Necessity is the mother of invention, and Academy researcher Matt Lewin saw a need in saving hundreds of thousands of lives lost to venomous snakebites, currently estimated to be as high as 125,000 per year. So Lewin invented!

Snakebite is one of the most neglected of tropical diseases: the number of fatalities is comparable to that of AIDS in some developing countries. It has been estimated that 75% of snakebite victims who die never even reach the hospital, predominantly because there is no easy way to treat them in the field.

“Snakebite is a leading cause of accidental death in the developing world, especially among otherwise healthy young people,” says Lewin. “We are trying to change the way people think about this ancient scourge and persistent modern tragedy by developing an inexpensive, heat-stable, easy-to-use treatment that will at least buy people enough time to get to the hospital for further treatment.”

Life-threatening snakebites are often treated in two different ways—through antivenoms or antiparalytics. Antivenoms provide an imperfect solution for a number of reasons—even if the snake has been identified and the corresponding antivenom exists, venomous bites often occur in remote locations far from population centers. Antivenoms are also expensive, require refrigeration, and demand significant expertise to administer and manage.

In some fatal snakebites, the snake’s neurotoxins paralyze victims, resulting in death by respiratory failure. For decades, medical workers have administered intravenous antiparalytics to treat snakebite when antivenoms are either not available or not effective. However, it is difficult to administer intravenous drugs outside of a hospital.

Lewin began to explore the idea of a different delivery vehicle for these antiparalytics when he was preparing snakebite treatment kits for the Academy’s Philippine Biodiversity Expedition. In his role as Director of the Academy’s Center for Exploration and Travel Health, Lewin prepares field medicine kits for the museum’s global scientific expeditions and often accompanies scientists as the expedition doctor.

The snakebite kits required scientists to inject themselves if they needed treatment. When Lewin saw their apprehension about the protocol, he began to wonder if there might be an easier way to treat snakebite in the field.

In April of this year, Lewin worked with a team of anesthesiologists at the UCSF Medical Center to design and complete a complex experiment that took place at the medical center. During the experiment, a healthy human volunteer was paralyzed, while awake, using a toxin that mimics that of cobras and other snakes that disable their victims by paralysis. The team then administered an antiparalytic, heat-resistant nasal spray and within 20 minutes the patient had recovered.

Later in April, Lewin delivered a keynote address, titled “How Expeditions Drive Clinical Research,” at the American Society for Clinical Investigation/Association of American Physicians joint meeting, during which he talked about this experiment and its origins. As a result, he met Stephen Samuel, an Indian physician and scientist from Trinity College Dublin who was interested in collaborating in India, where an estimated one million people are bitten by snakes every year, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. Lewin flew to India to help Samuel set up treatment protocols at a rural hospital in Krishnagiri.

In late June, Samuel and his colleagues at TCR Multispeciality Hospital in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, India, treated a snakebite victim using the nasal spray method. The patient was suffering from persistent facial paralysis from a krait bite, despite having undergone a full course of antivenom treatment. Upon treatment with the antiparalytic nasal spray, the facial paralysis was reversed within 30 minutes. Two weeks after being treated, the patient reported having returned to her daily activities.

A paper was published last week in the medical journal Clinical Case Reports.

Science Today produced a video a few years ago about Matt Lewin’s amazing work. He’s also featured in this Scientist at Work blog in the New York Times.

Image: Zdeněk Fric/Wikipedia

At least that’s how it worked for Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese scientist and senior investigator at Gladstone. Yesterday in a ceremony in Norway, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of how to transform ordinary adult skin cells into cells that, like embryonic stem cells, are capable of developing into any cell in the human body.

“Cells that can develop into any cell in the human body can be used to replace specific damaged tissues, such as those involved in blindness and spinal cord injuries, and treat a whole range of diseases, from cancer to immune disorders to neurodegenerative disorders,” says the Academy’s Shannon Bennett. “The growing field of regenerative medicine depends on using these pluripotent cells—cells that can become almost anything.

“Up to now getting these cells has raised ethical concerns, because they are collected from fertilized human embryos which are destroyed by the process.   Adult stem cells are not as useful an alternative—they are already committed to the organ they come from. But now, Yamanaka has discovered a method to induce adult cells that have already developed—skin cells, for example—to become pluripotent, cells that can become virtually any cell in the human body!”

Yamanaka’s path to the Nobel Prize wasn’t as neat as you might think. He started his science career as a surgeon, “only to find he was not so good at it,” according to the New York Times.

He came to Gladstone in 1993 and worked with mice to research how to lower bad cholesterol. A hopeful treatment caused liver cancer in the mice, which led Yamanaka to research the cancer.

He needed stem cells to research the cancer in the mice and eventually the stem cells became his focus.

Which led him to his Nobel Prize-winning research.

Science often works this way—unexpected discoveries lead to new paths and questions. And Gladstone especially seems to embrace and understand this. From their website:

“The Gladstone philosophy has always been to allow scientists like Shinya Yamanaka the freedom to follow wherever their curiosity—and the science—leads,” says Robert Mahley, MD, PhD, Gladstone’s founding scientist… “As a postdoc, Dr. Yamanaka embraced that philosophy, which I think has played a big part in making him the scientist and the person he is today.”

Please stay tuned: the Academy and Gladstone will kick off a week-long festival in January 2013 called Brilliant!Science: Decoding Human Health—including lectures, events, family activities and opportunities to engage with active scientists.

“The Brilliant!Science festival will be a great collaboration and help demonstrate the synergies amongst all kinds of research, from human health to biodiversity,” says Shannon. “Whether its about the diversity of cells in the human body, the genes that compose us, the diseases that plague us, or the diversity of life forms around us, science unfolds in a similar pattern—with questions! We’ll share a week of exciting science from both Academy and Gladstone scientists, hosted around the city and at the Academy itself.”

Image: Gladstone Institutes/Chris Goodfellow

In general, we have reason to be optimistic. So optimistic, in fact, that the theme for World AIDS Day is “Getting to Zero,” as outlined in, for example, the 2011-15 strategy of the United Nations Program on AIDS. In part, this means eliminating new HIV infections. As New Scientist reports today:

Sensing that HIV is finally on the run, AIDS experts have argued strongly that these preventive programs should be scaled up as rapidly as possible.

Seems like President Barack Obama is listening. He began the day by committing more funding toward the fight against AIDS. From the New York Times:

For the domestic fight, Mr. Obama announced that he was committing to seek $15 million more for the Ryan White program supporting HIV medical clinics in the United States and $35 million for state programs providing access to necessary drugs. For global efforts, he set a goal of nearly doubling to six million the number of infected people who will get antiretroviral AIDS drugs.

Earlier this week, the New York Times gave a quick summary of two new hopeful treatments.

One treatment involved a harrowingly difficult bone marrow transplant, originally given to a man suffering from both HIV and leukemia—to treat the leukemia. The treatment effectively rebuilt his immune system from the ground up! A happy side effect is that he has also been HIV-free for the past four years.

The other hope lies in gene therapy. A paper published in Nature this week demonstrates that the efforts have worked in mice. In a corresponding article, Nature News describes how southern California researchers

used a genetically altered adenovirus to infect muscle cells and deliver DNA that codes for antibodies isolated from the blood of people infected with HIV.

(To understand more about gene therapy, please watch this Science in Action.)

In both the paper and the article, researchers describe that until a vaccine is discovered, gene therapy could offer the best hope in protecting against transmission.

PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE have a series of articles this week on male circumcision as a way to prevent the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientific American says that, although it could cost billions, it also could be highly affective.

Some studies are finding that it [circumcision] decreases the odds that a heterosexual man will contract HIV by 57 percent or more.

Finally, KQED Quest is always a great source for HIV-related research news. Last week, they interviewed Warner Greene of the Gladstone Institute at UCSF on their radio program about the state of the disease in the United States and globally—and raised questions about the search for a cure.

World AIDS Day has selected “Getting to Zero” as its theme for the next five years. Medical research plays only a small part in that ambitious goal, but recent advances also give reasons for optimism.

Image: CDC

Uncovering the human microbiome represents a new frontier in science. Thanks to new technology, we’re beginning to understand what these microscopic organisms do, how they do it, and why they exist inside of us.

Last Friday, the awesome Bay Area Science Festival presented “Gut Check: The Hidden World of Microbes.” The panel included two UC San Francisco researchers—our friend, Joe DeRisi, and Michael Fischbach—and science writer extraordinaire, Carl Zimmer. If you follow Zimmer’s Discover blog, The Loom, you know that he loves anything tiny and gross—parasites, bacteria, fungus, the like—so we knew it would be a juicy discussion.

DeRisi developed the ViroChip—a technology that allows scientists to scan samples for several different viruses—over 10,000 things at a time—and bacteria, fungi, and parasites. When Fischbach looks at us, he sees the 100 trillion microorganisms living inside us. These microorganisms make up 10% of our genes, so he uses genome-sequencing technology to study all of them at once.

The following are some of the topics discussed by the panel:

Antibiotics and other Good Bacteria

Fischbach got into human microbiome research looking for drugs. Your gut (and skin and oral) bacteria are natural antibiotics and statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs). They could also possibly control obesity and diabetes. Microbes support your immune system and metabolism, and many of the bacteria in your gut create neurotransmitters, fueling research about how our gut bacteria affect our brains.

Fischbach pointed out how current antibiotics take a “carpet bomb” approach—killing all bacteria in our bodies, good and bad. With more research, he believes that specific good bacteria could target specific bad bacteria—taking a more “scalpel” approach to antibiotics.

Tending the Garden

Among the microorganisms in our body, there are those that help us digest food and create energy and those that just feed themselves. Insoluble fiber may keep us healthy, but we’re not actually absorbing any of it—the microbes keep it all to themselves! As Zimmer said, “You’re not eating it for yourself, but rather tending the garden.” The garden of gut flora.

The Virome

Did you know we have seven trillion viruses in our body when we’re healthy? Some of these viruses attack us and some attack other viruses or bacteria. And, are you ready for this? DeRisi can’t “think of any example of a beneficial virus.” So what are they all doing there? DeRisi has no clue, and every time he sequences he finds new viruses, wondering what role they might play.  Bringing up the question, is there a virome in addition to the biome of the human body?

With trillions of viruses and new ones evolving, does DeRisi lay awake at night in a panic? No. (Phew!)

So whether riding BART or keeping your child in a germ-free environment, the message of the panel was don’t worry about these tiny organisms (at least, for now). More research is needed to find out exactly what kind of tug of war is going on inside of our bodies.

The shape of fish schools

The Scientific American Guest Blog, written by Hannah Waters earlier this week, had an excellent explanation of fish school shapes and posed some great questions.

For years, scientists have studied how small fish pack together in large groups, or shoals, to avoid predators. The trick is to get enough oxygen on the inside of the shoal, but to avoid predators on the outside of the shoal. According to the article, “there can be enough fish packed into the center of a shoal to actually deplete the seawater of oxygen!”

Recently two scientists published a paper on the shapes and sizes of shoals, which are surprisingly very similar from school to school. As temperatures rise and oxygen levels go down in the seawater, Waters wonders what that will do to this shoal consistency.

Amphibifish

A super cool study of mangrove killfish, published in the November/December 2010 issue of the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, describes how these fish can live for up to a couple months out of water.

Researchers found special cells called ionocytes clustered on the skin of the fish. Ionocytes, normally found on the gills of other fish, are the cells responsible for maintaining the right balance of water and salt in a fish’s cells.

Mangrove killfish have as many ionocytes on their skin as in their gills and are able to monitor their intake of water and salinity through both.

Fish-vision

Two studies on fish vision were published recently. Locally, UCSF and UC Berkeley researchers looked at zebrafish. Zebrafish have the remarkable ability to see their tiny prey in a very large and distracting setting. Visually, how are they able to do that?

Reporting last month in Science, the team was able to pinpoint a set of nerve cells, or neurons in the brain of the fish, that filter out large background patterns from the animals’ visual perception. There’s a great video of it here.

According to a press release,

More broadly, the finding reveals a fundamental neural mechanism seen throughout the brain of vertebrates, including humans.

The BBC reported earlier this week on a study in the journal Functional Ecology that looked at stickleback vision. The males get more orange, red and yellow during the breeding season, attracting more females. The colors come from carotenoids, which are gained only through diet. The females’ attraction may be more than skin deep, the article states, because the color of the fish can accurately indicate the male fishes’ foraging and feeding success.

Anything fishy in the news that caught your eye this week? Let us know!

Image by Mila Zinkova

Saturn’s moons got all sorts of attention. From Enceladus’ warm “Perrier” ocean to the potential for life on Titan, one of the best-known planets in our Solar System enjoyed particular popularity this week.

In the lab, researchers were able to create the building blocks of life in Titan’s atmosphere. From SPACE.com:

In the lab, researchers simulated possible chemical reactions occurring high up in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere of Titan. They found that various complex molecules, such as amino acids and nucleotide bases, could form without much prodding.

Also in the news this week, the idea that perhaps it was the death of a large, early moon around Saturn that formed its lovely rings. From Universe Today:

[Robin] Canup’s new alternative theory is that Titan-sized moon with a rocky core and an icy mantle spiraled into Saturn early in solar system history. Tidal forces ripped off part of the icy mantle, distributing it into what would become the rings.

The Academy’s own Jack Dumbacher made news this week with research on the family tree of extinct passenger pigeons. DNA extracted from century-old museum specimens reveals that the spectacular passenger pigeon was most closely related to other North and South American pigeons, and not to the Mourning Dove, as was previously suspected. You can read more in the abstract, published in this month’s Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

Now for three news items about beer and flirtation…

Italian researchers recently published a protein library of beer, and according to the Discoblog in Discover:

…better knowledge of the proteins that survive brewing could help improve flavor, aroma, and retention of the foamy head so prized by beer drinkers.

Cheers!

And how about Beers in Space? Popular Science had a story this week about a non-profit space research company that is “about to test an Australian beer that’s brewed and bottled especially for consumption in microgravity.” Apparently, due to numbed taste buds and carbonation, regular beer just won’t do.

Finally, our science-geek neighbors at UCSF posted a very funny, must-see YouTube video late last week, “Most Beautiful Girl in the Lab.”

What turned you on in science news this week? Let us know!