Social Media and the Speed of Science

Access to scientific literature has had its ups and downs. As a student during the Cold War, I recall the difficulty some Europeans had in obtaining the latest journals, often waiting months — or opting to receive the literature through “alternative channels.” Some findings were also “shielded” from Western eyes by limited circulation or simply a lack of translation or print runs. How the world has changed. Social media and the Internet now allows for readers from Beijing to Rochester to see the same articles simultaneously when someone in London pushes a button. In fact, thanks to blogs and Twitter, they can provide almost immediate feedback on findings, bringing another facet to peer review — moderated or not.

There are positives and negatives to all this, as explored by Apoorva Mandavilli in the January 20th issue of Nature. Trial by Twitter discusses how specialists in a given discipline can spot and question methodology that may limit or skew results of a study — and prompt a faster “self-correction” of the literature, keeping people on track and saving time or effort. The down side is when anonymous bloggers take pot shots at an article (rightly or wrongly) without allowing time or providing reasonable venue for author response. Science — which is having a hard enough time these days — deserves rational and civil discussion and people should identify themselves in commenting or be disregarded. That said, the responsible exchange of ideas and collegial conversations via the social media can help open windows on the scientific process as well as speed awareness, if not discovery itself.

Rochester Principal Wins Award for Zebrafish Classes

Next month principal Jim Sonju from Lincoln Choice School in Rochester will be honored at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul. Working with Mayo researchers, he instituted hands-on science and a concept that translated into other subject areas as well. Read about it in the Post Bulletin.

One of the people he worked with at Mayo is Dr. Steve Ekker, who wears among his many hats, the directorship of Mayo’s zebrafish core facility. Here’s what he said about Mr. Sonju:

“Jim Sonju represents the true spirit of innovation in education. He enables all around him to break down critical barriers for science education reform. He truly keeps the students first in everything he does.”

He also tells us this collaborative team will be presenting at a national science conference —

“The InSciEd Out  group will be presenting 7 abstracts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington, DC next month. 8 students, 4 teachers, Jim Sonju, Chris Pierret, Maggie Hoody and I will all be there.”

For those who don’t know AAAS is the largest single science organization in America and publisher of the journal Science. Showcasing this collaboration on this national stage is a great opportunity and a great achievement. Congrats to all!

 

Arthritis and Epidemiology

One out of every dozen American women will contract a rheumatic disease in her lifetime. One in 12.

That’s the first time a lifetime risk of these diseases has been determined — and it’s higher than many had thought. So says Cynthia Crowson and the other authors of a research paper published online in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism. Previous estimates of disease risk in this area — the most prominent condition is rheumatoid arthritis — are based on prevalence or incidence. [See the news release and video comments]

Crowson says it’s hard to figure lifetime risk because you need a lot of data from a population over time. That’s just what this team had in the files of the Rochester Epidemiology Project.  Not heard of it? It’s been around for 40 years and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health all that time. It is not a database, but an ongoing collaboration among the medical providers in Olmsted County Minnesota. Because it exists, we have a clearer picture of disease development  in this country. According to its Website, “This collaboration and sharing of medical information makes Olmsted County one of the few places in the United States, and one of the few places in the world, where “population-based” research can be accomplished.” It’s been called one of the best kept non-secrets of medical research. But because this resource exists, national disease-based societies have accurate estimates to rely on, as do national decision makers and experts planning future research. It’s kind of sad that the average person doesn’t even know what epidemiology is (most think it’s the study of skin), but it provides knowledge, guidance and insight for those trying to keep us healthy.

Mayo News “Eyed” by Most on Medscape

Keith Baratz, M.D.

Medscape, the online news source for medical specialists, has told us that an article on research by Keith Baratz, M.D, and colleagues was one of the most read by people in the field of opthalmology visiting their site in 2010. In fact, the story written by Fran Lowry came in second of all the Medscape news read by those registered as eye specialists. The piece, “Antiviral Treatment Thwarts Recurring Eye Problems from Herpes Simplex” is based on a paper published in the Archives of Ophthalmology in September. While it’s clearly a topic of interest these days, it’s also indicative of the level of research going on among Mayo ophthalmologists.  Dr. Baratz was senior author; others included Ryan Young, medical statistician David Hodge, and Thomas Liesegang, M.D., of Mayo. The research, based on a generation of cases in Olmsted County, Minnesota, was sponsored by Mayo Clinic and Research to Prevent Blindness.

Healthy Tech Help Down the Road

This week’s science section of the Times seems even more bountiful than usual. One article noted that we are gaining roughly a year of life for every year we are alive and healthy, but cautioned that we are probably going to live that extra year and more enduring some kind of debilitating illness. That should not be surprising. Mayo’s center that focuses on aging has a central goal of improving quality of life, not necessarily extending it. Dr. Jim Kirkland and crew understand that the glide path can be bumpy closest to the landing and they are working on way for people to maintain reasonable health as long as possible, i.e. until the very last year.

As I paged further in the Times, I saw Jane Brody’s column about the gentleman who lost much of his sight due to macular degeneration. He had sought help at some top medical centers, with limited success – mainly because they were looking for a cure. He said none of them offered ideas on how to improve his current situation – in other words they were trying to treat the disease and didn’t consider all the needs of the patient. He found help at the Veterans Administration, which provided vision tools and, more importantly, training in how to use them. Using the same approach the VA has used for years in helping veterans with disabilities, they had him back working as a consultant before too long. I saw the same approach work well for students with disabilities at the University of Illinois. An early innovator in helping impaired people obtain their educational goals, Illinois developed its own center for training and research, which is still going strong today. They made virtually every building on campus accessible long before federal mandates and had counselors who individually trained students on the latest technology, from optical devices to computer aids.

So, what’s next? Clearly the medical treatment of conditions of later life is a growing need, but so are the specialists and programs that will help the Boomers like me and those to come adjust to those limiting years when we can and will want (and economically may need) to continue working, provided we can manage. I hope and suspect we’ll see a new field develop – perhaps out of rehab or occupational therapy – dedicated to helping people use technologies not yet invented so they can keep on keeping on. Not medicine and not exactly PT, but work-life tech-support personal trainers. Not unlike the resourceful auto mechanics of Cuba, they will help keep the older models running better and longer.

Translocations in T-cell lymphoma: A first

A Mayo research team recently scored a first that garnered some valuable information regarding biomarkers for T-cell lymphoma, a fatal condition that has a 60 to 70 percent mortality rate. The up side is that this discovery may lead to therapeutic targets for future study, once the findings published in the journal Blood are validated. The authors say it is the “first recurrent translocation reported in ALK-negative anaplastic large cell lymphomas (ALCLs).”

The team used massively-parallel Next Generation Sequencing and DNA library mining along with a novel algorithm that helped identify inconsistencies in the genetic code of patients, ie translocations, where for some reason – perhaps misfolding – genes end up in the wrong places. The finding is not only important for T-cell lymphoma, but for other cancers as well because the methodology and algorithm have broad application. The team is now studying the findings in the laboratory to find improved therapies.

Another interesting aspect is the speed with which this came about — less than a year and at a cost for the initial translocation of only $1500  (not including infrastructure). Plus, it was essentially done in house – from conception to publication – the key skill set, labs and especially, the high speed technology, were all available at Mayo, says George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., who did most of the number crunching. He and Andrew Feldman, M.D., who presented and described the clinical problem co-authored the study, along with Ahmet Dogan, M.D., Ph.D., David I. Smith, Ph.D., Mark Law, Stephen Ansell, M.D., Sarah Johnson, Julie Porcher, Nazan Ozsan, and Eric Wieben, Ph.D and Bruce Eckloff, who designed the study.

Dr. Vasmatzis also credits Drs. Frank Prendergast and Robert Rizza for ensuring the technology existed at Mayo. The study was supported in part by Mayo’s Center for Individualized Medicine through a Waterman Biomarker Discovery grant;  by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation; and by the  National Cancer Institute.

Improving Diagnosis and Care for Critically-Ill Children: CTSA Connects the Dots

It’s 2 a.m. in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). A three-pound, premature newborn suddenly spikes a high fever, signaling an inflammatory response. Pediatricians and nurses confer about the cause: is it sepsis, a life-threatening infection spreading through the baby’s bloodstream, or is it a non-infectious cause? Sepsis calls for a course of high-powered intravenous antibiotics, while a non-infectious inflammation would be best treated with steroids. For this fragile infant, a timely diagnosis is essential — but standard blood cultures to diagnose sepsis take up to 48 hours to yield reliable results.

What if there was a way to rule out sepsis quickly and reliably? One Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA) M.D.-Ph.D. scholar and his mentors are researching that — and accessing invaluable resources at every step in the translational chain.

Read more>>

Proton Beam Program Also Advances Research

By now you may have heard about Mayo Clinic’s plan to initiate a proton bean therapy program. It will consist of two centers, one on the hospital campus in Arizona (Phoenix) and one on the Minnesota campus (Rochester). These will use pencil beam therapy, which is a more precise form of proton therapy treatment that allows greater control over radiation doses, shorter treatment times and fewer side effects. The beam can be targeted so the radiation precisely hits the tumor, while minimizing any damage to surrounding tissue. This approach is especially valuable in cancer treatment for children. It is also believed to be more cost effective in selected patients. The first patients will be treated in 2014 or early 2015.

While advancing patient care, the facilities will also allow for advancing research in this new therapeutic approach. Robert Foote, M.D., Mayo radiologist says investigators will be planning clinical trials that will help physicians determine the most effective approaches for each patient.

Read the news release on proton beam therapy.

National Science Writers Look Ahead

I’m sitting in a large ballroom at Yale University with roughly 600 fellow scribblers. They are here (those who could get here given their restrictive travel budgets) listening to the president of the National Academy of Sciences, among other noted researchers. We have heard about deep brain stimulation, feathers on dinosaurs, regeneration of organs, particle physics, and changes in the atmosphere among dozens of workshops on scientific findings. In this room are students, reporters, public information officers, and freelance writers.They gather every year to do this because they feel strongly about improving their craft and training newcomers to the field. They are the people who listen carefully to researchers, read the scientific papers and explain what it means for the rest of us. Without them the existing gap between science and the general public would be even wider than it is.

There is concern here about future funding for science and how science is regarded by the public and by those in leadership.  You probably agree that science is important to society or you wouldn’t be reading a science blog. Still, it’s worth repeating. The public’s understanding of science and how scientists work has slipped in recent years as newspapers have cut back on space and staffers. “What science writers do is more important than ever,” could be the subtitle of this conference, as I’ve heard it so many times in the last three days. New initiatives for outreach and broader public education are being discussed. About half of the professionals here write about medicine and health. They range from the Associated Press, broadcast networks, and major daily papers to the realm of online magazines and blogs. Their common traits are curiosity, a strong interest – if not love – of science of some kind, and the ability to put what they find into compelling prose. Their overarching concern seems to be one of accuracy and base their words on data, properly understood. And they hope society will continue to find value in that.

Mayo Participates in Karolinska Symposium

As part of its continuing relationship with the Karolinska Institute, Mayo Clinic research leaders are participating in the upcoming symposium on regenerative medicine in Sweden, November 3-5. The event is part of the Frontiers in Biomedical Research relationship established earlier this year between Karolinska and the Minnesota Partnership members (Mayo and the University of Minnesota).

Among the Mayo investigators speaking in the Nobel Forum will be Deputy Dean of Research Stephen Russell, M.D., Ph.D., Anthony Windebank, M.D., Michael Yazemski, M.D., Ph.D., Sree Nair, M.D., Ph.D.,  Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D, and Yasuhiro Ikeda, D.V.M., Ph.D.  The topics cover the use of regenerative medicine approaches to repair problems in the heart, liver, pancreas, blood vessels, bone and muscle, the brain, and even in restoring hearing. Special focus will be placed on the use of modified stem cells.

The symposium is part of the 200th anniversary celebrations of the Karolinska Institute, regarded as the top medical university in Europe. Media in Sweden have been alerted that Karolinska president Harriet Walberg-Henricksson will be announcing “a new and unique collaboration” as part of the event. That will be the official announcement in Sweden of the Frontiers in Biomedical Research that was inaugurated during her visit to Minnesota earlier this year.