Potential Blood Test to Detect Cancer

Researchers have recently made great progress in developing a blood test that could potentially detect cancer in humans. They have discovered that by sequencing the abnormal DNA that a tumor releases into the bloodstream, they can detect cancer. The way that they do this is by using either cells shed into the bloodstream by tumors or free-floating tumor DNA in the bloodstream to track the growth and spread of said tumors. Researchers then look for known alterations in cancer genes to distinguish the cancerous DNA from normal DNA.

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Postdoctoral researcher Rebecca Leary and others, also from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine, have recently made an important observation: No matter what type of cancer is infecting an individual, tumor cells almost always have noticeably altered chromosomes such as swapped pieces or extra copies of genes. This discovery means that a test that could detect DNA abnormalities in the bloodstream has a promising possibility of becoming a general test used to detect cancer.

Different colors on the same chromosomes note abnormalities detectable
by the blood test
Image from ScienceNOW

Although this is so far only applicable to advanced stages of cancer, they are hoping that once sequencing costs decrease they will be able to detect early stages of cancer in the bloodstream as well. The test is by no means cheap, with each test costing several thousand dollars just for the sequencing, and the analytic results would take at least a month to be returned. Researcher Victor Velculescu from the John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland notes that, "As sequencing costs continue to drop in the very near future, this could end up being extremely cheap." Daniel Haber of Massachusetts General Hospital works on using circulating tumor cells to detect and monitor cancer said that, "The approach has tremendous promise and, should the sequencing strategy become economical, it could have important implications in early cancer detection."

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I found this article extremely interesting because it is amazing how far along we have come with cancer research in the past few decades-yet it is incredible how much we still have yet to learn. This is a huge step in the right direction and should give generations to come great hope that cancer may become very easily detected and treatable in early stages. The implications of a simple blood test to treat cancer would make this readily available even to people of lower economic status, and this has the potential to save countless numbers of lives in the future.



Article: A Step Towards a Universal Cancer Blood Test
Written by: Jocelyn Kaiser
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/a-step-toward-a-universal-cancer.html?ref=hp

New Photographs of Einstein's Brain Lead to Further Discoveries

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A study of 14 newly discovered photographs of Albert Einstein's brain that had been preserved after his death have confirmed that his brain was highly unusual in that it had many more folds and convolutions than that of an average human's brain. When Einstein died in 1955, his son Hans Albert and executor Otto Nathan gave the examining pathologist, Thomas Harvey, permission to use the brain for scientific study. Harvey proceeded to photograph the brain and cut it into 240 sections, some of which were thinly sliced into as many as 2,000 slivers for microscopic study. He distributed some of these photographs and microscopic slides to as many as 18 different researchers around the world, and many of these specimens have been lost over time.

Only six peer-reviewed publications resulted from this distribution of scientific material, but these studies found many interesting pieces of information about Einstein's brain. For example, his brain contained a greater density of neurons in some parts of it and a much higher than usual ratio of gila (cells that help neurons transmit nerve impulses) to neurons. Also, his parietal lobes had very unusual grooves and ridges.

Two of the Fourteen Photographs
ScienceNOW

For the new study, anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida State University, alongside neurologist Frederick Lepore of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, and Adrianne Noe, director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) analyzed the 14 new photographs never made public before. They found that, although Einstein's brain was average in size, it contained several regions with extra convolutions and folds that were rarely seen in other subjects. For example, the regions on the left side of the brain which are associated with motor control of the face and tongue are much larger than normal. Also, the prefrontal cortex associated with planning, focused attention, and perseverance in the face of great challenges is also much larger than normal.

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Falk commented, "In each lobe, there are regions that are exceptionally complicated in their convolutions...It may be that he used his motor cortex in extraordinary ways." Falk believes that both Einstein's upbringing and environment played a big role in the complex development of his brain. His parents were very nurturing and encouraged him to be creative and independent in not only science, but music as well. Falk adds that, "Einstein programmed his own brain...he had the right brain in the right place at the right time."

I found this article extremely interesting because I find it fascinating that geniuses can simply have an anatomical advantage over normal humans. Obviously Einstein was a brilliant man, but I wonder if he would have been able to make so many breakthrough discoveries if his brain wasn't developed the way it had been. It makes me wonder if my brain was developed differently if I could've been a genius! Or perhaps it was external factors that helped Einstein's brain develop into the complex organ it eventually became. It's hard to say, but either way it would be nice to know the secret to his smarts.

Article: Why Einstein Was a Genius
Written by: Michael Balter
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/11/why-einstein-was-a-genius.html?ref=hp

Personality and The Placebo Effect

This week, a study in Neuropsychopharmacology reported that people that show personality traits of altruism, resiliency, and straightforwardness are more likely to have a positive result from a placebo. This means that these kinds of people show greater brain activity in the regions associated with reward and are more likely to enjoy pain relief from a placebo. From this study, personality tests could provide a new to improve the accuracy of clinical trials by identifying these kinds of people whom are likely to skew results with high placebo responses.

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In 2007, neuroscientist Jon-Kar Zubieta from the University of Michigan showed that a strong inability to feel pain due to the consumption of a placebo was associated with brain activity in the nucleus accumbens, which is the region of the brain involved with reward and pleasure. This finding suggested that the inability to feel pain due to a placebo may occur because positive expectations of pain relief (or reward) cause a spike in dopamine levels in the brain as well as the release of painkillers called mu-opiods. By conducting experiments through PET scans, Zubieta found that positive expectations alone are not enough for a placebo-induced pain relief response. He also found similiar results, in that people with certain personality traits including altruism, resiliency, and straightforwardness that also have low measures of angry hostility were more likely to experience a placebo-induced pain relief response.

Colored areas show regions of greater mu-opioid
release during placebo administration.
Image from The Scientist

Zubieta noted that, "One big difficulty is trying to control for people with very high placebo response. Many trials fail not because the compound doesn't work, but because placebos are also effective, which creates noise." The continuation of these kinds of studies is important because they will hopefully make clinical trials more accurate and successful by being able to identify which kinds of people will likely show a positive response to a placebo. This way, researchers will be able to more effectively identify a drug's true effect.

I found this article interesting because I had never thought about how a person's personality could determine the effects that a drug has on you. I wonder if personality tests could be given to patients that, for example, are recovering from surgery and are given strong medication such as oxycotin and hydrocone. I know someone that was a fantastic athlete but tore her ACL playing soccer, ended up getting addicted to the pain medication she was taking while recovering from surgery and tragically ended up committing suicide because of it. Perhaps having a personality test given whenever giving out medication is a smart thing for doctors to do because knowing certain personality types could alter the types of medication given out to certain people, which would most likely be way more effective and safer for the patient.

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Article: Personality Predicts Placebo Effects
Written by: Dan Cossins
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33300/title/Personality-Predicts-Placebo-Effect/

Rap Artists' Brain Scans Show Creative Flow

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Researchers at the National Institute of Health have conducted an experiment that tracked the brain activity in rappers while they are gave freestyle performances as opposed to rehearsed performances.  To do so, these researchers selected 12 volunteer rap artists and used functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) to scan their brains while they were freestyled. These images track the flow of blood through the brain which indicate which areas are active during certain times. Neuroscientists hope that this might give them some insight into understanding the process of creativity.

The resulting brain images showed that the medial prefrontal cortex (middle of the frontal lobe) which corresponds to initiation and self-motivation, along with the emotional and motor regions of the brain were all much more active during freestyle rap as opposed to rehearsed rap. They generally found that the left side of the brain was more active during the beginning of creative flow; however, when the rap artists began nearing the end of a phrase or musical measure, researchers found that the right side of the brain become more active.

Fig. 1 Activity Related to Improvisation
Image from Scientific Reports

Activations Associated with Innovative Performance
Image from Scientific Reports

Lead researcher Siyuan Liu noted, "We think this freestyle improvisation could be linked to a big network, linking self motivation, initiation, language, motor and emotion together." In regards to the change of activity from the left to the right hemisphere of the brain, Liu speculates that, "Why this is changing we have no clear answer, but we think that it has something to do with how much their attention is changed at the end of the performance."By trying to link together correlational signals from the brain to the action of the rap artists, researchers hope that this experiment will help guide the way in hopes of discovering the mysteries of the creative flow through the brain.

I chose this article because I found it very interesting that rap artists were the selected test subjects for this experiment. I think that rap artists get a bad reputation due to the content of their songs and the crude messages that some rappers often portray to their listeners. However, it actually does make a lot of sense for neuroscientists to conduct this experiment on freestyle rappers because, despite the content of what their raps are about, these artists really are lyrical geniuses. I know personally, it would be impossible for me to freestyle because there is no way I'd be able to think on my feet that quickly. Think about it - they give no prior thought as to the subject they'll be rapping about, yet they somehow make everything they say make sense, make it all rhyme, and do it without any awkward pauses for thought. That is really hard! These artists clearly have a creative flow unlike many of us, and I thought it was neat that the scientific world recognized how special the talent of a rap artist is enough to want to conduct an experiment on their brains in hopes to further the knowledge of the creative channels within humans.


Article: Freestyle fMRI
Written by: Beth Marie Mole
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33363/title/Freestyle-fMRI/

Unusual Flavor Combinations

Chemists have developed a new analytical system for culinary professionals that pairs unlikely foods together based on their molecular composition. This is based on the odor produced by certain foods. Humans only have about forty genes for taste receptors that are grouped into four or five taste sensations, but we have over 400 genes for nasal smell receptors which is where most of the flavor we "taste" in food comes from.

Image from Google Images

Sensory psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Marcia Levin Pelchat, explains that, "During normal eating movements, the tongue and palate push puffs of air to the olfactory receptors via the back of the throat and it is by this route, rather than by sniffing in through the nose, that the odor component of taste is perceived." Based on this knowledge, in the 1990's, chef Heston Blumenthal and a team of chemists discovered that foods that shared key chemical components could be traced using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS). Since then, research into GCMS has become something like a craze in the culinary and scientific world, especially in Europe.

Image from foodpairing.com

The company Sense for Taste was launched in 2009 by bioengineer Bernard Lahousse and Michelin star rated chef Peter Coucquyt to help chefs discover the potential for untapped and unique flavor combinations. This company developed a software program that combines the GCMS data of different foods and applies this to an algorithm to create, what they call, a food tree. In this diagram, the various possible combinations are presented in relation to a certain food and based on its chemical composition. When a food is entered, it shows the best pairings with another food in nine different categories, some of which include dairy, meat, fish, fruit, beverage, and pastry. This information is available at foodpairing.com and is used by more than one million chefs, bartenders, and food enthusiasts across the world.

Chicken skin, banana, passion fruit, and foie gras
Image from foodpairing.com­

I chose this article because the possibility of putting seemingly random foods together to make something new and amazing is so interesting to me. For example, in the article, a blogger talked about how he tested the combination of garlic, coffee, and chocolate to create unexpectedly awesome dishes such as roasted garlic dipped in melted chocolate with coffee beans and a mocha tofu mousse with roasted garlic. Even though it sounds pretty gross, I think it would be really interesting to try. The fact that this kind of information was discovered scientifically, it just goes to show that scientific research can be effectively applied in any field of study.    

Article: Chocolate and Cheese
Written By: Edyta Zielinska
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32928/title/Chocolate-and-Cheese/