During the camp, I passed out an article from US News and World Report about lab-grown meat.  We happened to look at forming in vitro (on a petri dish) muscle during the camp, but that barely begins the process of making something we recognize as meat.  Check out the link here.

I assure you that your daughters were all quite safe!  And remember, Jenna, us Libras disarm our enemies (the few we have) with much more subtlety, grace and charm than this. I love this picture, Katie and Jenna are great actresses!  Thanks, Jess, for taking this picture.

Hope you all caught the red food coloring here.  Katie is not really bleeding, obviously.  Jenna and I talked about astrological signs for half a lunch, ultimately deciding that while astrology was a curiosity, it was still unscientific. But....if you have to be an astrological sign, we're pretty sure that Libra is probably a good one to be! Regardless, variety is the spice of life, so I guess the others are worth having around. 

My assistants Sarah, Jess, Jenna, Kate, Katie and Kristen, all worked extra hard for the girls today. And, we have a very promising engineer amongst our young ladies....

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....and THAT room had the radiation."

oh.

Tell me that BEFORE I open the door next time.  I am not interested in being "hot" like Marie Curie undoubtedly was.

Jenna, a former student from my courses and helper for her second year with the GAMES camp, and I had to go find the storage room holding supplies for the camp.  After a few weeks of chasing down the key and coordinating schedules, we finally went to lunch together and ventured to the basement of the Materials Science Engineering Building in search of these boxes.  A young man was in the elevator with us, probably wondering what two pretty gals were doing going to this pit of a basement. As we exited, he gave the directions listed in the title, either being witty or chivalrous, I'm not sure. 

We didn't know where this room was so we went on an adventure.  Attractive women plus a creepy, dirty, dark and dank basement (no spiders or rodents....that I could see...too bad, actually). Somehow it had all the ingredients of a horror movie.  But, Jenna and I, being of the curious science persuasion, explored every corner looking for the room, with me trying the key in every door possible. We came back to where we started and looked over to a very open door into a room with boxes.  Lo and behold, there they were!  I put the key in the open door, just to be certain.  Yep.  What can I say?  It was the only lit, well kept place in that basement and we ignored it for 20 minutes.

I think I don't really have a point to this note except to point out that my job is quite varied!  For instance, I'm trying to reconstruct a skeleton.  While you might think it is the ultimate tissue engineering project (ascorbic acid and beta glycerol phosphate, anyone?), it's not.  It is actually made out of card stock. Med school anatomy pays off?  I cut, folded and glued for more hours than I can guess and made a very nice full size articulated skeleton, which has fallen in disrepair in the nine years that have lapsed since then.  It needs to be re-articulated.  Check it out...my deadline is by August 3, the start of GAMES. Maybe the girls can be photographed with it....we'll give it some top model's name, I can even let it wear my fake ponytail; if I decide not to wear it, that is.

            

I finished Stiff last night at Aroma Café, trying not to disturb other patrons with my giggling, and most certainly trying not to snort iced tea out of my nose.  Her sense of humor just floors me!  I can be one of those obnoxious people who barges in and reads aloud the parts of books that are hilarious to me, so it was best that I stayed away from people I know otherwise I would've probably wore them out.  I thought briefly about vlogging myself reading her stuff, but that probably requires special permission and seems incredibly self centered...but then again, some of you may never pick up her books, so I might be doing you a favor.  Send me a note an let me know if you'd be interested in seeing me read her stuff!

Pioneering heart surgeon Michael DeBakey from Houston passed away yesterday (at age 99!).  He performed the first coronary bypass surgery and some of the first heart transplants. It is pretty easy to segue into tissue engineering at this point as there is strong interest in creating the vessels for bypass surgery so we don't need to use the saphenous vein from the thigh (which lasts only about 10-12 years--requiring more surgery eventually), and interest in artificial hearts is of importance as donors are in lower supply than those requiring them.

If you catch this post before I finish about the blood vessels, check back later...I'm going to help a friend film something for a potential job.....

Yes!  I won't do all the talking on this one as I found this on another blog (Gene Expression via Science blogs--and check out Razib's breakdown of this in another post), but I can tell you I am super thrilled to find this information, even if it is probably incomplete or inaccurate, as many of these studies relying on "quizzing" people might be (and some of the questions leave something to be desired, as well). The data is from 2003 and compares only the US and the EU.

Basically, adults in the US are only superceded by the Swedes in scientific literacy!  Oh joy!!! I hope this means that means the educational system works well, or that science TV and the media's dissemination of information has been effective.  I will have to check out the actual paper to see if there are any conclusions along those lines.

If you can define what a stem cell is, tell someone that it is "false" that an ordinary tomato has no genes and genetically modified ones do, and a few other things, you might be considered scientifically literate! As I live in a university town, I find that most people here are scientifically literate, and if they aren't, they will readily admit their shortcomings or their general lack of enthusiasm for the subject, which I admire. A little humility goes a long way with me.

Speaking of science outreach, I am FINALLY reading the first book by Mary Roach, called Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.  The first one I read (her third book) was Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which I just enjoyed with every cell in my body.  Her humor is so awesome "Again with the pyrex tubes."---read the book to find out what this means!  WAIT! First, a disclaimer! This book is not for everyone.  You know who you are, and if you don't know, I will tell you: if you are a middle schooler or maybe even a high schooler with a parent who would not approve, or your religious affiliation will not approve--DON"T READ IT or I will personally come snatch that book right out of your hands and give you a disapproving look and ground you from emailing or texting anyone for at least a week! 

Mary Roach is now officially on my list of people I most want to invite to dinner. I'll add her to Reza Aslan (author of No god but God-a great book describing Islam--while I'm not a Muslim, I like how he expressed himself) and Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe--about string theory) and Alan Alda.  They don't have to come all at once as I'm not necessarily the "hostess with the mostess", but I'd certainly try and definitely hope wonderful conversation would be the centerpoint of the evening.

I've been reading Stiff during incubation times of some experiments and microscope training I've been doing (sometimes sitting on the mysterious disappearing Beckman Institute couches and sometimes lying on the benches and walls on the engineering quad--yes, that long person stretched out looking like me is really me!).  I found, strangely, that I can read about decomposition and other gruesome things even while eating.  I suppose if it was a "scratch and sniff" book, I probably would not be nearly so stoic about the whole thing!  The full body dissection course I took in grad school with the medical students helped me come to terms with death and dead bodies, at least on one level.  I have no macabre fascination or anything like that....I just stepped a little closer to accepting this as a fact of life, and Mary Roach found a way to make the whole thing respectfully entertaining.  If you have the stomach for this or the curiosity, I highly recommend it!  I think all you pre-meds will especially appreciate it.

Next post later this weekend will be about the death of heart surgery pioneer DeBakey and tissue engineering of artificial blood vessels.  Until next post,

Kindly,

Joanne

Gosh, so long since I posted.  This would be because I've been working like crazy helping out Dr. B and Dr. I with their projects (more excitement...I get a small little part as a co-investigator on a NIH grant--a first for me...moving up in the science world I guess).  Most of it involves background research reading papers, papers and more papers, and actually finding just the magic key words that will get me the info I am looking for.  By the time I put this mental energy for numerous hours in a day, the last thing I want to do is use words. I could've used an assistant.

And my sis and her kids came in town, as did my friend from New York, so no escaping talking, either.....so writing has been sacrificed....which is slowing down the sample I would like to write of a layman's book about Tissue Engineering based on a beautiful technical book by some leaders in the field called Translational Approaches in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.  The authors are 100% behind me but now I need to find a publisher.  I envision a book like Stem Cell Now.  I imagine there would be a market among science hobbyists, students needing to write science papers or just curious members of the public wondering where the field stands. Wouldn't you like to know of alternatives to xenograph (from animal) or allograph (from other humans) tranplantations? Want a better ACL repair strategy all you weekend warriors and football players? What are the pros and cons of all of this? Where do stem cells fit in?  The great thing about the appearance of Translational Approaches is that the background research is done and I just need to 'translate' it and find some info on creating artificial blood vessels because that seems to have been overlooked.

Back to my papers and DNA:  As I was reading all of these papers, trying to find how we can influence epithelial cells to become cancerous through epigenetic changes from chemicals secreted by the supporting stromal cells and then test to know they ARE indeed cancerous, I kept running across papers I thought would be useful until I realized the researcher had added a plasmid to the cells to make them do what they want!  I was looking for epigenetic changes that could be consistently relied on and instead had to read about transfections and plasmids instead. I know full well that manipulating the DNA to create a model in which to work is valid, but it was not helping me, and had me thinking long and hard about purity in biology.  Where is the point where we have manipulated an organism so it is no longer a valid model, where the results we get can no longer possibly represent any in vivo condition?  And then I think of the breakthrough released in February where the researchers created a "stem cell" from a skin cell by inserting four genes, causing the cell to revert to a pluripotent state, saving many embryos from destruction..... BUT...... two of the genes turn these cells cancerous!  A small snag to say the least....but at least we've shown it can be done. Read about it at Science Daily. Something to think about.

My student evals came back for the semester.  Positive overall and I thank you guys for that. I read some of the comments aloud to the professor whose home I am staying at while the mold saga continues and he thought some of the comments were inappropriate, but I though they were sweet and harmless because they were in addition to the more constructive comments I always hope are there.  Maybe I will scan in some of the comments and make a powerpoint to post just so people can see what really goes on in the minds of students. Here's one:

"Never repeated an outfit! My favorite involved the electric blue pants--way cool!"    Yeah, I like the electric blue pants, too!  Until next post,

Kindly, Joanne

I found an interesting article a couple of weeks ago called "Science on TV: forms and reception of science programmes on French television" by Suzanne de Cheveigné and Eliséo Véron in the journal Public Understanding of Science (vol 5 (1996) pp.231-253).  Science programs, of course, are BIG here in the US and in the UK and less so in France (they hardly have any TV channels to watch--even fewer in 1996!) Regardless, these researchers were able to conduct interviews and categorize reactions that the general public had to watching science programs.

  Overall, the reactions depended upon two factors:
1) "the legitimacy accorded to television as a source of knowledge;
2) the type of memories left by their school experience"

From these two, they were able to schematically plot four main readings:

click here to continue reading

I guess I must be a scientific genealogist at heart.  I was trying to look up some info about fibronectin and it's interaction with the basement membrane, hoping to find some on the site of Alan F Horwitz, former head of the Cell and Structural Development Department here at the U of I and big name in integrin research (now at U of VA) and I ran across this.  

Scientific six degrees of separation, I guess.

I'm trying to keep up with posting....but along with my lab work and trying to figure out the big engineering project for the GAMES camp among other things, I actually have a sort of secret project I am working on.  I will let you all know what it is in a few days once it is done.  Wish me luck!

Science Daily just posted the story of a research team from Johns Hopkins, in trying to improve upon the newer way to create pluripotent stem cells using four genes inserted into a somatic cell to revert them to a ES-like state, found a quicker way by adding T antigen (a protein) from the SV-40 virus and then they subsequently introduced the mutation to make a cell line behave just like sickle cell anemia. 

Stem cells are often touted for their future medical potential, but it is important to remember that having cells that can express specific diseases in the laboratory will help further our understanding of what is happening during particular diseases without relying solely upon transgenic animals as models (transgenic animals have mutations made at an early embryonic stage so the entire animal expresses the disease) or without having to continually obtain samples from human patients.  And, for now, it is important to remember that these cells have been reverted to a so-called embryonic state by inserting cancer genes.  It is as of yet unclear the long term implications of using such cells for therapy purposes, but it does circumvent the ethical issues surrounding the use of ES cells.

OK, OK, I didn't want to post non-science stuff, but this is actually irresistible!  I discovered the other day that my dog ATE AN ENTIRE CASE OF RAMEN NOODLES! (not just for poor science graduate students anymore!).  I think she got tired of eating around the packaging, too, so ate some of that as well--along with the silver foil flavor packets.  Sigh.  I suspect she is feeling quite dehydrated as her digestive tract was busy reconstituting the noodles. Her poor kidneys are probably not too happy with her right now. And, I don't even want to imagine what her intestines must be going through!

Before I move on to the latest in the "more than I care to count" excursions to surgical waiting rooms, let me thank all of you who have sent me such nice notes about my website.  Thanks so much for taking the time to peruse what I have assembled in such a brief time. I will truly fall over if any of you make good on your promises (threats?) to make joannelovesscience.com your home page!!!

One student jokingly asked if I would be blogging about "the guy who cut me off in traffic" type of issues and my answer was "Only if it had a science topic I could relate to it!"  Rest assured, you will only listen to my personal stuff as long as it has a cell biology or bioengineering story. There seems to be no shortage of medical dramas surrounding me. 

I think my mom enjoys collecting surgical scars.  If anyone has heard me over the course of a few months, you surely have heard of anyone of the numerous surgeries she has had. She has almost given up every non-essential organ (still has two kidneys, though) and is slowly getting many artificial replacement parts. Today, though, I waited while another family member had surgery for a dancing injury. Condensed version: osteochondral defect of the first metatarsal.  In this case,   The cartilage was still intact, but the bone had caved in, creating a crater.  The orthopedic surgeon has promised me a video or a picture--excellent!  There were two options for this surgery, depending on what he found when he cut open the toe.  1) if the cartilage was intact, he was going to drill several small holes through the cartilage into the bone in order to bring blood to the area and accelerate healing or 2) if the cartilage was peeling away, he was going to implant a hydroxyapatite plug to facilitate the healing.  Disappointingly for all of you bioengineers, I'm sad to report that it was NOT option 2, thus the doc's promise to give me a video.

On the plus side, besides a successful surgery and good prognosis, I may have a potential collaboration with the doc about creating implants infused with the patient's own growth factors to stimulate healing.  I don't have details, but I think this would be incredibly interesting. 

How bone heals and why blood or hydroxyapatite are useful........ 

impotent against IgE and more! Some of you here will recognize these proteins and cells as some of those that are key players in the allergic response!

I was looking forward to 10 weeks of not living in a bed and breakfast (although the ladies at the Senator's Inn and Retreat were just amazing) or imposing upon my friends by house sitting for some professors who are in Europe for that time.  I suspected they had mold in their basement when I saw the place but had NO idea the extent to which I would react to it. The first morning I awoke from sleeping there, I was miserable. I am much more sensitive to mold than I ever thought! I will continue to collect their mail and water their plants, but I'm back with my friends' place because my own house has a mold overgrowth and I can't live there, either. Let's take a look at what happens when a certain bioengineering professor is exposed to mold (or dust, dust mites, cats, dogs and cockroaches)................

Click here to read about cells in an immediate hypersensitivity reaction (aka allergies) 

I have so many stories I could share about blood that I could probably talk your ear off (or is it blog your eyes out?  I don't know).  Today my theme is about blood related research--specifically menstrual blood being a good source of stem cells, transfusions not being as good as you might think and, of course, artificial blood. And I will tell about the giant football player who would NOT let the phlebotomist draw his blood!

If you are feeling generous one day, give blood!  As someone who has had a transfusion, I am always grateful for those people who donate blood.... 

click here to continue learning about the latest about blood stem cells and artificial blood