Brain's Glial Cells Spark Seizures

Fidel Empalmado

I chose to research an article about seizures. My wife has epilepsy, and has suffered from seizures for several years now. She is on the highest dose of medication that she can be on; however, she still has seizures if she has added stress, lack of sleep, or poor diet (which happens too often with three children at home).  On top of having epilepsy, she is also prescribed medications for her depression and anxiety. This condition not only affects her physically and emotionally, but also takes a toll on the whole family. I have a great interest in educating myself more on this topic hoping to eradicate her seizures or lessen the frequency of them.

In our class, I have learned that electrical signal or activity in the neurons are caused by ions flowing in and out of the protein channels in the plasma membrane of cells.  Ions are atoms or molecules with a net electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons. The ions that are involve in propagating electrical signals are NA+(Sodium), Cl-(Chloride), Ca2(Calcium), K+(Potassium) and A- (negatively charge anions).

In this article the author discovered a possible underlying link in cause of seizures. Overexcited neurons have always been the known cause for seizures, but this research shows just what “sparks the cells to go haywire”.

While studying fruit flies, scientists found that “when glial cells in the cortex of fruit flies cannot properly control their calcium levels, they leave neighboring neurons vulnerable to seizures.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology identified a genetic mutation that causes fruit flies to seize when they are exposed to heat or vibration. On studying the mutation, they found that it affects a gene called zydeco that controls calcium exchange inside glial cells.”

Additionally, this mutation that affects zydeco gene on fruit flies, prevents tiny calcium fluctuations from occurring in glia, which Melom believes results in a buildup of calcium inside the cells.

Because stress such as heat usually boost calcium levels, the combination could trigger “some sort of glial reaction that spirals into a seizure”. Another major question is how glial cells communicate with the neurons, prodding them to over excite. The researchers believe that because the same version of zydeco gene exist in mammals, the answer could help explain the genesis of epileptic seizures in humans as well.

More simply put, overexcited neurons cause the seizure, but there are several ways that neurons get overexcited. Researcher Jan Melom found that “the mutation identified in the study prevents tiny calcium fluctuations from occurring in glia, which Melom believes results in a buildup of calcium inside the cells”. This causes a depolarized intracellular environment making neurons overexcited. It is very interesting to hear this theory because my wife did not have seizures until 5 years ago. With her current lifestyle as a mother and having a husband going to school full time, she has become much more prone to have seizures under this stressful environment. I am anxious for more updates about this scientific breakthrough with the hopes of finding a cure to this condition.

Scientific American

Melinda Wenner Moyer

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brains-gilal-cells-spark-seizures/

Fight Mosquito with Mosquito 

By Kyron George 

        Everyone has heard of the saying, Fight fire with fire.  MosquitoMate, a company out of Louisville Kentucky,  has developed a way to fight mosquito with mosquito.  By changing the chromosomes of the males, when they mate it will cause the females eggs not to hatch.  This article interested me and caught my attention for two reasons: we are learning about chromosomes in class and this article applies that knowledge in real life, also because a family friend was infected with the West Nile virus.

        The Asian Tiger mosquito (Aedes Albopictus) is a common mosquito in the U.S. and very popular in the southeastern states.  It's known for spreading West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, encephalitis and dengue fever.  Pesticides have commonly been the solution to the peoples pest problem.  However their are new claims that common repellents are cancerous, people are constantly trying to find new and safer methods of protection from mosquitoes.  MosquitoMate has came up with a solution to killing off harmful mosquitoes

        By infecting lab born mosquitoes with the bacteria Wolbachia, and then separating the males from females.  They then release the non-biting males into the wild mosquito population.  The Wolbachia infected males will mate with the local females.  When the males mate with an uninfected female, the eggs will not hatch because the paternal chromosomes do not form properly.  Thus slowly stopping the population of mosquito from spreading.

     MosquitoMate has been approved by the EPA to start releasing the Wolbachia infected males into the wild of 20 states so far.  Other countries are already using mosquitoes to counter mosquitoes.  Brazil has had a problem with the Zika virus, a virus that causes birth defects. Brazil hired Oxitec, a company from the UK, to develop a modified mosquito that passes on a lethal gene to any progeny.

    I found this article fascinating to read about because I could connect the dots from what we are learning in biology with their method of extermination.  Once MosquitoMate has finished all their testing and is proven effective, hopefully they will be able to diminish harmful mosquito populations once and for all.  It would be interesting to read about what benefits mosquitoes bring to nature, and what the side effects of a world without them would be like. 

Waltz, Emily. “US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, www.nature.com/news/us-government-approves-killer-mosquitoes-to-fight-disease-1.22959.

Drones could be a problem

            The article, “Here’s How Drones Do (and Don’t) Threaten Passenger Aircraft” interested me because I have a couple of friends that own drones and have been able to capture in-depth images from a bird’s eye view over landscapes for video projects and for fun. Sometimes in places where we probably weren’t allowed to have it, but I digress. It didn’t cross my mind that a drone could cause some serious damages to passenger aircrafts. This fall a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter hit a drone as it was flying low over Staten Island (Hsu, 2017). This small collision damaged the main rotor blade, the transmission system, and the window frame of the helicopter (Hsu, 2017). This opened a lot of people’s eyes, (especially government agencies) that collisions like the one over Staten Island could become more common. Drones could also cause life-saving operations to be put on halt. Like when firefighters Montana had to stop what they were doing when there was an unauthorized drone flying by a fire on Rice Ridge because of the possibility of causing more damage. Depending on where you live, there are some locations where the flight of civilian drones is unpermitted and locations where it is permitted, as long as they don’t go over a specific height. There is also a small possibility of commercial aircrafts coming into contact with drones because there is a small moment in time where the commercial jet is in the same airspace as civilian drones during takeoff (Hsu, 2017). Even with all these possibilities of things going wrong, George Mason University Mercatus Center concluded that bird strikes are more common than drone collisions, and that only happens a couple hundred times a year compared to the 10 billion birds in the U.S. airspace.

            With technology growing faster, it’s interesting that a couple years ago drones were just an idea and now there are millions being made available to the public. I might even be interested in purchasing one. It’s important that a purchase of a drone comes with responsibility, not only because they can run up to be expensive, but to keep others safe as well.

-Roberto Elguera

Can Anyone Hack DNA?

     A kit that anyone can order online, CRISPR (made up of a cas9 protein, and some RNA), is being questioned. CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats. Basically, it is a tool used to change the genome of an organism. The author, Annie Sneed, went on a journey-of-sorts to learn of the capabilities of this program and see if it was true that anyone can make great, or catastrophic, contributions to science. The first thing that she did was purchase one of these inexpensive sets online and attempt to conduct an experiment with just her own knowledge and the instructions given. The goal was to make E-Coli bacteria able to reside in a solution that contained the antibiotic streptomycin. After following what seemed to be simple instructions, she was able to conduct the experiment and get positive results. This means that someone with no training can change the DNA of  an organism. But what does this really tell us? Sneed, and many other amateurs who have conducted this same experiment, were in fact able to alter the E-Coli bacteria, but this was with hand-holding directions that seemingly anyone could follow. It was not enough to say if this would work just from completing this experiment so more research had to be conducted.

     The next step taken by Sneed was to go to a next-level scientist of sorts. Though still considered an amateur, Johan Sosa had thousands of dollars of equipment, and an entire lab to work with. Sosa also considered this activity to be his "main hobby".  Sosa also spent many hours in his spare time researching the topic online, mainly youtube videos. Together, Sneed and Sosa attempted to manipulate DNA by slicing and pasting it together. They were not successful in their endeavor. If someone who, though still considered an amateur, but spends countless hours researching, and even preforming experiments on their own, has trouble doing a simple experiment with CRISPR, then I find it hard to believe that an amateur can make a weaponized pathogen.

     Finally, Sneed visited a small university in California to see if she could find out how professionals dealt with the system. She found that several PhD students and professors working together proved much more efficient. They were able to manipulate a visible organism, the Paryhale. This is a very small, shrimp-like aquatic organism. Through the equipment provided by the university, and the expertise of the staff on hand, these experts were able to successfully manipulate the organism. It takes much more than amateurism and research to be proficient at this exercise. It has to be one's lifestyle.
   
       In short, I think that Sneed was ambitious is saying that it could be a problem that people could make dangerous pathogens, or helpful contributions to society. In order to actually make an impact, a lot of hard work and dedication need to be put forth into becoming a student, or even professor, of the program and the knowledge associated with it. In other words, its not something that can just be done on the side. Society has nothing to worry about... unless one of the professionals wants to manipulate viruses to destroy the Earth. Then we might have a problem.

Taylor Olsen

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mail-order-crispr-kits-allow-absolutely-anyone-to-hack-dna/

Old-Fashioned Malaria Strategy Saves Thousands

            We are in a constant battle with sickness and disease in this world. But, we are very lucky to be living in a world with modern medicine that is constantly developing new ways and methods to treat, prevent, and destroy viruses, diseases, and sicknesses all around us. Malaria is a disease that has spread throughout the world, killing over a million people each year (unicef.org). With many people working on how to prevent, treat, and destroy the parasite, they have done so with the work of drug-delivering drones and even genetically engineered mosquitoes that are unable to carry the parasite. Amy Maxmen, an award-winning science journalist explains that amid so much technology, a more “old fashioned” approach of combating the disease seems to be saving tens-of-thousands of lives.

            Seasonal malaria chemoprevention involves “giving children a dose of antimalarial drugs once each month in the rainy season to prevent the disease in hard-hit regions.” Since the initiation of this strategy in the last few years we have seen incredible results in saving lives and reducing the number of malaria cases. But, this isn’t the first time this strategy has been put to use. In the 1950s, the use of chemoprevention was put into play but was not a good long-term solution due to drug resistance from the widespread use of malaria drugs. Years later in the year 2000 malariologists saw that almost a million people - mostly children - were dying each year from malaria. So, they revisited the chemopreventional approach and found that “between 2002 and 2012, clinical trials conducted in West Africa suggested that combinations of older malaria drugs had the power to prevent 8.8 million cases and 80,000 deaths every year if implemented solely during the rainy season, when the disease spikes (nature.com).” After implementing the chemoprevention “they are seeing the same level of efficacy against malaria that we saw in clinical trials and reducing hospital admissions (nature.com).”

            The combination of three older malaria drugs, (sulphadoxine, pyrimethamine and amodiaquine) is what has saved tens-of-thousands of lives since. Using three older drugs provides the main cure, artemisinin, to remain effective if tolerance or resistance to the other drugs came to be.

            Sadly, this is no long-term solution to the problem. Scientists have already seen a drug resistance in parasites and are working to “hit the disease hard and fast” (nature.com) in order to continually decrease the amount of cases and deaths of malaria in Africa for the long-term.

            Malaria researchers estimated that chemoprevention has averted about 6 million cases and 40,000 deaths in 2015 and 2016 in Chad, Niger, and other Sub-Saharan African countries. Also, they said that “malaria prevalence was reduced by 65% in children under age 5 who were treated… in the Malian district of Kita.” (nature.com) These results are promising and many people are working very hard to keep this momentum going to continue to save lives. Since the results, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) is planning to help fund the chemoprevention program in eight more countries next year.

            This article was very informative and eye-opening for me. I had no idea how many people died of malaria and I had no idea it was such a large problem. This is important to me because it’s not only making a new scientific discovery but saving thousands of lives and making their lives better. Through the evolution and advancements of science we can do amazing things in technology and medicine and this give me hope for a safer, and healthier world.


Resources: 
http://www.nature.com/news/resurrected-malaria-strategy-saves-thousands-of-lives-in-africa-1.22982

https://www.unicef.org/health/files/health_africamalaria.pdf