medicine

The Only Person with Immortal Cells – Henrietta Lacks

Leave a comment

In 1951 a young black woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks died of cancer. Her cancer was unlike any seen before, or since, and has transformed modern medicine – her cells are immortal!

Henrietta’s miraculous cancer cells reproduce outside of the body – in a culture dish cells typically only divide a few times before they die, but hers have been alive for almost 60 years! Scientists found the incredibly fast growth rate of her cancer grew just as fast indefinitely in a test tube. They believed her cells held the key to curing cancer and even making humans immortal – unfortunately these have yet to happen.

Her cells, called the HeLa cell line, have been sent all over the world for testing, and even out of this world (as in outer space). Never before was it possible to do long term tests on human cells without testing on an actual human – the cell line would die after a couple days outside of the body. With the HeLa line this was suddenly possible. It has been used for testing the first Polio vaccine, as well as research into cancer, AIDS, radiation effects, sensitivity to toxic substances, gene mapping, and many other medical causes.

Today over 20 tons of her cells exist in petri dishes scattered across the globe. It’s amazing that after all this time, doctors still have not discovered why the HeLa cells behave unlike any others. In the last 60 years Henrietta Lack’s cells have been instrumental in advancing modern medicine – potentially in the next 60 years they will even help find a cure for cancer.

Keep reading …

Genetic Inherited Trait Mapping – Would You Want to Know?

3 Comments

Photo: Horia Varlan

Here’s a common quandary for you – if you could know exactly when you are going to die, would you want to find out?  For me the answer is pretty easy – no way Jose!  I don’t want to live my life neurotically counting down to my death.  But what if you draw the line a little farther back?  What if you could know the likelihood that you will have a certain disease in your lifetime?  Or even the trivial: would you like to be told some of your insignificant traits that you may otherwise never even know?

Is this even in the realm of possibility?
If you recall from the pea pod example in junior high, each gene is made up of two alleles – with each allele either being dominant or recessive. To show the recessive trait both alleles must be recessive.  But for humans it is rarely this simple.  These genes combine in incredibly complex ways to make you who you are – most characteristics are determined by more than one gene.  Even though it is incredibly complex, I think it just a matter of time until every conceivable human trait is identified – it should be possible with enough data and large enough computers crunching the numbers. (geek tangent)

Affecting your lifestyle
What would I like to know?  Areas where I could potentially take action to prevent a calamity before it strikes, rather than just worrying for worrying’s sake.  The obvious example are lifestyle diseases such as lung cancer, skin cancer, heart disease, and stroke.  Am I in the top 1% of the population for genetic risk of heart disease?  If so you better believe I would be extra careful to watch what I eat and make sure I exercise.

Keep reading…

The Opposite of Eradication – Preserving Global Agriculture Seeds

5 Comments

Photo: Mari Tefre

Yesterday I posted about the process of permanently eradicating a specific disease from the face of the earth. Today is quite the opposite, how are humans able to be ensure the global survival of plant life through major catastrophes? What if a huge fire or flood ravaged all land containing asparagus – we need to make sure that even if this happens the species will not be gone forever!

Buried 400 feet into the side of a mountain, only 810 miles from the North Pole, is a bunker that stores seeds from all over the world. There are over a half million seeds being stored there at zero degrees Fahrenheit – at this temperature most seeds can survive for hundreds of years. Even if the A/C broke, the surrounding rock is only 27 degrees. If the sea level rose several hundred feet it still wouldn’t reach the bunker. Earthquakes and volcano eruptions aren’t a concern due to the vault’s position in the middle of a tectonic plate.

Ok ok, while these doomsday scenarios are certainly interesting, they are not the primary reason for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The real reason? To protect against the loss of plant diversity. Think of dogs – even though all domestic dogs are the same species, it is obvious there is absurd diversity amongst them. If let to their own devices we would end up with all dogs being mutts.

Plants are the same way. There are potentially seeds for a specific plant that grow taller, are more resistant to cold, or taste differently just to name a few. Seed banks all over the world store backups here in case the seed lineage is accidentally misplaced or destroyed. As you can imagine preserving this biodiversity is much more important than creating a dog that can fit into a purse – one of these plants may hold the secret to curing cancer or other horrible diseases. It all comes full circle.

The Concept of Infectious Disease Eradication

1 Comment

Photo: Sari Dennise

There is a big difference between eradication and elimination when it comes to diseases. Disease eradication is when the global number of cases reaches zero. Even if there is a vaccine available for a specific disease, eradication means no one will ever be in need of using that vaccine again. Elimination is not as stringently defined – it can refer getting rid of the disease in specific regions or diminishing the cases to a negligible number of unlucky and impoverished people.

There have been a total of seven global attempts to eradicate human diseases. 4 failed (hookworm, malaria, yaws, and yellow fever), 2 are ongoing (polio and guinea worm), and only 1 was successful (smallpox).

Smallpox
In the early 1950s roughly 50 million people a year contracted smallpox with a mortality rate north of 10%. Shockingly, only 30 years later the disease was declared completely eradicated.

The first vaccine for smallpox was discovered in 1796. By giving someone the similar cowpox virus, they were then immune from contracting smallpox (fun fact: the word vaccine has the Latin root vaccinus meaning of or from cows). Unfortunately this was before the advent of FedEx so a timely delivery of the vaccine all over the world was not possible. Thus, the disease persisted for another 170 years.

In the 1950s and 60s a global initiative to eradicate smallpox began. Any outbreaks were immediately quarantined and everyone who lived close by received a vaccination (I imagine it was just like the movie “Outbreak”). Why did it take over 170 years from known vaccination to complete eradication? It was as much a communication and education initiative as a medical one. Any outbreaks of smallpox had to be immediately identified and a quick response was necessary to keep it from spreading. This was simply not possible in the 1800s.

Keep reading…