Ice Age 8: Return of the Woolly Mammoth

Scientists have gone on multiple trips to Siberia and other regions to try to excavate woolly mammoth DNA to use for cloning. However, trekking miles from real roads and rappelling down permafrost cliffs has yet to result in a complete sample for use usually because many samples are damaged from the ice or other disturbances. Scientists in South Korea however are still holding out hope for a true clone and continue expeditions searching for intact DNA. Knowing that they may never find the complete sample that they need, a separate team of scientists at Harvard University have recently began looking at creating a near-clone woolly mammoth using an elephant template, given that the elephant is a very close and living relative to the woolly mammoth. These scientists plan to use a technique called DNA splicing to insert pieces of woolly mammoth DNA into the elephant DNA by making individual changes to the genome as they discover them, almost like piecing together a puzzle. A driving force behind the motivation for cloning this extinct animal is to create hope for not only resurrection animals of the past, but also to protect animals that are currently endangered with a type of Plan B. Linked below is an article which discusses the ins and outs of this woolly mammoth cloning endeavor.

Cloning has been controversial from the first mention of the idea. Some people argue that it is “playing God” to manipulate genes to produce an exact copy of something which was already created before. Especially in regard to humans, cloning has undergone scrutiny in most communities due to the unnatural rhythm of the whole thing. Is it more ethical to use cloning to bring an animal back from the dead than it is to recreate a human? As soon as in the next few years, we might fight out people’s answer to this question.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/woolly-mammoths-extinction-cloning-genetics/

You've Gotta Hear About This

Cochlear implants are a great advance in technology that has given hundreds of thousands of people the ability to hear who otherwise would have gone their entire lives soundless. These implants are typically placed in individuals who are still in the developmental years because their brains are more able to adjust to the implant and therefore have the highest rate of success. When placed later in life, it is much more difficult for the individual to get used to the sudden input of sound and to interpret the new input in a way that benefits their life. The article linked below explores the communication ability differences between recipients of the implant at different ages.

Given the typically young age of recipients of this implant, parental consent is required for this procedure and it becomes controversial in some communities. The deaf community is a very proud one, and when a deaf child is deprived of the deaf experience (via cochlear implant), there have been frequent accounts of offense taken by the community. Children who are born deaf to deaf parents are less likely to receive an implant because they are a part of the same deaf community as their parents and the people that their parents likely associate with, so the parents see no hearing intervention necessary. Children who are born deaf to hearing parents are more likely to receive a cochlear implant because their parents are more likely to see the deafness as a problem that has a cure (the implant). 

The implant itself is an amazing device. People who are eligible for a cochlear implant typically have damage to the small hairs in their inner ear which pick up sound wave vibrations and send that signal to the auditory nerve. The implant works by bypassing this and directly sending the sound wave signal to the auditory nerve. The technology is incredible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should use it just because we have it. By receiving the implant, a child will be on the outside of the deaf community. On the other hand, by forgoing the implantation procedure, they may miss out on a multitude of experiences and opportunities. The conundrum is that the decision must be made while the child is still young in order to have the best outcome. Is it moral for parents to make such a significant decision for their child’s life before the child is fully able to make this decision themselves?

http://www.agbell.org/Document.aspx?id=455

No More Back Pain?

         Have you ever experienced lower back pain? 80% of the United States population will or has experienced lower back pain just from everyday, normal events. Generally, most back pain is acute, however, 20% of those original 80% have chronic back pain, or herniated disks. A herniated disk happens when the intervertebral disk is torn and the middle, jelly part (the nucleus pulposus) of the disk protrudes out. This protrusion causes the "pinched nerve" sensation and the pain flowing down into the legs which can be defined as chronic back pain.
        Until recently, the only cure for chronic back pain, besides exercise and medication, was surgery. There, however, has been new discoveries of a minimal invasive treatment using CT imaging and needles which has proven successful. With the help of CT imaging, doctors are able to insert a needle into the patients back and pinpoint the area of the bulging disk. A probe will then be inserted through the needle and deliver pulsed radiofrequency energy to the affected area over a 10 minute period. The probe will send gentle electrical pulses to the bulging disk. This pulse will relax and reduce the inflammation of the nucleus pulposus which in turn will reduce the distance between the vertebrae and reduce the patient's pain.
        This new discovery has seen a high success rate of reducing back pain. There were 80 test subjects in this procedure and 81% of the individuals needed only one 10 minute treatment to cure their chronic back pain, and 90% of the patients did not need to get surgery following this treatment to cure their chronic back pain.
        Considering that 80% of our population experiences lower back pain at some point in their lives, this discovery of a noninvasive cure could potentially be huge. We could save a lot of money and time by using this nonsurgical treatment.

What's it like to have a latent TB infection?

This was one of the craziest experiences I've ever had with my health. I was starting a CNA course and in order to be able to do my clinicals I needed to get a TB skin test done. In a skin test, a small amount of tuberculin which is a pure derivative of the disease is injected into the surface of your inner arm. You then let that incubate for 48-72 hours and what you should see is that the bubble that forms should be reduced and any redness around the area should also have dissipated. This is considered to be a negative result and no evidence of the disease is found.

If a person does have a positive skin test however the process of what treatment to use immediately begins to prevent it from spreading. This is what happened with me. I had a positive result where the injection was still raised and irritated.

To start treatment, doctors will order blood work and a chest x-ray. The blood work will look for evidence of the TB virus within the patient's body and to rule out any false positives while the chest x-ray tests for presence of active disease within the lungs. For me the chest x-ray came back negative but the virus was found in my blood which indicated that I had a latent infection.

To treat this I was put on 9 months of isoniazid which is the most common antibiotic used to treat TB infections.  I was able to complete my clinicals because I did not have active disease but it was nerve wracking knowing that you have a disease like this. For those 9 months I had to watch what I ate, wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol and had to routinely go in for check ups and blood work.

The scariest part of this was that my doctors were not sure how to treat it at first. TB infections are not seen widely in america and my doctors had never had to treat it before. They had to consult with a TB expert to determine the best course of treatment. I'm now TB free but it was the weirdest thing to have happened to me health wise. To this day we still don't know how I got it as TB is not common in the US.

Reference

Tuberculosis (TB) | CDC. (2017). Cdc.gov. Retrieved 29 November 2017, from

https://www.cdc.gov/tb/default.htm

Ethnic Drug

If I were to tell you that there is a drug that has been approved for a specific race, probably many of you would not believe me. In 2005, a drug named Bidil had become one of the first pharmaceutical to be approved by the FDA for the specific treatment of heart failure in African Americans. Nitromed, the biotech firm, presents Bidil as an opportunity to address the disparity in outcomes for black Americans with heart failures. Particularly, it combines hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate to vasodilate blood vessels to ease heart strain. For the record, these are individual, generic drugs that were combined for easier administration.

Furthermore, they cite the differential rates of heart failure and nitric oxide levels between blacks and whites. Unfortunately, the statistical research done on this has some alarming flags. To begin, there were many external factors that were not controlled for. Specifically, socioeconomic disadvantages, education levels, and financial stress are important factors in considering causes of cardiovascular diseases.

While on the surface this does seem like a noble cause, Bidil’s development has depended on the appropriation of race to justify its approval. The researchers themselves note that skin color is only a crude marker of underlying genetic differences yet it has been able to establish property rights, garner approval, and form marketing campaigns based off of this. These are huge issues because this promotes the idea that medical research can be swayed by law and commerce rather than focus on actually addressing the biological and social issues that are at hand. Not to mention, this brings about issues of racialized notions concerning biology. Given our troubling history of oppression based on racial misunderstandings, this is not a path we should be going down again. Do you think Bidil has strong enough empirical research to be backed up using these claims? If someone like this can be approved by the FDA, how must trust can we really put into the FDA in regards to their approvals?

Kahn, Jonathan D., How a Drug Becomes 'Ethnic': Law, Commerce, and the Production of Racial Categories in Medicine. Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, Vol. 4, pp. 1-46, Winter 2004. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=515942

Carbs don't reciprocate the Love

If you are anything like me, then you really enjoy your carbs and a meal without them often doesn’t suffice.  Unfortunately, too much carbohydrate intake can be damaging to the heart, which we know struggles to repair itself. Researchers at Vanderbilt and the University of Alabama studied the acute affects of carbohydrate overload by giving individuals a shake containing 264kcal. The subjects were asked to follow a standard diet in order to decrease the amount of variables that could affect the components of the heart before participating in the study. After the subjects ingested the shake, their blood levels were monitored for significant changes. The acute load of carbohydrates altered the heart’s production of atrial natriuretic peptide by a 25% reduction. ANP is important in getting rid of excess salt and reducing blood pressure. The research continued in order to try and mimic the results in mice. It appeared that a reduced ANP level was due to an increase in glucose, which caused the cells to produce more of the miR-425 molecule. This molecule regularly would inhibit the synthesize of ANP, therefore an increase in this molecule caused a decrease in circulating ANP. With less ANP being produced, the body is more likely to have an increase in sodium retention and an increase in blood pressure.

Over time, an increase in blood pressure can be detrimental to our heart and blood vessels. In order for the heart to properly function we need adequate blood pressure, peripheral resistance,  and blood flow through the vessels to our tissues.  The blood pressure is the amount of force exerted on the wall of a blood vessel that drives the blood to move from pressure gradient of higher to lower areas. In order to have sufficient blood flow to reach all of our tissues we need a pressure gradient and resistance of blood vessels. If blood pressure increase, but resistance stays the same, the blood flow will speed up. The same relationship is true for when blood pressure decreases. If the blood pressure gets too high, the heart is working at a very intensive rate to pump the blood, which can eventually lead to congestive heart failure.  An increased blood pressure can also exert enough force on the vessel walls that will eventually damage the smooth muscle and result in a decrease in elasticity. Without proper elasticity, the vessels will struggle to vasoconstrict and vasolidate to compensate for homeostatic imbalances.   

Vanderbilt University Medical Center. (2016, March 29). Study explores carb-loading's effect on the

 heart. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 27, 2017 from 

 www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160329153403.htm