer cells while not affecting non-cancer cells. The video below gives an overview on how scientists are trying to use the immune system to fight cancer, note that the study above uses CAR-T therapy (video taken with Creative Common License).

From this we can see that the author of the BBC article is not lying to their readers, and the author goes even further to state at the end of this article that “the research has been tested only in animals and on cells in the laboratory, and more safety checks would be needed before human trials could start.” This statement is normally the root cause for disconnect between the scientific publications and mainstream articles for two main reasons. First not all mainstream articles will include this information leading the reader to assume that treatment is almost ready or it will be included at the end of the article so that readers who do not complete the article will have a false understanding of how close the treatment is to being used in humans. The second reason I believe there is a disconnect is due to the level of knowledge the general public has about cancer research compared to someone who has experience in the field. Someone with experience will know that cancer research in petri dishes and animal subjects differs heavily for cancer research in humans. For example the mice used in this study had been modified in such a way so that none of the mouse’s original immune system was functional and only the modified human immune cell was functional. Cancer research also takes a long time so if this treatment was approved for human testing today, it would take around 10-15 years before it could be approved as an actual treatment. From this I hope the next time you see a “cure for cancer,” you remember the comic below and check to see how far along in the research stages this treatment is.

This image was taken from: xkcd with Creative Commons License

 

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Altruism Gene

Posted on November 16, 2020 by | 3 comments

Why do people show signs of altruistic (selfless/unselfish) behaviour such as donating money to a homeless person on the street, or even helping someone with their homework? You might be thinking that people are displaying these signs of empathy and generosity, simply because they care about the health of others, and believe that they should treat others the way in which they wanted to be treated. This general understanding is flawed because it provides no evidence to why some people may act selflessly, while others are only concerned about their own well-being. In order to fit the missing pieces necessary to complete the puzzle, we must take into consideration the possibility of there being an Altruism Gene. This gene variation can alter the way in which human beings undergo various tasks on a day-to-day basis.

Monkeys grooming one another is a form of altruism by Muhammad Mahdi Karim

There exist one prevalent theory that explains the evolution of altruism through natural selection. The principle of inclusive fitness, or the amount of offspring equivalents that an organism supports, was defined by W.D. Hamilton in 1964. Hamilton demonstrated that it is beneficial for these organisms to attempt to raise the fitness of other members of the population in order to pass on their genes. This is known as kin selection, and applies mainly to organisms that are genetically related. Hamilton’s Rule declares that a gene controlling altruism will only spread in a population if:

c < rb

where c is the reproductive cost to the organism displaying altruistic behaviour, r represents how closely related the altruist is to the recipient (since the recipient is more likely to share the altruism gene if it is more closely related to the altruist), and b is the degree to which the altruistic act benefits the recipient.

In a recent German study, researchers sampled DNA from 101 individuals and looked at the COMT gene, which is linked to positive emotions and possibly altruistic acts. The gene has 3 variations: Val/Val, Met/Met, and Val/Met. The researchers gave the participants a certain amount of money and told them that they could anonymously donate to a charity. They discovered that those participants with the Val/Val and Val/Met variations donated twice as much as those with the Met/Met version of the gene. This study demonstrated the link between altruism and a specific gene for the first time. 

Percentage of money donated to an impoverished child in Peru based on the COMT gene variation by Martin Reuter, et al.

Scientists have only scratched the surface in this field of study, as they believe that there are many altruism-related genes that are yet to be found. Thus, this evolutionary puzzle will require much more time until it is completed, and I believe that these findings will help us gain further insight on the nature of human beings.

– Yoshinao Matsubara

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