Obama Favors Stem Cells

Embryo killer! Science savior! The hullabaloo over Obama’s recent repeal of federal funding restraints on embryonic stem cell research could be framed in a number of different ways. Two possibilities follow:

1. Pro life vs. Pro choice. Here, the issue is once again, who is more important: the life not yet born, or the life currently suffering? The purpose of researching stem cells is to find better treatments for ailments and conditions affecting living, breathing human beings. Opponents of using embryonic stem cells (which can transform into any cell in the human body and therefore be used to generate healthy replacement tissue) for research argue that this research destroys human embryos, which are the equivalent of unrealized human lives. Proponents argue back that firstly, researchers usually procure their stem cells from fertility clinic surpluses that were destined to be destroyed, anyway. (1) Secondly, why should an undeveloped embryo deserve more protection and championship than a suffering child or even a fully developed adult? As one United States Representative, Jim Langerin, put it: “What could be more pro-life than research that would extend and improve the quality of life for millions of people who are struggling with some of life’s most challenging chronic conditions and diseases?” (2)
2. Scary Science vs. Safe Morals. One predominant fear over Obama’s lifting restrictions on embryonic stem cell research—in spite of his assertion that cloning for human reproduction is “dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society”—is that this action moves us one step closer to human cloning. The National Right to Life Committee worries that his administration is allowing scientists the opportunity to “create, and then destroy, embryos through cloning for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells.” (3) Scientists such as Dr. Curt Civin, one of the leading scientists who helped develop the technique for isolate stem cells, as well as the founding director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Maryland, try to pacify these doomsayers. “This was already life that was going to be destroyed. The choice is to throw [the embryos] away or use them for research.” (3)

The Bottom Line: The order Obama has overturned will allow federally funded research to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines which, prior to that day, were limited to the lines created before August 2001 by legislation George W. Bush had signed while in office. Obama’s reasoning was thus, “Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking costly research.” (3) We can only hope that the resulting research will produce many such miracles.

Ereaders: What’s “Logical” from the CP Standpoint

Ereader Controversies Escalate
Whether you are an old-school addict intent upon preserving your leather-bound tomes, or a tech-savvy gadget guru loving your new iPhone, you will likely have heard about the launch of Amazon’s latest eReader, Kindle 2. Regardless of how you feel about this particular device, you will also most likely have formed some sort of opinion concerning eReaders in general.

Some people love them. “I’m convinced,” says Dean L. Hubbard, President of Northwest Missouri State University, “that students will read more and they will learn more, by using this medium.” (1) For the 2009 spring semester, Northwest Missouri purchased ebooks for 500 students in ten different courses, as it moved toward an all (or primarily) e-textbook campus. Meanwhile, activists at Andrews University promote using e-textbooks as opportunities to “go green.” Buying e-books eliminates the need for paper (which saves trees), packaging (which creates less waste), and shipping (which minimizes vehicular pollution), thus contributing to a happier, healthier environment. (2)

However, everyone’s not happy. For one thing, the publishing world may be starting to fear the Kindle. With Amazon’s massive, easily searchable store now instantly accessible at the fingertips of Kindle owners, what is to stop Amazon from grabbing a monopoly the world of books? Or even magazines, or newspapers, or . . . journals?

To try and assuage some of this fear and forboding, let us look at Current Protocols and see how this publication would fare in the eReader world. On the Kindle’s 6” diagonal screen, one 8 ½ x 11” CP page would look awfully shrunken. Now, the obvious argument is that all eReaders—the Kindle included—use reflowable text. This means that the amount of text doesn’t change; it is just displayed in different quantities (i.e. on different rows, on differing numbers of pages, etc.), depending how large the text size is. (This is very much like how a computer document works. If you change the font size, words get pushed to the next line, lines get pushed to the next page, etc.)

Reflowable text would solve everything if the contents of every book/magazine/newspaper/CP article were composed strictly of text. The problem arises when images, graphs, charts, and other “aesthetically pleasing” and organization-based images come into play. How can a 5×7” graph possibly be displayed on a screen that is not even 4” wide? Zooming and scrolling are two considerations, until we remember that the very purpose of charts and graphs is to make information as immediately and easily accessible as possible. With zooming and scrolling back and forth over an image, you are forcing the reader to overcome a digital obstacle course to find the very information you intended to be “available at a glance.” Honestly, as a reader, I would keep my paper copy and tell Amazon to take a hike.

This is not to say that all eReaders will remain in their 6” screen format. One company attempting to corner the “larger device” market is called Plastic Logic. Its device, with a 10.7” diagonal e-ink screen, is built to not only support products that rely on visual display (i.e. magazines, newspapers, and journals), but also to appeal to their more destructive users. (For example: You can smash your fist into the reader’s 22 x 28” screen and not even make a dent.) This is because it is made of pliable organic polymer rather than the more traditional, brittle silicon of standard eReaders such as the Kindle. (3) In essence, Plastic Logic is aiming its device at business professionals, whether they are office managers looking to consolidate stacks of paper to fit into their briefcases, or scientists hoping to reduce their bulky manuals to the size of a single sheet of paper. The company’s success with this device will be determined in 2010, as the device is scheduled to be released early next year. (4)

Meanwhile, you may want to grab your favorite book, magazine, newspaper, and journal article, stuff them into a time capsule, and bury it deep. EReaders are here to stay.

Vampires: a disease (of the media) or an epidemic (of superstition)

With all of the vampire material flooding the market over the last several years—Buffy, Twilight, Van Helsing—it’s no surprise that these creatures made an appearance at this year’s American Academy of Forensics meeting last week. After all, many of the scientists attending that meeting deal with evidence pertaining to dead bodies, and what are vampires if not dead?

Curiously enough, the original vampire legend may have developed from the effects of physical decomposition upon a corpse. For instance, as a body begins to break down, blood can leak out of the mouth. Meanwhile, bacteria grow inside the stomach and intestines, causing them to swell. With a creative imagination, someone might imagine that this dead body has returned to life, bitten some living creature (hence the blood on its mouth), and is effectively growing fat off of such sustenance. Additionally, this “growing” body can imitate guttural sounds such as groaning or sighing when it releases gases that have built up inside, offering further “proof” that the corpose has come to life.

However, explanations for the traditional vampire myth are abundant. David Dolphin, an organic chemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has proposed that the vampire myth may have sprung from the disease porphyrias. Porphyias is a rare genetic disease that afflicts from one in 25,000 to 1 in a million people; hence why it might not be well known or understood, and why, in the past, the vampire myth may have been created as an explanation, instead. What happens to people suffering from porphyrias is this: molecules called porphyrins build up in their tissues—usually skin tissue—and when these molecules are exposed to light, they generate free radicals that destroy the cells in which they reside. Effectively, this would keep any rational porphryias patient indoors, lest their skin start to burn and blister. Understandably, many of these people turn nocturnal. Thus, the vampiric sun aversion was born. Meanwhile, porphyrin molecules can accumulate in bone tissue as well, and if they accumulate in teeth, whoa-la: reddish, bloody fangs. Even the trademark widow’s peak can be explained by porphryias, since the disease can be linked to excessive hair growth, particularly on the forehead. And finally, just like vampires, porphyrias patients are inclined to avoid garlic, because certain chemicals contained in that plant increase the production of porphryin molecules in their bodies—thus increasing the patients’ suffering. Therefore, Dolphin’s argument that vampires may be modeled off of porphyrias patients is a persuasive one.

It may not be nearly as persuasive, however, as, “Rabies: A possible explanation for the vampire legend.” This was the argument put forth by Dr. Juan Gomez-Alonso, a neurologist at Hospital Xeral in Vigo, Spain, in the journal Neurology. Like the stereotypical vampire, a person with rabies will often attempt to bite others, and rabies is transmitted via the bite of an infected host—eerily the way that vampirism is transmitted via the bite of a host. Rabies also causes insomnia—as it affects the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls sleep—as well as hypersensitivity to strong stimuli such as light. Therefore, this profile could have created the model for the vampiric night life and aversion to light. Still, perhaps the most persuasive evidence provided in Gomez-Alonso’s paper is anthropologic. Gomez-Alonso reveals that a rabies outbreak occurred in Hungary around the time that people first began reporting vampire sightings, in the 1720s. Hungary was an ideal site for the vampire myth to originate, since its cold, damp winter season is particularly long and therefore perfectly suited for preserving corpses. The cold prevents the body from decomposing quickly, and the humidity causes saponification, a proces by which subcutaneous tissues transform into a waxy substance. The living dead? Perhaps not. But for any superstitious uneducated peasantry who dug up lifelike corpses that were filled with uncoagulated (i.e. oozing) blood—which, coincidentally, is a symptom of people who die from collapse, shock, or asphyxiation, as rabies patients are prone to do—a plausible explanation was needed. Vampirism could very well have been the explanation they created.

Coincidentally, we are still talking about it today! On Thursday, February 19th, Emilio Nuzzolese, DDS, Ph.D., and Matteo Borrini, B.A. presented “The Vampire Bites Back in Odontology and Anthropology: Case Report of Skeletal Remains on Nuovo Lazzaretto Island, Venice” at the AAF meeting in Denver. Perhaps Stephanie Meyers will want to attend next year’s meeting. Or Ann Rice. Or maybe we can raise Bela Lugosi from the dead and he can give his own presentation….

Mentors, Methods, and Manuscripts: the mantra of S.J. Enna

S.J. Enna is in people’s heads—in more ways than one. As a researcher, he has become an expert in defining the properties of GABA receptors, and has conducted research on other neurotransmitter receptors, their regulation, and their responses to psychotherapeutics, as well. Thus, he’s into people’s brains from the drug side of the pharmacy counter, making them less depressed, more attentive, and simply better able to cope with life.

Next, he’s growing students’ brains, as he serves as Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and Professor of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutics at the University of Kansas Medical School. He has been so successful at this that he has received several awards, first at the University of Texas, where he taught on faculty for ten years, and then when he returned to his hometown to work and teach at the University of Kansas, where he chaired the department of Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutics for eleven years.

The third way in which Dr. Enna gets into people’s heads is through his words—or, more specifically, his publications. Between his voracious research and editorial efforts, Dr. Enna has contributed to hundreds of research and review articles, as well as over twenty books. He also serves as the editor of some major journals and other publications—including our very own Current Protocols in Pharmacology!

Because of the outstanding success of Dr. Enna’s career in research and education, and also because of his dedication to organizations such as ASPET, Wyeth (a renowned global pharmaceutical company) has awarded him the 2009 Torald Sollmann Award, to be presented on Sunday, April 18th. Dr. Enna’s award lecture, aptly title “Mentors, Methods, and Manuscripts,” will be delivered on Tuesday, April 21st.

See the ASPET Award Winners website for more information.

A True Love Potion (or Vaccine, Depending on How You Look at It)

“Treat yourself on Valentines Day… if you don’t love yourself then you will never be able to love others in a meaningful way.”
–Catherine Pulsifer, from Valentines Day is NOT only for Lovers

Some people call it a Hallmark holiday, others see it as a media-instructed opportunity to express themselves to a loved one, and retailers see it as a welcome upswing to propel their profits out of the post-holiday downturn. But no matter how it’s viewed, Valentine’s Day boils down to two points of view– either it’s a wonderful celebration of love between bipeds or a great excuse for singles to stay inside, eat ice cream, and catch up on their favorite TV shows (muting the love-inspired commercials, of course).

Who can help rectify these competing views on the same emotion? What can possibly affect these human instincts so each individual affected can function properly in daily life? Who can stop you from making an ass out of yourself when you meet someone that propels your fancy? SCIENCE, THAT’S WHO!

In the latest issue of Nature, neuroscientist Larry Young has come up with solutions for all aspects of love. There is one potion that can bring the “spark” back into your love life, or help you get over the crippling effects of heartbreak, and if you are of the creepy/stalker variety, it won’t be long before you can chemically woo a woman into loving you.

Continue reading: A love vaccine might be just the thing by John Tierney.

And, happy Valentine’s Day.