The business of ignorance

Those of you who read this blog regularly may well be waiting on a post on the latest developments in stem cell therapy that I promised recently. I want to reassure you that this is coming, don't fret! However, a story has come to my attention of late that made me reconsider the topic of this post. The story has shocked, saddened, and angered me in equal measure and I felt that it needed sharing with you, dear reader, as it is a prime example of why the public engagement of science is a vitally important task. Given Shaun's heroic efforts last month to bring us the news from the latest  Cosmological Perturbations post-Planck conference, I thought it was fitting to exemplify just why this kind of science reporting is important.

I was first made aware of the story that shocked me so much by an excellent Panorama documentary that aired last month (UK readers can still watch the show online here). For those non-Brits amongst you, Panorama is a highly respected investigative documentary show produced by the BBC, not the kind of programme that bothers with unimportant issues. You can imagine, therefore, that my interest was piqued by the title "Cancer: hope for sale?". I had expected perhaps an exposé on some counterfeit medication ring, or maybe a look at a big pharmaceutical company pushing drugs through ahead of time in countries with lax regulation laws. I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined just how scandalous the actual story turned out to be, nor could I believe that this was the first I was hearing about it.

The main protagonist of this story is a Polish doctor called Stanislaw Burzynski - I had never heard of him before last week but he may be more familiar to those of you from the States. Dr Burzynski has been running a clinic out of Houston, Texas for over 30 years that offers treatment to cancer sufferers and has had thousands of patients through its doors. Burzynski's treatment is based on the notion that there exists a group of peptides (very short proteins) that exist within our bodies and have an immunoprotective effect against the development of cancer and other diseases, which he has given the reassuringly scientific-sounding name 'antineoplastons'. Cancer sufferers, it is claimed, can be treated by oral and intravenous administration of cocktails of various antineoplastons alongside a number of other components of the medication, such as steroids and anti-inflammatories. The antineoplastons used at the Burzynski clinic used to be purified from human urine but are now artificially synthesised from basic chemicals, and, it is claimed, are little short of a miracle weapon in the fight against cancer. The Burzynski clinic proudly asserts that not only do antineoplastons boost the immune response against cancer, but that the correct combination of antineoplastons can be used to generate therapies targeted against specific genes involved in different cancers and so allow for effective, personalised treatment.

This is close enough to real science to sound fairly convincing to the non-specialist. Some peptides are well known to have roles within the immune system (defensins, for example), and gene-targetted therapies represent a huge and promising area of oncology research. It all sounds pretty technical and reassuringly complex. That is enough for desperate individuals looking to cure themselves or loved ones when all else has failed; they're on the first plane to Texas.

Stem cells 2.0

It's been a divisive issue for as long as it's existed, but the topic of human embryonic cloning has been thrust back into the spotlight this week with the news that researchers in the US have successfully produced human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) from adult cells for the first time. This is big news because hESCs have the potential, in theory, to become any type of adult cell - opening the possibility for repairing damaged tissues in previously unthinkable ways. Neatly, this was exemplified this month by the revelation that a blind patient has had his sight restored so significantly using hESC therapy that he is now legally able to drive. Such therapy could also be used in therapies for paralysis, myocardial damage, diabetes, and many other disorders. 

This new method for generating hESCs relies on harvesting cells from an adult patient (typically from the skin) and then fusing them with oocyte (egg) cells that have been emptied of genetic material. This, in effect, generates a single-cell embryo with the genome of the original adult cell, which can then begin to develop into a multi-cellular body. The most recent work has identified the precise chemical signals that need to be applied to the cells, and at which stages, to generate hESCs. At present, it is illegal in most countries to allow such clones to develop beyond 14 days of age, yet it is still feasible that useful numbers of hESCs could be obtained from even such young embryos. 

This promising development hopefully represents the start of an increased investment in the field of therapeutic human embryonic cloning, but is also very likely to reignite the fierce debate over the ethical issues linked to the generation of human clones. Such debate led to severe restrictions in funding and autonomy in hESC research in the United States during the Bush regime, which was subsequently overturned by the Obama administration in 2009. It is my sincere hope that the typically alarmist ways that this kind of work is often portrayed in the mainstream media (such as those that accompanied the cloning of Dolly the sheep) do not hamper scientific policy or public acceptance of such potentially ground-breaking advances. 

This is, admittedly, a short post about something that you may already have read, but I am using this, dear reader, to whet your appetite for stem cells as I will be finding my way to writing a much more in depth and revealing post soon about what stem cells actually are and how the abstract 'treatments' that I mention above actually work. Watch this space for more soon.

Shaken not stirred - how to extract your own DNA

Last week I eagerly sat down to watch the first episode of a new series: Dara O Briain's Science Club. For those of you from outside the British Isles, Dara O Briain is an Irish comedian who, in recent years, has become one of the most popular comedians and broadcasters in the UK. Not only is he a very funny guy, he's also got a pretty sharp mind inside his (frankly massive) shiny head: he studied mathematics and theoretical physics at University College Dublin and has managed to hang on to his love of science despite moving into the world of entertainment. He, along with other big names like Brian Cox and James May, has been instrumental in advancing British popular science broadcasting in the last decade and has presented a number of science programmes, such as School of Hard Sums and Stargazing Live, giving science that much-needed welcoming and friendly face. 

His new series is most definitely worth watching and I await the next episodes with bated breath. The first was on the subject of genetics and epigenetics and my curiosity was more about how these complex topics would be presented rather than actually learning something (I'm already fairly familiar with the fields)! I was delighted by the casual and approachable way in which it was structured, and how debates about scientific funding and application were mixed in with the hard facts. 

Possibly my favourite moment, however, was when we were shown how to perform a simple task that I am very used to doing in the lab, but in your own home: extracting DNA. Perhaps appropriately given the latest addition to the James Bond franchise, this entailed the use of cocktail-making equipment and the kind of very strong vodka needed to make that perfect Martini. Some might think of this as a big gimmicky and irrelevant, but I quite like the idea of making somewhat abstract scientific principles more tangible in the mind of the general public. Bringing such a standard research procedure into people's homes helps to demystify the scientific method and hopefully give people a greater sense of ownership over this work than they might otherwise have.

So, today's post is a shameless plug for Dara O Briain's Science Club with the aforementioned DNA recipe thrown in for those of you unfortunate enough not to be able to watch it online! Enjoy.



1. Collect some of your cheek cells by swishing some (around 100ml) salt water around your mouth for 30 seconds or so. The solution will be a bit cloudy afterwards.

2. Add a few drops of washing-up liquid (to dissolve the cells' membranes) and a shot of pineapple juice (the proteases in this will degrade the myriad proteins found in your cells). Pop it all into a cocktail shaker and give it your best shake!

3. Pour through a cocktail strainer to remove bubbles, ideally into a martini glass or something in which it's easy to layer different liquids.

4. Chill some very strong (>80% abv) vodka on ice and they carefully layer over the top of your mushed up cell solution. At such a high concentration of alcohol DNA comes out of solution and so precipitates at the boundary between the two solutions. This looks like a white cloud forming at the bottom of the vodka layer, which can be scooped out by wrapping it around a toothpick or something similar. Et voilà! It may not look like much, but you have successfully extracted the chemical instructions that make you you. Not bad for 5 minutes work.

Symphony of Science - Climate Change

Some of you may already be familiar with the 'Symphony of Science' YouTube series, but I thought I'd give it a plug here anyway. These are a collection of videos created from various documentaries and science programmes spliced together and auto-tuned to make a song on a specific area of science. I'll be honest, the 'song' aspect of it is not the greatest musical contribution that mankind's ever seen, but I still really like these videos because they encapsulate an entire idea in a way that is so commonly used to express other concepts but is so rarely applied to science. The topics covered range from evolution, to space travel, to quantum mechanics, and are all well worth a watch. 

In recent years I've felt a slowly increasing passion among the general population (in the UK, at least)  for good scientific broadcasting and innovative ways to present scientific principles. This is exemplified by the notoriety of a number of 'popular' scientists, such as Brian Cox or David Attenborough, and the fact that several celebrities that started out in general entertainment have now moved in the direction of scientific broadcasting, Dara O Briain and James May to name but two. Perhaps we here on this sceptred isle have been spoiled by the exemplary science programmes regularly released by the BBC, but I believe that innovative presentations of science have the capability to connect with people regardless of nationality. The Symphony of Science is just one such presentation and, even if it's not your cup of tea, it is undoubtedly innovative.

The latest installation in the series was released this week and covers the ever-topical issue of climate change. 

A look at science from another side of the trench

[Note from Shaun: The following is a guest post from Claudia Mignone. As you will learn from the post, Claudia is a scientist turned science writer and she shares below her thoughts on the divide between scientists and science journalism. Her past lives on both sides of this divide allow her to also see both perspectives of a world that can sometimes descend into acrimony. Enjoy... (all credit/blame for the image captions is my own to bear)]

Heidelberg! A university here sometimes awards PhD's to starving cosmologists.  (Photo by Claudia)

I am an astronomer/cosmologist by training, and have been happily working as a science writer for almost three years now. In this post, I will explore the borderline that divides the people in the “trenches”, who are actively conducting research and producing scientific knowledge and results (what we like to call the “scientific community”, whatever the term really means), and everyone else who has an interest in the outcome of such research (let's call them “the public”). The borderline is quite an interesting grey area. Its width may vary significantly and continuously on the basis of a large number of factors and it remains partly unexplored by many. As someone who has spent some time working on both sides of this blurred region, I thought I'd share some thoughts that might be useful, particularly to the folks who are still locked in the “trenches”.

Before I start doing so though, let me just add some sort of disclaimer: I don't mean to dispense any sort of “wisdom” here. All of my thoughts and observations are based on my own personal experience (plus that of many colleagues/fellow scientists that I've encountered along the way) but are by no means of a general nature. It is very well possible that others have gone through quite different paths and might disagree with the view that I developed along mine. I haven't conducted any study (neither thorough or superficial) on any of the subjects I'll mention – although I'd love to do so in the future! – so I won't draw any conclusions, because I haven't reached any – yet. But maybe I'll try to propose some advice here and there. Feel free to take them. Or not.