Happy 10th Birthday to the Human Genome!

March 8, 2011 —In February, we marked the 10th anniversary of the publication of the human genome^1,2, otherwise known as the complete set of a human’s DNA. This historic publication has far-reaching implications for biomedical research and patient care. The National Human Genome Research Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, has outlined a strategic plan³ (found here) stretching from this historic publication to the eventual broad use of genetic medicine, clinical care based on the patient’s genetic information. This plan comprises five domains:

• Understand the structure of genomes
• Understand the biology of genomes
• Understand the biology of disease
• Advance the science of medicine
• Improve the effectiveness of healthcare

While these domains are broad guides for researchers and administrators, their implementation affects our everyday lives.

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Can Next-Generation Technology Help the UN’s Millennium Goal to Combat Malaria?

October 30, 2010 — Although of little concern in much of the world, malaria still plagues tropical and subtropical regions of the globe.  In 2008 alone, an estimated 863,000 people--85% of whom were children under 5 years of age—died from the disease¹.  Cognizant of malaria’s international impact, the United Nations (UN) raised awareness of the fight against malaria by including it as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set forth in its Millennium Declaration in 2000².  This particular MDG focused on “development and poverty eradication,” with a stated goal for 2015 to have “halted, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity³.” Using statistics from 2000 as a baseline, the UN set specific goals of a 50% reduction by the end of 2010 and a 75% reduction by 2015.  As of 2008, the work was well underway, with more than one third of malaria-affected countries documenting at least 50% reductions in cases¹.  However, there is still work to be done.

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Getting Under Your Skin: Melanomas and Cancer Stem Cells

August 15, 2010 — B!B contributor Katherine Bricceno’s back with insights into some of the latest trends in skin cancer treatment, with protein-related techniques used to identify cancer stem cells opening up avenues for development of targeted—and possibly even personalized—treatment of tumors.

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Now that it is summer, we are spending more time outdoors enjoying the sun.  More than in summers past, we conscientiously apply sunscreen.  As we all know, the attention to sunscreen and concern about skin cancer have merit.  The National Cancer Institute estimates more than one million cases of skin cancer  will be reported in the United States in 2010; and while fewer than one thousand people are predicted to die from non-melanoma skin cancer¹, that number climbs to 8,700 deaths if melanomas are included².

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Heart of a Lion and Flying Feet of a Gazelle: Delving into the Secrets of Racehorse Biomechanics

"A little horse with the heart of a lion and the flying feet of a gazelle  yesterday proved his place as the gamest thoroughbred that ever raced over an American track." 

— Grantland Rice in the Baltimore Sun, reporting on Seabiscuit’s 1938 Pimlico Special match race victory over War Admiral¹

July 9, 2010 — Given Grantland Rice’s penchant for beautiful prose and romanticization of sport, his depiction of one of the greatest horse races in history was surely written more with drama and poetry in mind than modern science. However, this line is surprisingly telling of characteristics found by today’s equine biomechanists, physiologists, and geneticists to be common features in top thoroughbred racehorses.

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Temporary Tattoos Go High Tech for Diabetes Care

July 2, 2010 — Remember those little temporary tattoos that sometimes came with cereal boxes or gum when you were a kid?  By the time you’d stuck them on your arm and clumsily sloshed water over the top, they generally looked more like a warped, multicolored smudge than a star, baseball bat, or Tony the Tiger.  Temporary tattoos have come a long way since then, though; and today, MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering is developing a high tech version to monitor the blood glucose level of diabetics.

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Olympic Dreams

July 2, 2010 — With my third year at Oxford winding down and the end now in sight, jobs have been on my mind.  I'm hoping to head down an entirely different career path, but I can't resist sharing this posting, which I received via the the Biomech-L listserv.  It's from the U.S. Olympic Committee, and they're looking for someone to join their Sport Performance Division.  Take a look, and I think you'll agree that this would be a ridiculously cool job: loads of technology at your disposal; expert co-workers; domestic and international travel; representing USOC at events; adapting military, aerospace, and new media technology to sports performance; working with some of the world's most amazing athletes; etc.  Check out the full job posting after the jump!

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No Relegation to the Footnotes for the Headline-Grabbing “Cairo Toe”

April 4, 2010 — My husband and I recently visited London’s British Museum, where he surprised me by finding—of all things—an ancient prosthetic toe.  Convinced he’d stumbled across a little-publicized gem in the midst of the museum’s mind-bogglingly huge collection, I excitedly searched online when we got home to see what I could learn.  I expected information to be sparse (who else would get excited about a fake toe when the Rosetta Stone’s just around the corner?) but was shocked to find I wasn’t the only one.  In fact, ancient prosthetic toes were a hot topic in 2007 in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere.

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All New This Flu Season: Strain, Vaccines, and (Potentially) Treatments

March 14, 2010 — In April of last year, influenza A H1N1, or “swine flu,” led the news.  People watched attentively as the number of confirmed cases and affected countries grew, with the spread deemed particularly newsworthy since this strain of influenza had not circulated before in humans; it was a new flu.  In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared influenza A H1N1 a pandemic¹.  Following the announcement, governments released stockpiles of antiviral drugs and researchers increased efforts to prepare a vaccine.  In October, the vaccine for influenza A H1N1 became available in the United States², the United Kingdom³, France⁴, and Canada⁵, among many other countries.  After initial shortages, vaccine production expanded.  By the end of 2009, more than 85 million doses were available in the United States².  However not all countries were able to quickly produce vaccines.  WHO called for an international effort to allow equal access to vaccines and received about 200 million doses of donated vaccines which will go to 95 countries requesting aide⁶.  By February, WHO planned to have distributed vaccines to 14 countries; but only two, Mongolia and Azerbaijan, have received them.  WHO officials note such distributions present considerable logistical challenges; still the efforts continue⁷. 

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Things You Can Learn by Poking Yourself in the Eye

February 14, 2010 — Every university has a classic course, one with a professor or subject matter that becomes the stuff of campus legend.  At Kansas State University, where I got my undergraduate degree, that class was Appreciation of Architecture.  The waitlist each semester was massive, but Professor Seamon always managed to squeeze in everyone who wanted to come. We’d sit back and relax in the darkened lecture hall as he showed photos and regaled us with colorful commentary on everything from a tiny park in New York City to the rose window of Notre Dame. “When you walk in and see those colors, it’s just like being high,” he’d say, year after year.  After a long pause punctuated by gasps and giggles, he’d continue huffily, “Well, it was the 60’s, you know!” 

It seems that Jeremy Wolfe, a professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and a senior lecturer at MIT, might give Professor Seamon a run for his money with his wildly popular visual-perception seminar on “Ten Things You Can Learn by Poking Yourself in the Eye.”  I had hoped to find a video of the lecture, but we’ll have to settle for descriptions of some of the experiments. 

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Toe Strength and Falling Among the Elderly

February 6, 2010 — My grandfather recently fell and broke his hip while “tinkering outside behind the workshop” on his Texas farm. Initially, the trauma of the incident and the painful surgery and rehabilitation blurred his memory of the specifics, but our suspicions that the real story included some quicker-than-most-octogenarians-can-handle movements away from a larger-than-expected flame were eventually confirmed when his recollection became clearer.  As it turns out, he’d used too much gasoline to start a fire in a burn barrel while disposing of some falling ceiling material from an old shed. Whether it was a reflexive jump away or the power of the blast itself that knocked him off balance, we’ll never know. The drama of Grandpa’s fall certainly isn't the norm, though, with many researchers suggesting that falls by the elderly are often due to something surprisingly simple: toe weakness and deformity.

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Sundance Film Festival Presents: "Glottal Opera"

February 1, 2010 — I never thought I'd be posting something from a film festival on a biomed site; but I've just watched an official selection from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival which left me mesmerized and, admittedly, a bit disturbed. Titled "Glottal Opera," it features a performance of the song "My Lips" by the vocal cords (the title was no joke!) of the ladies of the musical group Kaya. Intrigued?  Watch the film after the jump, and don't forget to brush up on the vocal cord anatomy and mechanics described in "From Steven Tyler's Screams to Pavarotti's High C--The Science of Singing"!

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What Hot Springs and Yogurt Have in Common: Beneficial Bacteria

January 28, 2010 — Whether it is by a TV advertisement for a new anti-bacterial kitchen disinfectant or a fellow commuter with a bottle of Purell^® peeking out of her purse, we’re constantly reminded that bacteria are bad. That is not always the case, though; and in the following article, contributor Katherine Bricceno examines the “beneficial bacteria” found in two very different places: hot springs and yogurt.

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Thousands of New Amputees Struggling for Aid in Haiti

January 28, 2010 — MSNBC has just posted a story by health writer JoNel Aleccia about the staggering number of amputees created by the Haitian earthquake and the tremendous aid efforts which will be required to care for them.  Though estimates are difficult to make during the chaotic early stages of disaster relief, anywhere from a few thousand to over 110,000 amputations are believed to have taken place since the quake.  Putting this into an amputations-per-day context clarifies the horror, with the most conservative estimates by aid workers interviewed for the report suggesting that at least 75 people per day have lost limbs.  The magnitude of the quake would generally be expected to result in hundreds of amputations, rather than thousands; but factors ranging from the high population density at the center of the quake to the number of health and aid agencies that were destroyed in the disaster have led to the abnormally high count.  The full story can be found here, and MSNBC's list of groups aiding victims of the earthquake as they face the challenges of amputation can be found after the jump.

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The Potential of the Stem Cell Niche: An Overview of Stem Cell Science and Politics

January 19, 2010 — Whew! It's been a busy month, but we're happy to be back and apologize for the huge gap in posting! Today, B!B welcomes a special contribution from Dr. Catherine M. Kolf, who recently completed a Ph.D. in biology from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Kolf specializes in the effect of microenvironments on the behavior of mesenchymal stem cells and is also committed to sharing her love of science with non-specialists, currently teaching "Humankind in the Biological World" to non-science majors at the University of Baltimore. In the article below, Dr. Kolf discusses the exciting potential for advancements via research on adult stem cells, rather than on highly controversial embryonic stem cells—a path which she asserts may ultimately allow researchers to proceed both with fewer scientific hurdles and with fewer ethical and political roadblocks.

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Trailblazing: A Sampling of the Best of the Last 350 Years of Science

December 2, 2009 — In celebration of its 350th anniversary, Britain’s Royal Society has launched Trailblazing, a fascinating interactive timeline highlighting sixty of the greatest scientific publications featured in the pages of its journals from 1665 to 2010. With online access to original manuscripts supplemented by commentary from modern-day experts, it’s a unique glimpse into the work of some of the scientific world’s greatest researchers--both quiet geniuses and renowned icons.

Beyond the simple wow-factor of so much great science (including many medical studies) in one place, I was particularly taken by the amusing writing styles of the older papers.  Many read almost as if the author were having a conversation with a friend, making them much more enjoyable than the dry, bare-bones articles often published today.  Furthermore, the inclusion of major historical events on the timeline helped put the discoveries into a context often not discussed in science classes. 

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Personalizing the Human Genome Project

November 22, 2009 — The 1997 movie Gattaca depicts a world where a person’s entire genetic make-up is known at birth and used to predict everything from the level of his intelligence to the cause of his death. While this movie depicts science fiction, the sequencing of the human genome in 2003 brought the movie’s plot closer to reality. After the jump, guest contributor Katherine Bricceno, a graduate researcher in Bethesda, Maryland, guides B!B readers through the basics of the Human Genome Project, discusses its future application in personalized medicine, and identifies some of the complex ethical issues currently being addresses by the U.S. Congress.

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A Woman Is Like a Pressure Vessel? Merging Engineering and Obstetrics

November 5, 2009 — I had just called my husband to tell him about an interesting lecture I attended, and he couldn’t wait to share with his co-worker in the cubicle caddy-corner to his.

“Now, hear me out, Bob. A woman is like a pressure vessel, becau—”

Several female heads popped around the corner, and my husband quickly found himself in dangerous territory.

While comparing a woman with a pressure vessel certainly has the makings of a disaster, for researchers combining biomedical engineering and obstetrics, it’s an angle through which to study a serious problem: premature birth due to early rupture of the fetal membranes. Though mechanical failure of the membranes and the subsequent release of amniotic fluid (“water breaking”) is a normal signifier of the onset of labor, preterm premature rupture of the fetal membranes (pPROM) is a leading cause of preterm birth, occurring in about 3-5% of human pregnancies¹.

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From Steven Tyler's Screams to Pavarotti's High C—The Science of Singing

October 20, 2009 — B!B's biomedical engineer recently hosted a dinner party attended by a rather diverse group of friends. While one can easily envision her chatting with a gear-head mechanical engineer, an earthquake-loving civil engineer, and a soon-to-be-med-student molecular biologist, the scene included two oddities rarely found amongst engineers and scientists. Rounding out this happily geeky group were Lawrence Thain, organ scholar at New College, Oxford, and Nick Daly, a classicist and baritone who sings in the college’s world famous choir.

After much rambling conversation, ranging from the recent Hugh Grant sighting in college to whether or not the college’s ever-entertaining butler Nigel really used to be Elizabeth Taylor’s personal assistant, the group attempted to cross the great sciences/humanities divide. The classicist admitted he faked his understanding of the biomedical engineer's research at a post-concert party several months earlier—a crushing blow, given her excitement at the time at having found someone outside the lab who cared.  The organist and classicist reached out to the civil engineer by saying they remembered watching a video of “some bridge that fell” in school. The mechanical engineer jumped (literally jumped out of his seat, that is) at the opportunity to relate the resonance frequency of bridges to harmonic frequencies of music; and the biomedical engineer informed the organist that next time his instructor tried to get him to practice more, he could cite focal dystonia as a reason to not.

Finally, the classicist exclaimed, “Surely, there’s loads of biomedical research about the vocal cords!” B!B has found this to be quite true, so turn up your music and rock read on!

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Gems amidst the Rubble: Writing Worth Reading in the U.S. Healthcare Debate

October 11, 2009 — It’s been difficult lately to escape the squabbling amongst U.S. politicians over healthcare reform.  Whether it’s "death panels," "You Lie!," or the claim that Republicans want people who get sick to "die quickly," the debate has been characterized by a marked lack of thoughtfulness.  Thankfully, a few gems can be found amidst the rubble, providing interesting insights without falling into the trap of partisan blather.  After the jump, I list a few that I think are worth a look.

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Prosthetics with Aesthetics

October 6, 2009 — Actress, model, athlete, and double amputee Aimee Mullins boasts a prosthetic leg collection which might be comparable to many people’s shoe collections: Cheetah^® legs for sprinting, biking, and swimming; four human-like pairs with varying heel heights; an everyday pair with shock absorbers and a spring; and six other pairs which can best be described as high fashion. While tremendous strides have been made toward realistic-looking prosthetics, a new trend is emerging toward artistic prosthetics which can be a means of individual expression.

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Rowers' High: Relating Behavioral Synchrony and Pain Tolerance

October 3, 2009 — Having rowed for my college at Oxford and found it an intensely painful but oddly addictive experience (I suspect there are a few of you out there nodding right now), I was intrigued by this new research out of the University of Oxford Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology.  In a study of 12 rowers from Oxford's Boat Race team, researchers found that team members were able to tolerate twice as much pain after training together than after training on their own.

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Dear [Player Name], next time, please use an initial angle of ____ and initial velocity of ____.

September 18, 2009 — College basketball may not quite be right around the corner, but B!B’s Lisa Martin has compiled a review which will make you nearly as intolerable a fan as the typical armchair coach. Now, when [Rival Team's Star] steps up to the line and chokes, you’ll be able to take gloating to a whole new level, proudly exclaiming to your friends exactly why he or she missed and what the coach should do about it.

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The Politics of Prosthetics: Insuring America's Lower-Limb Amputees

September 12, 2009 — B!B believes, as Dean Gordon Brown once said, that "engineers operate at the interface between science and society," making an occasional glimpse into the world of politics and related fields well-advised. In the following article, an updated version of that originally published in the 2009 New Collection (ISSN 1757-2541), B!B's Lisa Martin partners with Angela Cummine,* an MPhil candidate in Political Theory in Oxford University's Department of Politics and International Relations, to discuss the just distribution of prosthetic limbs in the context of a luck egalitarian philosophical framework.

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From Gait Analysis to Automotive Aerodynamics

September 10, 2009 — B!B's branching out a bit today with a brief note about a new application of a familiar biomechanics technology:  the tracking of infrared light reflected from markers.  Many readers will be familiar with this technology through its use in gait labs (see video after the jump), while others will know little more about it than that film and video-game producers use it to track the movements and even facial expressions of their actors in order to create realistic animated figures (in another video after the jump).  For engineers at UK automotive research consultancy MIRA, though, the technology spawned a novel means of improving automotive aerodynamics using Vicon motion-capture cameras to track the individual three-dimensional motions of hundreds of 3 mm diameter neutral buoyancy helium-filled bubbles about a vehicle.

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Can't get the jelly jar open?

September 3, 2009 — B!B suspects you've been there: you open the refrigerator in search of a snack, find what you want, and are stymied by a stubborn jar. You twist and twist—nothing. You run water over it. You try gripping with a wet dishcloth. Hunger begins to wear you down. To hear you would make Monica Seles (who registered a 93.2 decibel grunt at Wimbledon in 1992) blush. Then in steps your household jar opening expert, who pops it right open. What’s the deal? B!B takes a look at the kinematics of jar opening, from youth to old age.

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