Some Stress is Good, According to Worm Studies

We as humans all hate stress.  Stress can be annoying, whether it lies within schooling or social environments.  Nobody wants to be stressed out, and there are numerous ways in which to relieve stress.  However, according to a study done by the Sanford-Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, some stress can promote longevity.

Essentially, the study done focused on a specific process in the body called autophagy.  Autophagy, as defined by ScienceDaily, is a means of recycling cells' old, broken, or unneeded parts so that their components can be re-used to make new molecules or be burned for energy.  Granted, this has been proven before.  This isn't entirely new science that is being done here.  What this study proves is that long life and stress resistance are connected at a cellular level.  In order to prove this theory, the researchers used a different subject other than humans.  They used an animal that bears some resemblance to our own cellular level.  They, in fact, bear a stronger resemblance to us via DNA than one might think (which I may someday discuss in another topic).

It's a worm.  More specifically, Caenorhabditis elegans, which is a free living, transparent nematode.

"We used C. elegans -- tiny roundworms used to study fundamental biology -- to test the importance of autophagy in becoming stress resistant," says Caroline Kumsta, Ph.D., staff scientist in Hansen's lab and lead author of the study. "They're a great model system because they're transparent, so you can easily observe what goes on inside them, most of their genes and molecular signaling pathways have functional counterparts in humans, and they only live a few weeks, which greatly facilitate measuring their lifespans."  Granted, the worms used in this study were not presented with horrible conditions.  Simply raising the temperature to 36 degrees Celsius for one hour provided a small shock to the system.  The worms exposed went through autophagy to repair the cells damaged.  Again, they were exposed to another heat stress.  Worms that were unable to repair their cells or were deficient with completing autophagy sustained more damage than the worms who experienced autophagy successfully.

Secondly, the team set out to determine if this cellular function could help out with another issue due to old age.  By targeting these worms with heat stress, the researchers hoped to reduce aggregated proteins that build up in cells.  They used worms that were modeled after Huntington's disease, which is a fatal inherited disorder caused by neuronal proteins that start to stick together into big clumps as patients age that leads to degeneration throughout the brain.  After exposing the model worms to heat once more, the aggregated proteins were reduced in number as the body experienced autophagy again.  "Our finding that brief heat exposure helps alleviate protein aggregation is exciting because it could lead to new approaches to slow the advance of neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's," says Hansen.  "The results may also be relevant to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, which are similarly caused by clumping-prone proteins."

Essentially, this experiment shows that mild stress induction can improve the body's longevity by causing the body to repair cells through autophagy.  Does this mean you need to sit in the sauna or do hot yoga at all times?  No, not necessarily.  But it is important to expose your body to some levels of stress in order to improve yourself.  Take for example, a runner.  As a runner progresses, they get better and better at running longer and longer distances.  Their lungs handle the run better each time.  This same idea applies to the body and the cells within you.  By exposing them to small stresses slowly over time, they repair through autophagy and can increase your longevity because your body is trying to adapt to the environment.  So go sit in the sauna every once in awhile.  Go for that run you keep telling yourself you're going to do.  Go lift weights or do yoga.  You're helping your body out by doing so.

The link to the published story by ScienceDaily can be found here:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215084050.htm

The link to the research paper for this topic published at Nature can be found here:

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14337

A Baby that has Three Parents?

Normally a baby that is born contains genetics from both the father and the mother.  To think that a baby could have three parents is a bit odd to think about let alone become a reality.  If it were to happen, could that mean one of the parents had cheated on the other and somehow carried multiple eggs or sperm when creating a baby in some way?

No, don't worry.  Nobody cheated on anybody.  In fact, you can thank science for this profound discovery.

What actually occurs is a still controversial process in which genetic material from three different people are combined to create a child.  By doing so, this eliminates the possibility of a child to be born with a fatal genetic disease.  This process was supposedly carried out successfully in Mexico, for the greenlight for this procedure in the United States has yet to receive the go ahead.

Originally published in New Scientist, Dr. John Zhang (pictured above) of New Hope Fertility Center in New York City holds the child and told the story.  He worked with two parents who had already lost two children to a mitochondrial disease, a rare class of conditions caused by defects in the DNA of mitochondria, the organelles that provide energy to cells.  This disease in inherited maternally, so if the mother carries this mutation in her DNA the baby is born with the disease.  Therefore, in order to correct this, Zhang used an approach called spindle nuclear transfer to create five human embryos.  The article on Science described this process very well:

The method involves removing the nucleus—the bulk of a cell’s DNA—from one of the mother’s egg cells, and inserting that nucleus into a donor egg cell stripped of its own nucleus. The result is an egg with mitochondrial DNA from a healthy donor and nuclear DNA from the mother. Five donors eggs prepared this way were then fertilized with the husband’s sperm—but only one of the resulting embryos had a normal number of chromosomes. That embryo was transferred into the mother-to-be.

However, this process has drawn some criticism.  For starters, it is not a published paper or researched topic.  “Right now it’s just, ‘We have done it.’ It’s a claim,” says Dieter Egli, a stem cell biologist at Columbia University.  In addition, “This and other important questions remain unanswered because this work has not been published and the rest of the scientific community has been unable to examine it in detail,” wrote Dusko Ilic, a reader in stem cell science at King’s College London, in a public comment for journalists. “It’s vital that that happens soon.”  Still, some praise Zhang's work.  Clinical embryologist Jacques Cohen of Reprogenetics in Livingston, New Jersey, who has advised Zhang’s team about regulatory issues, states that “just because this was done in Mexico doesn’t mean it was not done ethically,” says Cohen, who himself led controversial fertility experiments in the 1990s involving the transfer of cytoplasm, in which the resulting babies also had three genetic parents.

For now, the question as to whether this procedure is ethically sound is still up in the air.  Regardless, the outcome is incredible, and could shape the future of stem cell research and giving parents the ability to have children if they couldn't before.

For more information, check out the article on Science here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/unanswered-questions-surround-baby-born-three-parents

In addition, check out the article posted on New Scientist here:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107219-exclusive-worlds-first-baby-born-with-new-3-parent-technique/?cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2016-Echobox&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1474985189

Learning How to Walk Again Thanks to Virtual Reality

Awhile ago, if you had asked any doctor or physician if there was hope for paraplegics in terms of recovery, they would have responded with little to no hope.  All that could be done for them was to comfort them and provide them with another means of transportation.  Fast forward to today, there may be a new hope.  A new way in which paraplegics may be able to walk again.  And it comes in the form of virtual reality.

Yeah, the same thing people use to play video games.

In essence, paraplegics have little to no brain function when it comes to motor skills forMiguel Nicolelis, the lead researcher from Duke University in North Carolina.  “It’s almost like the brain had erased the concept of moving by walking.”  So when patients were asked to imagine walking, the brain showed no sign of activity for that area.  By becoming paraplegic, patients' brains would literally "forget" how to walk because they could no longer control it.
walking, running, or basic movement of the lower limbs.  “When we look at the brains of these patients when they got to us, we couldn’t detect any signal when we asked them to imagine walking again. There was no modulation of brain activity,” Dr.

With virtual reality, everything may change.  Eight patients with chronic spinal cord injuries (SCIs) were used in a study in order to test brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) in terms of developing better therapies for paraplegics.  In this virtual reality, each patient was asked to navigate a virtual reality game using an Oculus Rift.  The game consisted of an avatar creation and a soccer field, in which the patients were asked to take their avatar and walk around on the soccer field.  In addition, a specially designed shirt was used in correlation with this study that monitored the patient and provided feedback onto the patients forearms that simulated walking on the ground.  This was used for a period of time, allowing the patients to get reacquainted with walking in a different form that their brain could understand.  After completing the first part, each patient was moved to an exoskeleton with a cap that could detect brain activity.  Simply put, the patient would have to think about walking and the cap would detect it.

Now the results were not immediate.  Each patient had a different recovery time in the 12 months of testing.  However, after an hour of using the exoskeleton every day, each patient regained some motor skills with walking.  More incredibly, each patient was able to recreate voluntary movement and sensation in their legs, as well as control bowel movements for the first time in years.

Granted, there are other methods for helping paraplegics now, including stem cell therapies and surgeries.  But this is the least intrusive method of recovery to date with incredible results.  "Overall, the results obtained in our study suggest that BMI applications should be upgraded from merely a new type of assistive technology to help patients regain mobility, through the use of brain-controlled prosthetic devices, to a potentially new neurorehabilitation therapy, capable of inducing partial recovery of key neurological functions," said Dr. Miguel Nicolelis.  "Such a clinical potential was not anticipated by original BMI studies. Therefore, the present findings raise the relevance of BMI-based paradigms, regarding their impact on SCI patient rehabilitation. In this context, it would be very interesting to repeat the present study using a population of patients who suffered a SCI just a few months prior to the initiation of BMI training. We intend to pursue this line of inquiry next. Based on our findings, we anticipate that this population may exhibit even better levels of partial neurological recovery through the employment of our BMI protocol."  This breakthrough could provide paraplegics with a greater hope for recovery and a cheaper alternative to other methods of recovery.  Who knew that by playing a VR game/simulation could lead to paraplegics recovering from their injuries?

For more information, here is the story that was written on the research paper:

http://qz.com/757516/paraplegics-are-learning-to-walk-again-with-virtual-reality/

In addition, here is the scientific paper that was published in the Nature magazine:

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep30383

OSIRIS-REx: How to Study a Killer Asteroid

To know your enemy, you must study and understand your enemy.  Same applies for killer asteroids right?

Nasa is planning on studying a monster asteroid that has been slowly getting closer and closer to Earth ever since it was discovered in 1999.  The asteroid, named "Bennu" crosses Earth's orbit every 6 years.  Granted, it's not like the asteroid is passing by Earth so closely that you can see it as it streaks through the sky.  In 2135, the asteroid will fly between the Earth and the Moon however, so the slight potential this asteroid has in hitting Earth increases every time it passes by.  And with passing between the Earth and the Moon, the asteroid could possibly be altered by Earth's gravity and strike the Earth in that century.

“Bennu falls on the boundary, in terms of size, for an object capable of causing a global catastrophe,” Professor Mark Bailey of Northern Ireland’s Armagh Observatory said.  Bennu is about 487 metres in diameter and travels around the sun at an average of 101,000 km per hour.  That size and that speed could result in an impact that is almost 200 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

NASA plans to use the Osiris-Rex probe to fly to Bennu in September and study the asteroid.  In order to do so, Osiris-Rex will spend a year orbiting the sun to build up its speed before it slingshots back around Earth, using the planet’s gravity to align its orbit with the asteroid’s.  Once the probe reaches the asteroid, it will study the surface and the composition of the asteroid.  In addition, the probe will hover over the surface of the asteroid, obtain samples, and then fly back to Earth.  “Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid, an ancient relic from the early solar system that is filled with organic molecules,” said Lauretta. “Asteroids like Bennu may have seeded the early Earth with this material, contributing to the primordial soup from which life emerged.”  So for scientists, this is a big discovery in identifying what the asteroid is made of.

Although the asteroid is a long ways away from striking the Earth, the data obtained from this solar expedition will provide the future with great information.  If the asteroid does indeed one day make its way into a possible contact with Earth, we will at least know what its made of, the exact size, and how fast its going.  This could prevent a catastrophic collision and save mankind in the future.

For more information on this story, check out this link:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-plans-to-launch-study-of-asteroid-that-could-destroy-earth/news-story/cb8f49b07e2100200997e74922c2b60e?from=public_rss&utm_content=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=EditorialSF&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=Twitter

In addition, more info on the story can be found here:

http://nypost.com/2016/07/31/nasa-plans-to-launch-study-of-asteroid-that-could-destroy-earth/

Check out OSIRIS-REx on twitter to see photos and information on the probe and its journey:

https://twitter.com/OSIRISREx?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Invasion of the Origami Gut Robots

Released from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The prospect of small robots being used within the human body to fight infections or other problems within seemed like a far fetched idea.  However, the research group of Daniela Rus, Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science presented their paper at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation on their discovery.  What they had developed were tiny origami robots that would enter the esophagus and the stomach, would fold and move around in the stomach to help with stomach wounds or foreign materials.

"It's really exciting to see our small origami robots doing something with potential important applications to health care," says Rus. "For applications inside the body, we need a small, controllable, untethered robot system. It's really difficult to control and place a robot inside the body if the robot is attached to a tether."  The robot uses a stick-slip method which uses its appendages to stick to a surface through friction when it moves, but slips free again when its body flexes to alter its weight distribution.  Also, since there is quite a bit of liquid within the stomach, the tiny robot can also use water to propel itself forward.  

In addition, the small robot is constructed out of bio-compatible material, so you aren't having a metal robot enter your system.  The material Biolefin was selected after the group tested numerous materials.  This material consists of a shrinking layer within a biodegradable shrink wrap that is partially comprised of dried pig intestine (used in sausage casings).  They then tested their design by using a pig's stomach filled with water and lemon juice to simulate an actual environment within a stomach.  The robot proved to be an excellent tool in removing a watch battery from said stomach.

“This concept is both highly creative and highly practical, and it addresses a clinical need in an elegant way,” says Bradley Nelson, a professor of robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. “It is one of the most convincing applications of origami robots that I have seen.”

For more information on this topic, check out the video released by MIT news:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Waj08gk7v8

In addition, check out the story here:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-05/miot-iro051216.php

Nevada Amphibole Asbestos: My Research

So this article is a little bit different.  This isn't a news story or a published article as of now.  It's still in development and the research is still ongoing.  Mainly, this research has to deal with natural asbestos that was found in Libby, Montana and Nevada.  The cool thing about this research is that it's all brand new information regarding autoimmune diseases and asbestos.

The super cool thing is that it is a project that I am working on.

Yep, you read that right.  I am actually participating in a big research project studying asbestos.  More specifically, I am looking at asbestos from Libby, Montana and Nevada and observing the correlations between autoimmune diseases and asbestos.  Like I said before, this research is still ongoing.  But I would love to share what information I have on the topic so far.

To begin with, this is the abstract that we submitted to the Montana State University Undergraduate Research Celebration during the month of April:

"Asbestos is a known carcinogen and also induces fibrosis of the lung. In addition, amphibole asbestos in particular has been shown to induce autoimmune responses. Despite these different outcomes, early stages are characterized by an immune/inflammatory reaction in the lungs, which can be used as a measure of the immunotoxicity of the fibers. Libby Amphibole (LA) asbestos was a contaminant of vermiculite mined near Libby MT for decades, leading to asbestos diseases not only to workers at the mine, but in the entire community. Recently, amphibole asbestos fibers similar in composition to LA were discovered just east of Boulder City, NV. It is very important to determine the relative toxicity of these fibers to establish the risk of disturbing this material. Our objective was to determine whether the Nevada Amphibole (NA) has similar biological effects as LA in a culture of mixed splenocytes. Fibers were collected and characterized by geologists at UNLV. Mixed splenocytes were challenged in vitro with five treatment groups: No Treatment, or 2 doses of each amphibole, 35 µg/cm 2 or 70 µg/cm 2 . Culture media was collected after 24 hr of treatment, and tested for Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNFα) using a sandwich ELISA, as an early indicator of inflammation. The results showed that there is a statistical difference when comparing the asbestos treatments and no treatment, as well as differences between LA and NA. The results of the experiment showed that both amphiboles elicited a high amount of TNFα within the samples tested. This indicates that NA can cause as much risk as LA and that NA should raise as much concern if not more concern than the Libby Amphibole. Further studies in our laboratory will measure other cytokines in this comparison
model."

To begin with, we looked at TNFα.  Essentially, this is a cytokine (chemical) produced by our cells when our body is trying to fight an autoimmune infection or cancer.  In my area, we focused on the splenocytes from mice spleen models while another group focused on macrophages in the lungs.  Now to explain the premise of this research.

So naturally occurring asbestos has recently been observed in Nevada, specifically around Boulder City and Las Vegas.  Through previous studies (the Libby Montana study) asbestos has been determined to cause some serious problems regarding mesothelioma and autoimmune diseases.  Our objective was to determine if the Nevada samples elicited the same reaction within mice models.  As the abstract says above, the same reactions in the splenocytes (and the macrophages) occurred in the mice models.  In addition, even higher levels of TNFα were produced in these samples than the Libby samples.  Granted, this is perliminary research, but the results suggest a serious problem.

Asbestos can take many years to manifest into a disease.  If people were exposed to this in Nevada, there could be a huge clean up problem.  How many people are exposed to this on a regular basis?  Thousands?  Millions?  With the amount of tourists that travel through this area, the problem could be catastrophic.  Therefore, it is crucial to fully determine what this naturally occurring asbestos sample can do to us.

As stated before, the research for this is ongoing!  I am working on this project for the next couple of months, maybe even the next year.  It is exciting to see where this research is heading!  Thanks for reading! 

If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to send me an email at: calebjstair@gmail.com

Here is the funding that we receive for this project:

Emerging Exposures to Natural Occurring Asbestos in Western States: Fiber Specific Pulmonary and Autoimmune Health Effects in a Mouse Model.  PIs: Deborah E. Keil and Jean C. Pfau. MAES, College of Agriculture, Montana State University.

 

Here are some research papers that could shed some light on this topic:

http://www.fairwarning.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Sciences-AsbestosResearch-SSAJ-77-6-2192.pdf

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/43/1/63.full?ijkey=zKWR0L7Tcx2w6&keytype=ref&siteid=gsgeology

DNA That Could Make Us Superheroes

So who wants to be a superhero?

Turns out, there is a specific DNA series that can protect us from debilitating diseases.  In a recent study, approximately 600,000 genomes were sampled.  Within these samples, about 13 adults were found to harbor mutations for severe diseases.  However, these adults were not sick at all and showed no traits of the disease they were supposed to have.  This diseases include: cystic fibrosis, Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, familial dysautonomia, epidermolysis bullosa simplex, Pfeiffer syndrome, autoimmune polyendocrinopathy syndrome, acampomelic campomelic dysplasia and atelosteogenesis.

So how in the world are these adults protected from these diseases?

Mutations in the individual genomes from the study are likely the answer.  Although mutations can cause diseases, they have also led to some incredible results.  So in essence, the next step would be to identify the specific gene mutations within these genomes in order to determine how exactly these people are protected from serious diseases they should have.  Easy enough, right?

Except that everyone in this study signed a consent form, so that no names would be used.  Therefore, the scientists can't go out and find the 13 "superheroes" from this study.

As a result, the research group states in their paper, "In prospective searches for resilient individuals, more appropriate consenting will be needed to link participants to their medical records and to allow for appropriate recontacting that enables follow-up characterizations, validation of their resilient condition and decoding to uncover the causes of the resilience".  Unfortunately, this raises some ethical questions.  Normally, names and identities are kept in secrecy to prevent any data on these individuals getting out and causing harm in anyway to said person.  With this study, these parameters would be slightly changed.  "[the study] exemplifies the often unforeseen benefits that can be achieved from responsible sharing of anonymized genetic and clinical data," said Dr Matthew Hurles, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.  "This poses research and ethical questions. Personally, if I were that individual, I'd happily share my genome if it could help someone else who had been dealt a less favorable genetic hand."

So the prospect of being a superhero could be a possibility after all.  Unfortunately, it wouldn't come with the abilities of flying, heat vision, super strength, or wearing a cape.  But, a superhero who is protected from numerous DNA-linked diseases and could help numbers of people get cured from said diseases sounds pretty great to me.

You can read the article that summarizes the paper here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36015243

You can read the published research paper here:
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3514.html