Targeting cellular mechanisms for the treatment of HIV

An article by Readinger et al entitled “Selective targeting of ITK blocks multiple steps of HIV replication” and published (free access) in the May 6th edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has been receiving a certain amount of press recently and for good reason.

Most therapeutic approaches to the treatment of HIV infection have been—and continue to be—built on the idea of attacking mechanisms of the virus itself. Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) is an example of this. However, antiretroviral resistant strains of HIV are appearing, thus reducing the efficacy of these treatments.

One potential path for increasing the arsenal of HIV treatments is to target cellular mechanisms that are essential to HIV infection. Indeed HIV, as is the case with all viruses, must hijack cellular mechanisms in order to reproduce itself. In their article, Readinger’s team reports on their research into a cellular protein called “Inducible T cell kinase”, or ITK for short. This cellular protein is essential, at least in vitro, for T-cell activation and appears to play a key role in several steps of HIV replication. Its inactivation, which they experimented using ITK-specific siRNA or a chemical inhibitor with the charming name of BMS509744, may thus be of therapeutic importance.

Squeaky ceramic hip replacements

The New York Times published an article today on a subject that would be kind of funny if it wasn’t so serious.

Apparently a number of patients who received new ceramic hip replacements, which (were thought to(?)) have the advantage of a longer duration period than their steel and plastic counterparts, are experiencing squeaking from the implants during even normal movements. One fellow in particular has found this particularly irritating: “It can interrupt sex when my wife starts laughing,” he said.

These sometimes irritating and at least distracting sounds could signal more important problems. Healthcare professionals are concerned that the lifespan of the implant may not be as good as expected, but the main fear of some doctors is that the implants may break, leaving a mess of ceramic shards in the surrounding tissues.

Nevertheless, orthopedic surgeons are suggesting a watchful waiting approach, unless the squeaking is accompanied by more serious complications. Indeed, undergoing a second surgery to fix the problem may be worse than the problem itself.

Read the article: “That Must Be Bob. I Hear His New Hip Squeaking.” (strangely in the business section)

Daily dose of Wow: Nanoscale images redux

The fine crew of technology hunters at Wired.com is definitely into nanoscale images.

I’ve already had you visit a previous Wired article on knockout nanoscale images, so what do ‘ya say we do it again? After all, a little nano-world eye candy is absolutely perfect for a laid-back Saturday. Enjoy!

“Nano Photos Rival Modern Art“

Oh really? What a surprise!

From the Reuters Science and Health category:

“Experts say sex abstinence program doesn’t work“

To summarize, the article reports on studies and reports from medical experts indicating that Bush and Republican supported sex abstinence programs are not reducing teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) nor are they increasing the age when sexual activity begins. They also emphasized that these programs may be doing more harm than good by not providing sufficient knowledge to teenagers on how to avoid pregnancy and STDs if they should have sexual relations.

These health professionals from the American Public Health Association, U.S. Institute of Medicine, American Psychological Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommend instead comprehensive sexual education programs, that provide America’s youth with knowledge they need to make intelligent decisions, including abstinence, concerning sexual activity.

Did you notice how this ties in with my “blogging American Unreason” series (see the preceding two posts)? Indeed this is a perfect—but oh how it’s a perfect—example of American anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism in living action. Check out this quote taken from the second page of the Reuters article:

“Rep. John Duncan, a Tennessee Republican, said that it seems ‘rather elitist’ that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents what type of sex education is appropriate. ‘I don’t think it’s something we should abandon,’ he said of abstinence-only funding.”

Did you notice how he doesn’t try to demonstrate falsehood of the rational argument the “people with academic degrees in health” are stating, he just accuses them of being “elitist”. You have there ad hominem anti-intellectualism combined with anti-rationalism. That’s bad enough, but then he goes on to pander to parents by saying that they know better about sexual education than medical experts do. This is political manipulation: I think it is safe to say that most reasonably intelligent adults with kids, when they think about it, would say that sexual education of their children requires the engagement of both the parents and the schooling system. Duncan’s panders to knee-jerk reactions in fundamentalist and uneducated Americans, and hopes that the others will just go along out of laziness. And note as well how he says he “thinks” that abstinence-only funding should not be abandoned. He “thinks” it because he cannot provide rational, tangible evidence of its efficacy and furthermore he is confronted with rational, tangible evidence of its non-efficacy. The poor thing.

“Thinking” and “believing”, and their diverse bed-partners are red-flag words; they mean that the person is speaking without knowledge and/or expressing an opinion (which comes down to the same thing). That’s a reality of the human experience and everyone not only has the right to do so, but in certain cases the obligation to do so. Nevertheless, we all need to be able to make the difference between opinion and scientifically-established evidence. The latter is not necessarily ‘proof’, and researchers will be the first to tell us that, but it’s already a much more legitimate argument than “I think”.

But here in particular, we have an illustration of anti-rationalism that is, in all probability, doing harm to American youth. When is America going to put aside its puritan anti-rational silliness concerning sex? Why are Americans (parents, in particular) so freaked out about the human body, and why are the trying to “protect” their kids from knowing how it works? The result of this bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach is a first-place finish for teen pregnancy rates in the industrialized world (be sure to scroll down and look at the chart).

Knowledge is power, especially when it’s about our kids and their future.

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Vulgarizing the “top 5″ most promising new cancer treatments

In my work I’m sometimes called upon to vulgarize medical information. It’s an exercise that isn’t as easy as it seems; having the ability to knock down medical complexity to something even grandma can understand demands not only a good control of medical knowledge, but a good command of common English also.

I was taking a look at this article, “Top 5 Viable New Cancer Treatments” at Wired.com and just loved how the author, Aaron Rowe, explained the foray of vaccines into the treatment of cancer:

“In some instances, the scientists take whole cells from a tumor, kill them, and then douse them with molecules that are known to anger the immune system before injecting them back into a patient.”

I found that the idea of molecules “angering” the immune system is really a great way of expressing the concept of immune system stimulation in a simple way; it’s an excellent “image” for those who are not familiar with the immune system.

Bravo from Wandering electrons to Aaron. Keep up the good work!

Fun with cognitive dissonance

Check out this flippy article from the New York Times, written by John Tierney entitled,

“And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw“

The article touches on a few questions concerning cognitive dissonance theory. This theory was first proposed by Leon Festinger in 1957. In very simple terms, cognitive dissonance tries to explain how the mind attempts to reconcile contradictory thoughts.

Tierney’s article is a fun meander into some possibly erroneous ideas that have come out of past experiments. Be sure to play the Monty Hall problem. I must have really bad luck, because even when I do like you’re supposed to to increase your chances of winning, I still lose.

Exploring the “Visible Body” Beta

Do you remember the “visible body” models we had as kids? You know, the little guy with his organs exposed… you were supposed to be fascinated by the science of it all when your grandmother gave you one as a birthday present, but instead you said, “I wanted a GI Joe”, embarrassing the living daylights out of your mom.

Well, that’s what I did.

Anyhoo, if you remember, they were pretty limited; you could pop out the liver, the lungs and the heart, maybe the eyes if your Grandma offered you the high-end model (mine didn’t), but, well, let’s just say that it was a dive into human anatomy at the uninterested 6 to 10 year-old crowd level.

Let’s fast forward now to the 21st century and imagine what could be done with the same concept, but using the power of the web, 3-dimensional modeling and one heaping dose of serious. What do you get?

www.visiblebody.com

This interactive, 3-D, web-based program is still in Beta, but already the potential is enormous! According to its developers, the current setup is designed for use at an undergraduate gross anatomy course level, which may be a bit generous as a description, at least for the moment. But for us non-doctors, there’s already a (very) good amount of information, and it’s all free. You will be asked however to create an account and I recommend that you use your junk-mail address, as they are sufficiently honest to say “We collect personal information on this site” right on the home page.

They’re currently staying a little vague as to the future of the project. I think even more detailed models are to come, but they may be pay-for additions. However I do get the impression that the basic model will stay free for use.

As I mentioned, it is a Beta, and it will be interesting to see what happens as the project evolves. I for one would like to see a little bit more precision in the tissue rendering and especially the addition of a regional anatomy function; currently you only have the choice of a system-based approach. Also, certain systems are not yet complete. For example, the lymphatic system does not go any further than the thymus and the spleen; no lymphatic vessels or nodes for the moment. But already, I know of no other web-based human gross anatomy tool that gives you this level of overall performance, at least not for free.

Be sure to watch the introductory video here. It’ll save you a bit of time when you fire up the puppy for the first time (fair warning, I managed to spend half a day on the website!).

Further reading:
Vanessa Ruiz had the opportunity to interview the CEO of Argosy Publishing, Andrew Bowditch, on the development and future of this project. She has published the interview on her blog “Street Anatomy“:

Under the Skin of Argosy’s Visible Body

Other good things to know:
The program currently runs in and is compatible only with the Internet Explorer browser. Upon installation, two plug-ins will also be added: a Macromedia Flash Player and the Anark Client version 4. The latter will appear in your Control Panel and in Add/Remove programs. Don’t delete it thinking it’s just junk!

Could bacteria live in clouds?

The ability of bacteria to adapt to just about every environment that the earth can create is well-established. Hot, cold, acids, bases, high pressure, low pressure, radiation, you name it, there’s probably a bacteria that can live in it.

Reality check:
Don’t think that humans rule the earth; we don’t rule jack-squat. Bacteria are the King of life on this planet, they have been since the dawn of life and probably will be until our little rock melts in the supernova red giant of our dying sun (and even then…). If you can’t bring yourself around to accepting that, I recommend “Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin” by Steven Jay Gould.

Olivia Judson, in her blog “The Wild side“, has put up a post about what might be considered the last great holdout of livable environments on earth: the sky. Oh sure, lot’s of living things can be found in the sky, but it has always been considered a place of passage, not a place to put down roots.

In the post she discusses the implications of a recent article by Birgit Sattler et al in Geophysical Research Letters that puts forward the concept that cloud water may need to be considered as a microbial habitat.

Fun and flippy reading and no need to be an evolutionary biologist, as she is, to understand it. Here’s her post:

When Life Goes Cloudy

Daily dose of Wow: nanoscale images

Check out this tour of the truly itty bitty at Wired.com:

Scientists Scan Striking Nanoscale Images

Is your doctor down in the dumps?

The British Medical Journal is highlighting this month an article by Fahrenkopf et al entitled “Rates of medication errors among depressed and burnt out residents: prospective cohort study“. When I read the title of this research article my first thought was here’s another “Duh study”; I mean wouldn’t you expect depressed and burned out doctors to make more errors?