COLUMNS
HEALTH
Let’s Get Physical … Fitness column examines the myths about orthopedic support. » PAGE 6
Forget the beer gut—researchers at UCSF are raising awareness of a new concern: ‘Sugar Belly.’ » PAGE 5
Are your shoes an arch enemy?
The bitter–sweet dangers of dessert
IN THIS ISSUE
Calendar » PAGE 2 Puzzles » PAGE 4 History » BACK PAGE Comics » BACK PAGE
SynapseNewspaper
The UCSF Student
synapse.ucsf.edu | Thursday, January 8, 2015 | Volume 59, Number 6
Synapse Speaks to Startups: Scientists engineer microbes to make simple chemicals
Mark Wooding/UCSF News & Media Services The first floor of newly constructed Mission Hall will host several student services as the opening of Mission Bay’s new medical center approaches.
UCSF celebrates grand opening of Student Services at Mission Bay Dear Students:
Yarrow Madrona Industrial Microbes cofounders Elizabeth Clarke and Noah Helman spend time in the lab, where they are working to turn waste gasses into useful products.
By Yarrow Madrona Staff Writer In a lab in Emeryville not much bigger than a garage, three scientists are trying to show there is a better way to make chemicals used in everyday items. If they’re right, they’ll be able to prevent millions of pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere every year while lowering the cost of producing a range of goods from compost bags to yoga pants. Elizabeth Clarke, Derek Greenfield and Noah Helman are the founders of Industrial Microbes. They are developing a novel method of using microbes to create chemicals with broad industrial applications, a method they anticipate will be cheaper and produce a smaller carbon footprint than current practices. Their goal is to develop an organism that can use carbon dioxide and methane as starting materials to make industrial chemicals such as malic and succinic acid. These are, in turn, used for making biopolymers such as biodegradable plastics and synthetic fibers. “Several other companies are going after succinic acid using sugar as a raw material.
We are really excited about accessing cheaper carbon,” she said. “Methane is one-fourth of the price of sugar, and CO2 is even cheaper than that.” Three of the four carbons in malic acid will come from methane with the other coming from CO2. Clarke said, “We did a life-cycle analysis, comparing the standard petroleum route to malic acid with our proposed pathway. The
“Our process of making malic acid is a lot greener than the traditional route.”
petroleum pathway is dirty and emits a lot of CO2. Our process of making malic acid is a lot greener than the traditional route.” This aspect was particularly attractive to the CCEMC (Climate Change and Emissions Management Corp.), a Canadian-based nonprofit with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions in Alberta. The CCEMC gave Industrial Microbes their first startup money to develop a metabolic pathway that consumes CO2. The biosynthesis of malic acid from sugar has been previously demonstrated. In contrast, the efficient oxidation of
methane has proven difficult to implement. Their goal is to genetically engineer industrial strains to oxidize methane using enzymes and pathways derived from methanotrophs, organisms that already use methane as an energy source. “Existing companies are trying to engineer methane-consuming organisms to make various products because of the low price (of using methane). They are going after known methanotrophs,” said Clarke. “What’s tricky about these organisms is that they are not well-characterized organisms and they are hard to engineer. We are going after industrially proven host strains that are well studied.” “The core lesson we took from working at LS9 and watching companies like Amyris and Solazyme is that when you have an expensive raw material and a lowvalue product such as a fuel, your process must be close to 100 percent efficient. That takes a lot of time and money. You need to get close to the theoretical maximum efficiency because your raw material is so expensive. We have done back-of-theenvelope calculations and found that we only need to reach a low efficiency to make
MICROBES » PAGE 6
I am pleased to announce the opening of Student Services at Mission Bay. Starting Jan. 5, 2015, we will provide the following services on the first floor of Mission Hall: Financial Aid: Watkins Loan repayment, budget adjustments, disbursements, advising, financial aid documents Graduate Division (select services to be located at Mission Hall instead of William J. Rutter Center): Advancement to candidacy, exceptional approvals, filing fees Registrar: Transcripts, diplomas, petitions, fee payments, California residence for tuition purposes Student Life: Student government, student organizations, student involvement and programs, learning and support services Please join us on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., at an open house to celebrate our new Student Services center with staff, faculty, and your fellow students. Refreshments will be served. The Registrar, Financial Aid and Student Life will continue to offer the same services at Parnassus in Millberry Union. All other Graduate Division business will continue to be conducted in the third floor suite of the William J. Rutter Center at Mission Bay. Stop by and see our beautiful new space! Sincerely, Elizabeth Watkins, Ph.D.
Dean, Graduate Division Vice Chancellor, Student Academic Affairs Professor, History of Health Sciences
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Calendar » Events
SCRIPT YOUR FUTURE INFORMATION SESSION
Friday, January 9, noon-1 p.m., Medical Sciences, 214, Parnassus Come to the Script Your Future Information Session to learn about upcoming events.
MUSLIM FRIDAY PRAYER SERVICES
Friday, January 9, 1-1:30 p.m., Medical Sciences, 157, Parnassus 1:30-2 p.m., Helen Diller, 160, Mission Bay The Muslim Community at UCSF holds regular Friday prayer services (Jum’a) every week. Come join your fellow brothers and sisters for prayer and socializing. All are welcome!
CAMPUS EVANGELISTIC FELLOWSHIP Friday, January 9, 7-10:30 p.m., Nursing, 517, Parnassus Join the Campus Evangelistic Fellowship for their weekly meeting with Bible study, hymn singing, and fellowship.
MISSION BAY RIPS
Friday, January 9, 4-5 p.m., Genentech Hall Auditorium, Mission Bay RIPS is a seminar series wherein one student and one postdoc present their current research. Talks are 15 minutes in length and are preceded by a 20-minute social. Snacks and beverages are provided.
ASGD MONTHLY MEETING
Monday, January 12, 6-7 p.m., Genentech Hall, N114, Mission Bay The Associated Students of the Graduate Division invites graduate students interested in learning about various issues (CA residency problems, Gaps in Workers’ Compensation coverage, Building Graduate Student Community, etc.) affecting students at UCSF to come to the ASGD Board Meeting. Come meet other students in other PhD and Masters programs. No RSVP is necessary.
HISPANIC-SERVING HEALTH PROFESSIONS SCHOOL INFORMATION SESSION
Tuesday, January 13, noon-1 p.m., Multicultural Resource Center, MU123W, Parnassus Hispanic-Serving Health Professions School (HSHPS) offers several paid and unpaid training programs located across the United States and Latin America in government agencies and academic institutions. Come to the information session and learn more about HSHPS. Sponsors: Multicultural Resource Center, Office of Diversity and Outreach. Register: hshps. wufoo.com/forms/hshps-informationsessions
RCO ORGSYNC TRAINING
Tuesday, January 13, noon-1 p.m., Byers Hall, 215, Mission Bay Come learn how to create an event request, budget request, and forms. Find out how OrgSync can help your RCO.
INTRODUCTION INTO INVESTING IN THE LIFE SCIENCES
Tuesday, January 13, 5-6 p.m., Genentech Hall, N-114, Mission Bay Join the Investment Club UCSF and come learn about investing and how to leverage your scientific knowledge.
CARRY THE ONE RADIO WORKSHOP
Tuesday, January 13, 5 -7 p.m., Mission Hall, 1107, Mission Bay Carry the One Radio is a UCSF-based science podcast. The show is run completely by a dedicated group of young scientists who want to share their enthusiasm for research with a wider audience. The group meets weekly to workshop various pieces.
All are welcome, no radio experience needed.
PARNASSUS FARMERS’ MARKET
Wednesday, January 14, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., ACC, 400 Parnassus Ave. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Gene Friend Way Plaza, Mission Bay Shop the Farmers’ Markets on Wednesdays to pick up locally grown produce and more. Sponsor: Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association
FIFTH ANNUAL WELLNESS EXPO
Wednesday, January 14, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Millberry Union Conference Center, Parnassus The 5th Annual Wellness Expo includes a variety of free wellness activities, resources and giveaways, such as health assessments with a chance to earn a FastPay gift card, a free “smart choice” lunch catered by Moffitt Cafe, farmers market produce giveaway, a collection of over 30 UCSF departments providing wellness information, and a featured keynote panel by the UCSF researchers involved in the nationwide SugarScience initiative.
ASSN WINTER SOCIAL
Wednesday, January 14, noon-1 p.m., Nursing Mezzanine, Parnassus The Associated Students of the School of Nursing will provide mid-day coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and pastries for the winter social. Come hang out in the school of nursing mezzanine at lunch to catch up with nursing colleagues and friends.
LAPS LUNCH TALK
Wednesday, January 14, noon -1 p.m., Toland Hall Join the Latino Association of Pharmacy Students in learning useful medical terms while enjoying a delicious lunch! RSVP by January 9. https://docs.google. com/forms/d/1Nbp8qCk-hRMnmKdD_ P6iPe5wsPv37GW19-gtRol3cwA/ viewform?usp=send_form
UCSF RUN CLUB
Wednesday, January 14, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Millberry Union Central Desk, Parnassus Please drop by and join UCSF Fit & Rec for a run! Each Wednesday night the Run Club runs various distances (3-6 miles) at a 9-11 minute per mile.
IMN MIDWEEK MEDITATION HOUR
Wednesday, January 14, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Library, CL221, Parnassus The Integrative Medicine Network invites everyone in the UCSF community to experience a weekly guided meditation. All are welcome, whether you are looking to combat day-to-day stress using meditation or you’d like to uncover subtle layers of your self by diving deep! No experience in meditation is necessary.
ENGLISH CORNER
Wednesday, January 14, 6-8:30 p.m., Medical Sciences, 159, Parnassus English Corner is an informal Conversational English Class given as a free community service and provided on a voluntary basis by both people born and raised in the United States as well as many people who have, at one time in their lives, experienced life as a new immigrant to the U.S.
UCSF INFORMATICS & DIGITAL HEALTH DAY
Thursday, January 15, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Mission Bay Conference Center, Mission Bay UCSF and Bay Area entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists and clinicians, are brought together to showcase digital health initiatives and clinical data sources for use in basic, translational, and clinical research. Register: http://bit.ly/1yVC6aT
FOOD TRUCK THURSDAYS AT MISSION BAY
Thursday, January 15, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Fourth Street & Nelson Rising Lane, Mission Bay Join the food truck lunch party every Thursday at Mission Bay and explore the tasty culinary options to break up your routine. Each week will feature two different vendors, so there will always be something new. Grab some friends, get some food, and take your lunch experience up a notch. Rumor has it: come early and don’t miss out! http://campuslifeservices.ucsf. edu/retail/services/dine/food_trucks
MLK CELEBRATION
Thursday, January 15, noon-1 p.m., Millberry Union Conference Center, Parnassus Join San Francisco District 10 Supervisor for an inspiration address, music, and video projection of Chancellor’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr 2014 Awardees. Sponsors: Multicultural Resource Center, Office of Diversity and Outreach, Committee of Minority Organizations, Student academic Affairs, Campus Life Services Arts & Events, Student National Medical Association, and Black Student Health Alliance. RSVP: https://ucsf.co1.qualtrics.com/ SE/?SID=SV_bQHoX2AVGWNmGPz
UC ORACLES TOASTMASTERS
Thursday, January 15, noon-1 p.m., Nursing, 417, Parnassus Toastmasters empowers people to achieve their full potential. Through the Toastmasters’ meetings, people throughout the world can improve their communication and leadership skills, and find the courage to change. Be the speaker and leader you want to be! Attend one of the Toastmasters’ meetings to learn more. Meetings are open to UCSF students, faculty, staff & volunteers.
Upcoming
2ND ANNUAL NORCAL EMERGENCY MEDICINE SYMPOSIUM
Nursing, 225, Parnassus Learn how to make the connections you need to succeed. Join Naledi Saul for an interactive workshop on developing networking skills. RSVP deadline: January 19. Sponsors: FGSS, OCPD, SH&CS, SDS. Felicia.Mercer@ucsf.edu
Announcements
RCO REGISTRATION DEADLINE
Registration for new Registered Campus Organizations (RCO) closes January 31.
CARMELINA’S TAQUERIA RENOVATION CLOSURE
Carmelina’s Taqueria at Millberry Union will re-open January 12. Please contact Retail Services for any questions. retail. services@ucsf.edu
GPSA FORMAL: TICKETS ON SALE
Saturday, January 31, 9 p.m-1 a.m., Westin St. Francis, SF Join the Graduate & Professional Student Association for the annual semi-formal All School Gala and enjoy a night filled with dancing, desserts and photobooths! All students who purchase tickets by January 14 will be entered to win a free night at the Westin St. Francis the evening of the formal! https://ucsfformal2015. eventbrite.com
APPLY TO BE THE 2016-17 UC STUDENT REGENT!
The student Regent is a voting member of The Regents of the University of California, attends all meetings of the Board and its Committees and serves for two years (one year as a designate and one year as a voting member) commencing July 1. All mandatory University fees and tuition are waived for the student Regent during the academic years in which he or she serves as a Regent-designate and as a member of the Board. Submit applications by February 22 at 5 p.m.
ARE YOU A FIRST GENERATION TO
Saturday, January 17, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m., COLLEGE STUDENT (FG2C)? Millberry Union Conference Center, Register with the First Generation Support Parnassus Services Office to give you access to all of This year’s symposium will focus on EM the First Generation Support Services and Everywhere - from the streets of Oakland helps the office advocate for you! to the first emergency medicine residency http://bit.ly/firstgenregister program in Tanzania. There will also be resident-led small group workshops GPSA Presents: A semi formal all school gala to teach suturing, incision & drainJanuary 31, 2015 @ 9 p.m. westin st. francis age, casting/splinting, airway management, central venous access, and The Annual more! Cost: $10 for UCSF students. UCSF Formal Registration deadline: January 16. Dancing http://www.eventbrite.com/e/2ndDesserts annual-norcal-emergency-medicinePhoto Booths No host bar student-symposium-hosted-by-ucsf21 & over $28 per ticket until 1/14 tickets-9779756515 $35 per ticket after 1/14 2 Tickets Per Student I.D.
RCO ORGSYNC TRAINING
Tuesday, January 20, noon-1 p.m., Medical Sciences, 157, Parnassus Come learn how to create an event request, budget request, and forms. Find out how OrgSync can help your RCO.
SCHOOL OF NURSING NAA/ASSN ALUMNI LUNCH SERIES
Tuesday, January 20, noon-1 p.m., Nursing, 417, Parnassus Join the School of Nursing NAA/ASSN Alumni for a lunchtime talk, “Easing the Uphill Climb: Landing Your First Job After Graduation” by Susan Walczak, Senior Nurse Recruiter, UCSF. RSVP deadline: January 16. http://goo.gl/forms/ awIBo8Gub5
NETWORKING 101: HOW TO APPROACH A POTENTIAL MENTOR Thursday, January 22, noon-1 p.m.,
ucsfformal2015.eventbrite.com
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Career and Professional »
Why science instruction matters Evidence-based methodology helps shape future policy-makers
Dr. Laurence Clement Program Director of Academic Career Development Office of Career and Professional Development
Undergraduate science education has been undergoing a significant pedagogical shift in the last few decades. At its core, the shift has been from teaching students scientific facts to teaching students how to apply core scientific concepts and think critically about scientific data and conclusions. It can be difficult for those of us who love to teach science to think about teaching undergraduates for any other reason than to inspire and train new generations of scientists, but teaching undergraduates to think scientifically—particularly those who do not choose a career in science—is critical. These students also have a voice in shaping public policy, so providing them with the tools to analyze the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) behind news stories, policy decisions and legislative actions is crucial for the future of science. By using critical thinking, they can make informed decisions, form opinions based on evidence, and discern scientific discourse and political narrative. In addition, before casting a vote, the students we teach might share their opinions within their community, hopefully accurately conveying the concepts we have taught them.
What is happening in science education In the past decades, scientists around the country have been moving science teaching from a traditional “transmissionist” model (the sage on the stage) to a “constructivist” model. In the latter, the instructor focuses on facilitating the learning process to help students construct a new conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. In 2011, the American Association for the Advancement of Science sponsored a new report on undergraduate biology education called “Vision and Change,” which provides a framework for biology faculty. This framework encourages the development of conceptual thinking and scientific competencies that go beyond the traditional memorizing-understandingrecalling model of learning science. Why this matters Institutions around the country are now
Synapse
training current and future faculty using an evidence-based approach to teaching, or scientific teaching. In scientific teaching, assessment of learning outcomes plays a critical role in determining whether students have learned what the instructor claims to have taught them. This trend means that, when applying to assistant professor or lecturer positions, postdoctoral scholars are increasingly being expected to provide evidence of teaching effectiveness, and to be able to demonstrate the ability to take a scientific approach to teaching. For example, at some institutions, instructors may be required to collect data on student learning and implement changes to their curriculum to improve their effectiveness. It has also led to the burgeoning of Discipline-Based Education Research positions in science departments at institutions around the country. DBER positions are typically faculty positions (tenure-track or not), and are developed for science Ph.D.s who have postdoctoral training in science education research as well as extensive teaching experience. Nowadays, familiarity with the “Vision and Change” guidelines and the science education literature (including from science education journals like CBE-Life Sciences Education or the Journal for Microbiology and Biology Education) is also becoming a must for principal investigators on National Science Foundation science education grants.
Developing your teaching skills As a UCSF graduate student and postdoctoral researcher, the opportunities to interact with basic science education faculty and undergraduate students may seem limited. This is why, several years ago, the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development developed partnerships with Bay Area institutions that serve a large and diverse undergraduate population, such as the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco. Within UCSF, the Postdoctoral Training Fellowship Program has been providing training and teaching experience in small-group discussions for postdoctoral scholars. Through these successful partnerships, more than 20 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the life sciences have been able to gain essential teaching and mentoring experience each semester, and OCPD has begun expanding these
Jenny Qi | EDITOR IN CHIEF Sam Lee | ASSOCIATE EDITOR Yi Lu | ASSOCIATE EDITOR Taylor LaFlam | SCIENCE EDITOR Akshay Govind | STAFF WRITER Bryne Ulmschneider | STAFF WRITER Chris Foo | STAFF WRITER Hannah Patzke | STAFF WRITER Ilka Fensen | STAFF WRITER Theresa Poulos | STAFF WRITER Yarrow Madrona | STAFF WRITER Sean Tracy | STAFF WRITER Mayya Shveygert | STAFF WRITER Hanna Starobinets | WEB EDITOR Ben Sellers | MANAGING EDITOR
Online Resources for Busy Scientists For graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who may not be able to take
advantage of any of these opportunities, there is a growing number of online resources available to gain training in scientific teaching. Scientific societies and consortia are now offering online courses—from the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, to Coursera’s Massive Open Online Courses, to the American Society for Microbiology’s Science Teaching Fellow Program (open to all life science postdoctoral scholars). And, for graduate students and scholars who may not be able to commit to a full online course, the iBiology Scientific Teaching Series is an online, self-paced, video series that can easily be accessed by all. It introduces the basic principles of active learning and student-centered teaching, and includes videos of classroom demonstrations and provides evidence of effectiveness for some basic active learning strategies. If you are a graduate student or postdoctoral scholar considering a career in academia, sign-up to OCPD’s Preparing Future Faculty listserv (http://bitly. com/UCSFPFF) to receive updates about future programs in and out of OCPD. Dr. Laurence Clement has trained through the American Society for Microbiology’s Biology Scholars program and serves on the editorial board of the Journal for Microbiology and Biology Education. Previously, as an employee of the American Society for Cell Biology and Associate Director of iBiology, she spearheaded the development of the iBiology Scientific Teaching series.
500 Parnassus Avenue, Millberry Union 108W, San Francisco, CA 94143 tel: 476-2211 | fax: 502-4537 synapse@ucsf.edu | synapse.ucsf.edu
The UCSF Student Newspaper Staff
collaborations to other scientific fields, including social sciences and nursing. In addition, the UCSF STRIDE program, in partnership with San Francisco State University, has been training postdoctoral fellows in scientific research and education for several years, demonstrating UCSF’s efforts to train scientists who have expertise in novel pedagogical practices (application deadline for the four-year postdoctoral program is April 8). Starting in January, OCPD will start offering a new evidence-based science education course called STEP-UP (for Science Teaching Effectiveness Program for Upcoming Professors) for UCSF graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, twice each year. This four-day course will include training around the scientific teaching principles as well as opportunities to develop and practice teaching skills before going into a classroom. For students and scholars who are interested in a shorter-term teaching experience, the award-winning Science & Health Education Partnership at UCSF has a long history of successfully training UCSF students, scholars and trainees in researchbased teaching methods. UCSF volunteers work closely with San Francisco public K-12 teachers co-planning and co-teaching several classroom lessons—gaining experience integrating active, research-based pedagogical methods into their teaching, while also serving as scientist role models to young students. Each fall SEP leads a crash-course in science teaching called the Scientist Teaching Workshops. In addition, the UCSF Office of Research and Development in Medical Education (RadME) department has been offering well-designed workshops around the evidence-based teaching principles as they relate to medical training.
About
Synapse is the UCSF student-run biweekly newspaper which runs on Thursdays during the academic year and publishes online in between print issues. Synapse seeks to serve as a forum for the campus community. Articles and columns represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the Board of Publications or the University of California.
Advertising
Paid advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of Synapse. Synapse and its editorial board reserve the right to decline advertisements promoting false or misleading claims, known health risks, or content deemed by the editors to be antithetical to the interests of UCSF students or the UCSF community. Synapse does not accept advertisements from tobacco or alcohol manufacturers, or sexually oriented personal ads. Synapse reserves the right to run any ad Submissions Announcements and letters should be submitted with a disclaimer. seven days before publication. All submissions must be emailed to synapse@ucsf.edu. All material is Visit synapse.ucsf.edu to view the publication schedule and to submit an ad. subjected to editing.
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[Exit, Pursued by Science] »
Skin fat tissue may help combat Staph infections
crosstalk between adipose tissue and immune cells—an interaction that is known to be chronically active in obesity. It’s well appreciated that the immune system is a complex, many-armed fighting machine, and these findings, as well as previous research finding a role for certain epithelial cells in various immune responses, may be the beginning of a major paradigm shift in the way we understand tissue biology and the boundaries between different tissue functions.
By Hanna Starobinets Web Editor Happy New Year! Isn’t it great that while we were all on vacation, enjoying the holidays with our friends and families, science kept moving forward? There is always something exciting to report on (I hope this will always continue to be true), so here is a small and completely subjective selection. [Enter Messenger].
Antibacterial fat What happens at the front line of a Staphylococcus aureus bacterial skin infection? There are sentinel immune cells standing guard in all our tissues—but are they alone responsible for fighting off microbes, or do other tissue cells contribute to the battle? In this year’s first issue of Science, L.J. Zhang and colleagues in the Gallo lab at UCSD published the intriguing finding that dermal adipocytes—skin fat cells— are a critical part of fighting S. aureus skin infection. Following their initial observation that these cells expanded on the skin of mice with S. aureus infection, the authors demonstrated that mice were even more susceptible to infection following genetic or chemical inhibition of adipocyte expansion. Immune cells still functioned normally during these infections, indicating the S. aureus-fighting function of adipocytes is not simply due to their supporting of immune cells. They went on to show that cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP) is released by adipocytes and has antibacterial activity. This means that skin fat tissue, far from being a passive tissue, plays an active role in fighting bacterial skin infections, while the rest of the immune system mobilizes forces (which takes time). Because CAMP also has proinflammatory functions, the authors speculate that it may function in the
Sources: Science, EurekAlert! DIY biomedical engineering An eloquent article full of suspense and intrigue was published by Dan Hurley in WIRED on Christmas Eve. It discussed the secret underground efforts of technologically advanced parents— software engineers by day, for example— who have been hacking their diabetic kids’ blood sugar sensors. One parent hacked the sensor to send its readings to an application he created for his smart phone, allowing for 24/7 monitoring of his son’s blood sugar and much faster responses to blood sugar dips. Another man wrote an app that automatically calculated the amount of glucose or insulin needed to correct high or low blood glucose levels. After hearing about these homegrown inventions, many other tech-savvy parents have followed suit and developed similar apps. The FDA does not interfere with these kinds of home solutions as long as they stay within the household. People with the skills to design these hacks can discuss their idea with others, but can’t share their algorithms or code. They understand the danger of non-tech-savvy people attempting to recreate their hacks, and urge them to remain cautious. The reliance on a good internet connection for these apps to function is also a major limitation. Rumor in this community has it that someone, somewhere, has successfully hacked a “bionic pancreas”—just as a normal pancreas measures blood glucose levels and releases the appropriate amount of insulin to allow cells to import that glucose, so his smart phone imports his blood glucose readings, calculates the appropriate insulin level and communicates that number to an implanted insulin pump. Whether or not this person truly succeeded in linking these medical devices through a phone app remains unconfirmed. EXIT » PAGE 6
ST. TERESA OF AVILA CATHOLIC CHURCH YOUR INCLUSIVE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY FOR MISSION BAY & SOUTH BEACH
Puzzles » The Crossword
ACROSS 1 Lackluster 5 Ladybug's lunch 10 Altar area 14 Etna output 15 Construction sight 16 Make tracks 17 Telltale sign 18 Short and sweet 19 Small jazz combo 20 Casino supply 22 Cooking direction 23 Watermelon waste 24 Like some promises 26 Kindergarten adhesive 27 Climbing plant 30 Historic period 32 Vane direction 33 City map abbr. 35 Old-school phone 38 Party food 39 Hamlet, notably 41 Radley in Harper Lee's novel 42 Make possible 44 Hoover, for one 45 Campaign tactic 46 Drench, as a fire 48 Filled to the brim 50 Billiards bounce 52 Highland boy 54 Wading bird 55 Cob or drake 56 No way! 60 Electric unit 61 Do penance
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Tuesday Friday PARISH OFFICE (MAILING ADDRESS):
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9 Forest dweller 40 10 Have some pull 43 11 Like most fridge 45 items 12 New Orleans 47 player 13 Whittle away 49 21 Sponge up 50 25 Fall collection? DOWNJanuary 2015 26 -Penniless 51 Issue 1 1 Political group 27 Hand over 2 Dalai ____ 28 Drought ender 53 3 Declare 29 Summer shoe 55 4 Telephone part 31 Future doc's 57 5 False front 58 major 6 No-hunting area 34 Wrap up 59 7 Sultan's ladies 36 Easy victory 62 8 Ready for a 37 Yesteryear 39 Reunion attendee commitment? Water conduit Motionless Wish granter Fiendish Lecherous look Utopian More than suggestive
Corsage flower Word before seat or shot Unexpected success On cloud nine Sewing kit item Type of engineering "Humble" dwelling Single-handedly Wise Men Bounty rival Long story Count (on) Slithery swimmer
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Difficulty : Easy
Copyright 2015 by The Puzzle Syndicate
HOW TO SOLVE:
1490 19TH STREET (AT CONNECTICUT STREET) Saturday Vigil Sunday
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Solution to Sudoku
(Answer appears elsewhere in this issue)
SOLUTIONS » PAGE 6
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» Health
Do You Have a Sugar Belly? SugarScience educates public on truth behind added sugar By Hanna Starobinets Web Editor
SugarScience is a website developed by UCSF to act as an authoritative source for the scientific evidence about the effects of sugar on health and disease. It aims to educate the public and provide resources for medical professionals. It was launched in November 2014. Laura Schmidt, principal investigator of the project, is a professor of health policy in the UCSF School of Medicine. She spoke about the project’s launch and early success with Synapse on Dec. 19. The edited transcript follows:
Synapse: How did the SugarScience project begin? LS: SugarScience grew out of the UCSF Clinical & Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and work that I had been doing with colleagues at the Institute of Health Policy Studies. Over the last few decades, and even more recently in the last 10 years, scientists have really been thinking about sugar and health in a different way. It used to be that you’d hear the phrase “a calorie is a calorie,” and the focus was reducing overconsumption of “empty calories.” More and more, the paradigm has shifted away from looking at just obesity as the outcome, and instead looking at chronic disease and the mechanisms having to do with metabolic dysfunction, inflammation and how sugar affects the underlying systems for metabolizing all foods. The problem is that a lot of information is locked up in medical journals and out of the public awareness. And yet, this is a product that is consumed in very large quantities and is extremely abundant in the American diet. We were approached by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, a philanthropic foundation who was interested in the science of sugar and health and figuring out a way to translate and convey that information to the public. Synapse: What studies did the project compile? LS: We wanted to create a toolkit of informational materials that are sciencebased but also accessible to the lay-public. We got two librarians from the campus library to do very comprehensive literature searches to help us find the best studies. ¼ The library weeded through all relevant publications, removing those with conflicts of interest, and made a carefullycurated set of studies. We wound up with 8,000 papers, and a subset of about 3,000 that were in the higher impact journals and right on target. We sorted these into different categories, looking through all the evidence for predominant things that rose to the surface. ¼ The three major disease outcomes that we uncovered and thought were areas that the public really needs to know about, because they are public health problems that people don’t fully understand: diabetes, heart disease and liver disease. Areas of emerging research also came up in our review. There are some pretty compelling findings, and we should track them, but they’re not at a point where it’s all figured out. These areas are: cognitive decline (dementia, Alzheimer’s disease), addiction and cancer. We really want to keep people informed about work that is being done.
Synapse: How does the SugarScience
website present all these findings? LS: It’s not simple. How sugar leads to diabetes is really different from how sugar is implicated in liver disease. It’s actually different sugars, so we have to explain the differences between fructose and glucose. The content is not simple. SugarScience started out as a static toolkit. We have a very coherent set of messages. We picked areas that are very defensible and scientifically accurate. We use observational studies and clinical trials with robust evidence that all point in the same direction. The components of our diets impact disease outcomes and our risk of dying of particular chronic diseases. Metabolic syndrome underlies most forms of chronic disease. People need to consider whether they might have it. We all love sugar. It’s really a bummer to have doctors or parents or anyone telling you not to eat this stuff. It’s not a popular or fun message to convey to people. It’s really easy to turn people off. At the very get-go, you’re not going to get very far if you don’t have very smart, very knowledgeable communications people who are helping you think through how to convey that information to people in a way that will get them interested and not close their minds. Scare tactics work for smoking, but for something as popular and seemingly benign as sugar—it’s in your grandmother’s cookies—you have to think very carefully about how you’re going to present that information in a way that engages people. … How do we, in a compelling way, using metaphors and pictures, make people understand? We need to get terms like “metabolic syndrome” into the vocabulary of average people. There’s one thing that you can see when you look at a person who might have metabolic syndrome, and that is visceral fat. Our communications people came up with a great metaphor: the “Sugar Belly.” It’s fun and non-threatening and gets in your head like the “beer belly.” Everybody knows what a beer belly looks like. The same metabolic process that produces the beer belly, de novo lipogenesis, occurs when fructose is metabolized in the liver. We put this idea in someone’s head and give them a call to action: You might have a sugar belly, so get a blood test! That’s good messaging. That’s the spirit behind all of this. Synapse: Does SugarScience want to shape policies? LS: With the issue of sugar in health,
| January 8, 2015 | 5
» Student Life EM Everywhere: EMIG hosts NorCal Emergency Medicine Student Symposium By Lauren Fryling Staff Writer
It has been only 35 years since emergency medicine was officially recognized as a specialty, and yet in that time it has spread to almost every aspect of medicine and society. Emergency medicine is the first line facing Ebola, the safety net for the uninsured and the topic of countless television dramas. This is why the Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG) had chosen the theme “EM Everywhere” for its second annual UCSF NorCal Emergency Medicine Symposium on Saturday, Jan. 17. This daylong conference will attempt to show the diversity of emergency medicine—from stopping a polio epidemic in South Sudan, to establishing the first emergency medicine residency in Tanzania, to providing medical care to local underserved communities in Oakland and everything in between. The conference starts at 9 a.m. with food and coffee followed by the first speaker, Dr. Justin Lemieux. Lemieux is an EMS fellow at Stanford that has worked in pre-hospital as well as with San Mateo SWAT. Following the keynote, Dr. Steven Bin will discuss his work in pediatric emergency medicine at UCSF. Attendees will hear as well from Dr. Andrew Herring, an emergency physician at Highland Hospital who co-founded an Oaklandbased grassroots organization dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of underserved urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. There will also be two panels during the conference. The first one is an interdisciplinary EM career information panel that includes EM physicians from various clinical settings (Mitch Erickson, N.P., and Zlatan Coralic, Pharm.D.) After that there will be a panel from Northern California’s emergency medicine residency directors including UCSF/SFGH, UC Davis, Stanford, UCSF Fresno, Highland, and Kaweah Delta Health. After the panels, lunch will be provided, and participants will have the opportunity to talk to the speakers and residency directors. Next there will be small-group, hands-on skills workshops where emergency medicine residents from Northern California will lead sessions on placing central lines, performing I&Ds, managing airways, toxicology and more. Dr. George Rutherford, co-chair of the UCSF Ebola Response Task Force, will then provide an update on the local and international field response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, highlighting the role of EM in the emergency outbreak response as well as future contributions the field can make. EMIG » PAGE 6
there is a lot of political polarization, and science gets caught up in the middle. Scientific evidence often becomes manipulated; there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation. We’re trying to rise above all that and say, look, here’s what we know. We’ll explain to you how it works. If we don’t know about it, we’ll tell you. You can trust us. We’re not anti-sugar. We don’t want to take your sugar away from you. … Reporters and the public ask us: What’s your agenda? Our agenda is to tell you the truth! As a medical center, we can speak about research with authority and without any agenda other than helping people— because that’s what we do. The problem is that our population is ill-informed on this issue—not about the politics, but about the actual problem itself—why is sugar harmful to your health? Until people understand that we have a problem, how can they formulate opinions on what particular solutions to that problem they would support? … As a citizen, I might want to advocate for a particular thing that I believe in. As a scientist, I inform voters so that they can make their own choices. Even very well-educated, regular readers of the press are shocked to hear that 30 percent of Americans have non-alcoholic liver disease—and that the only risk factor other than trans-fat and obesity is fructose consumption! We’re a public university and have a commitment and responsibility to share what we know with the people who fund us: tax payers. We may get to a point where we feel that we’ve helped the public awareness and knowledge about why sugar is harmful to health (and in what quantities). Then we can start talking to people about behavior change. For now, we don’t believe that we’re at that place.
SUGAR BELLY » PAGE 6
NORCAL EMERGENCY MEDICINE STUDENT SYMPOSIUM
Saturday, January 17, 5:30 p.m. Millberry Union Networking session after the symposium from 5:30–7 p.m. Tickets are $10 for UCSF students of all schools and $25 for non-UCSF students. Tickets can be purchased at: eventbrite. com/e/2nd-annual-norcal-emergencymedicine-student-symposium-hosted-byucsf-tickets-9779756515
6 | January 8, 2015
| synapse.ucsf.edu
Continued »
Puzzle Solutions »
MICROBES
Solution to Crossword: B L O C
» FROM FRONT PAGE
Startup must balance cost and passion
money (using methane),” said Clarke. “Obviously you would like your process to be as efficient as possible, but this will let us bring products to market sooner.” Helman said, “Either you can solve the efficiency problem with high-value products or with cheaper raw materials. Can you use something that is not sugar, that’s cheaper than sugar, and switch from high-value products with niche markets to lower-value products with bigger markets? We realized if we could use methane and CO2 it would open up a whole bunch of products that would suddenly be economically viable.” The trio first met four years ago at LS9, a biofuels company that was recently acquired by Renewable Energy Group, Inc. All completed graduate work in the Bay Area. Both Clarke and Helman spent
EXIT
» FROM PAGE 4
C E D E C I V I L
Industrial Microbes cofounders Noah Helman, Elizabeth Clarke and Derek Greenfield
time at UCSF, Clark as a graduate student in Chris Voigt’s lab and Helman has a postdoctoral fellow in Wendell Lim’s lab. Greenfield earned his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. The team credits the QB3 startup-ina-box program for helping them iron out the logistics of incorporating their vision into a company. Clarke said, “They gave us a lot of support. They set us up with a legal team, a bank, helped us incorporate. We wouldn’t have known how to do any of that.” The program connected them to a law firm, which was helpful in giving them a number of free hours as well as deferred payment options. When asked what they like best about working at a startup, Clarke said, “This is my baby in a way that nothing I have worked on before is. I feel very invested in it. When I joined LS9 it was a similar feeling
L A M A
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H A P H C R A A T E R N S E D S S O L E M R E E P E R A S T A V E A V E N I P D N A B L E D O U S E L A A R O M B I S M A L A T O O L T G E N D L E I D E E E R
I N S A N E G A R D E N I A
D E E R
A T T R P A P O C R O T E R M S E P L D I E N E E P E E L R
P E R I S H A B L E
S A I N T
E R O D E
R O U T
Y O R E
V I V A
E P I C
R E L Y
Source: WIRED Hanna Starobinets is a fourth-year BMS student.
EMIG
» FROM PAGE 5
Reynolds does keynote at Emergency Medicine talk
The symposium will end with a talk from keynote speaker Dr. Teri Reynolds. After graduating medical school at UCSF, Reynolds completed her EM residency and ultrasound fellowship at Highland, and GHS master’s program. It was while completing her master’s fieldwork at Muhumbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam that she began training local providers in bedside ultrasound. Reynolds now serves as Muhimbili Emergency Medicine residency program director and coordinates a five-university academic consortium dedicated to training emergency physicians and nurses in Dar. Emergencies know no time or boundary. By sharing our experiences together, we can help prepare and guide each other to best aid those in need regardless of where you may find them.
Crossword Sudoku being in a growing startup, surrounded by people who had gone from startup to startup. They were people I liked—I liked their enthusiasm, their passion.” Greenfield said transitioning from academia to business involved its share of challenges. “We heard that the common trap scientists face is [thinking] that if you have a cool technology, lots of people will be immediately excited about it. But you have to figure out who your customer is and what the market is. [At first], we thought this didn’t apply to us, but of course it does. A cool technology is not a business.” Helman added, “There is a trade-off
between time, money and functionality. We are heavily constrained by what we can spend money on. We don’t have a lot of infrastructure. It’s kind of like being a graduate student. We make up for that with [putting in more] time. We each left salaries to take a large pay-cut. It’s like jumping into a cold lake: you get used to it pretty fast.” Ultimately, Helman said, you have to watch the bottom line. “Someone has to pay you to do something, which means you need to make something that people want enough to pay you for.” Yarrow Madrona is a postdoctoral scholar at UCSF.
SUGAR BELLY » Let’s Get Physical … Therapy » FROM PAGE 5
Why Walgreens orthotics are just as good as customized orthotics … and other secrets.
Smart phone may be used Group uses social media by diabetics in near future to spread message about By Ilka Felsen to check insulin levels dangers of too much sugar
What is true is that a number of research groups are making progress toward such a device, with several clinical trials in progress (e.g., jdrfconsortium.jaeb.org or artificialpancreas.org). Such a device, homegrown or commercial, would be a powerful technological solution for diabetics. Even as labs are working to develop biological implants of lab-grown insulin-producing cells and researching how to suppress immune responses to those implants, or seeking to develop a commercial artificial pancreas, parents around the country (perhaps the world) are working toward their own workarounds as they manage their children’s diseases. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Solution to Sudoku
Synapse: What has been the public’s response so far? LS: We’ve been launched for a month, and in that time we’ve had more than 6 million Twitter encounters and 62,000 website page views. A feature of our website is Ask the SugarScientists. We originally thought we would get 25 questions from the public between our launch and April. In our first month, we’ve gotten 630! People ask really good questions: How do I know if I’m consuming added sugar as opposed to total sugar? How do I get this information from nutrition labels? What are the differences between consuming honey and table sugar? Why is the liver the main organ that processes fructose? These are sophisticated questions. We’ve had to do additional PubMed searches. Sometimes, the answer is, “We don’t know!” There has been an enormous outpouring of volunteer support. People from the UCSF Medical Center have volunteered their time to help answer questions. The San Francisco Brigade of Code for America called us—they’re an organization of volunteers in the tech industry— and said they were looking for a good cause and picked us. We’ve partnered with them to develop new functionalities for our website, such as an interactive map that would allow people to identify sugar consumption and diabetes rates in their communities. One of the main audiences for using our resource materials is clinicians. People in the medical profession see high rates of obesity, metabolic disease and diabetes. Their patients deal with complications. It’s a hard thing to see. This is something that health professionals can do: Download our little pocket card, give it to a patient, and tell them to think about it. It’s like a health information campaign in a box. Website: SugarScience.org Hanna Starobinets is a fourth-year BMS Student
Staff Writer
There are a few jewels I’ve come upon at my time here as a physical therapy student. Keep reading for my favorites.
Over-the-counter orthotics are just as effective as $300 ones. Foot orthotics come in many flavors, ranging from ankle foot orthotics to accommodate foot drop, to simple heel pads to survive high heels. Frequently at UCSF, students complain of heel pain and plantar fasciitis, and are subsequently recommended an orthotic to remedy the issue. Prefabricated orthotics cost $30 to $40, while customized orthotics can be upward of $300, so what you’re about to read could save you big time. Basically, Landorf et al. reviewed several studies in 2004 that all showed the same thing: The evidence thus far suggests that over-thecounter orthotics are just as effective as customized orthotics in alleviating plantar fasciitis pain. One study included in the review, by Pfeffer et al., actually found that prefabricated orthotics were better than customized orthotics. The bottom line: The methodological quality of the studies in the review above is not the greatest, but three out of the four studies comparing customized to prefabricated orthotics found no difference.
My takeaway: If you need an orthotic, consider making a pit stop at Walgreens first. Fancy running shoes aren’t the end all. A quick glance at Runner’s World reveals that running shoes dominate nearly every issue. This is for good reason too, as running shoes, alongside entry fees and Fitbits, are likely the biggest source of revenue in the running world. I would personally like a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “I’m a pronator, so I like my Nike Air Cesiums,” because at one point, I actually succumbed to the all mighty power of gait analysis and selected the $150 ASICS Kayanos to address my own pronation problem. I want a refund. But not really—they’re pretty decent shoes. Ryan et al. published a fascinating study in 2010: Wearing stability or motion control running shoes doesn’t actually fix the pain or the problem—it can make it worse. In a nutshell, Ryan et al. found that after stratifying runners based on foot type and providing the corresponding Nike shoe, participants matched to shoe type had more pain than non-matched participants. Knapik et al. 2014 also provide support for not prescribing footwear. Their meta-analysis revealed no difference in injury risk among military recruits running in shoes based on arch height versus not. PHYSICAL » PAGE 8
Pixabay.com Though the ‘pronation’ myth is debunked, army boots still are not the best for avoiding orthotic issues.
synapse.ucsf.edu
| January 8, 2015 | 7
Saturday and Sunday
Come and see the future of biomedical research at the Free Exhibition
BiOS EXPO
BiOS TECHNICAL CONFERENCE
Saturday and Sunday, 7–8 February 2015 The Moscone Center · San Francisco, California, USA
BiOS EXPO
TECHNICAL CONFERENCE
EXHIBITION IS FREE
2,200 PRESENTATIONS Registration fees vary
The world’s largest biomedical optics and biophotonics exhibition. See the latest devices, components, and instrumentation for diagnostics and therapeutics. Find solutions for your lab or company.
The latest information on biomedical optics, diagnostics and therapeutics, biophotonics, molecular imaging, optical microscopy, optical coherence tomography, and optogenetics is presented and discussed.
SATURDAY HOT TOPICS · 7:00 to 9:00 pm Symposium Chairs
James Fujimoto
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
Part of
SPIE Photonics West 2015 7–12 February 2015 SPIE Photonics West is the most influential conference for biomedical optics, biophotonics, translational research, industrial lasers, 3D printing, optoelectronics, microfabrication, MOEMS-MEMS, displays, and more.
www.spie.org/biosexpo
R. Rox Anderson, M.D. Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard School of Medicine (USA)
· 20,000 attendees · 2 free exhibitions · 1,250 exhibiting companies · 4,700 technical presentations · 20 plenary presentations (Including recent Nobel Prize Winners) · 40 technical and networking events · 65 courses, and more
8 | January 8, 2015
| synapse.ucsf.edu
PHYSICAL » FROM PAGE 6
Reynolds does keynote at Emergency Medicine talk For some populations, however, footwear is standardized. Therefore finding the one-size-fits-all shoe is paramount. For example, in military recruits, Sinclair et al. 2014 found that running shoes, compared with army boots, are associated with a reduction in Achilles tendinopathy. So, don’t run in army boots. The bottom line: The research is controversial at this point. Gait analysis continues to get fancier, as does the design of running shoes. It’s tempting for us in physical therapy to prescribe corrective footwear. Depending upon which study you find most convincing, you may want to shell out some serious dollars for “the right shoe,” or you may choose to try on a few pairs at Famous Footwear, pick the comfiest, and move on … unless you’re expected to run in army boots. Stretching is not the holy grail of injury prevention.
Journal Club » By Taylor LaFlam Science Editor
PHYSIOLOGY: Lineage-negative progenitors mobilize to regenerate lung epithelium after major injury. Vaughan, A.E., et al. (Chapman, H.A.). Nature. 2014 Dec 24. Epub ahead of print. In some organs, tissue growth and regrowth is driven by proliferation of an already mature cell; in other settings, it is driven by proliferation of progenitor cells, followed by maturation. Current models of lung epithelial regeneration argue for the first case, in which expanding mature cells support recovery. However, in this paper, the Chapman lab identified a new, rare progenitor cell present in the normal lung. They found that these cells, which are quiescent under normal conditions, allow epithelial recovery in mice after lung injury from influenza infection or the chemical bleomycin. These cells, once activated, proliferate and migrate to sites of injury and then differentiate into mature lung epithelium cells. The authors also discovered that Notch signaling is required for these cells to support this recovery. CELL ENGINEERING: Engineering complex synthetic transcriptional programs with CRISPR RNA scaffolds. Zatalan, J.G., et al. (Lim, W.A.). Cell. 2014 Dec. 18. Epub ahead of print. The CRISPR-Cas technology, which has developed in the past several years, was first used as powerful and easy way to make targeted changes to the genome. Since then, creation of Cas9 fusion proteins has allowed targeted activation or inactivation of genes of interest. In this recent article, the authors have taken this to the natural next step, and used CRISPR-Cas to create an artificial regulatory network in which certain genes are activated and others inactivated, in a targeted fashion. To the guide RNAs that usually target Cas to a particular part of the genome, they added sites that allow binding of fusion proteins with both RNA-binding and gene activating or repressing domains. By combining several of these with an inducible Cas9 protein, they were able to redirect a metabolic pathway in yeast. BIOCHEMISTRY: Product binding enforces the genomic specificity of a yeast Polycomb repressive complex.
For years as a competitive swimmer, I started every workout with a stretch warm up. Traditionally, most P.E. classes in grade school begin with some version of the fingertips-to-floor, straddles and armacross-the-body maneuvers. Most of these regimens have been adopted with the thought that tight muscles lead to pulled muscles. So what’s the verdict? Witvrouw et al. 2004 make a convincing argument that although literature on stretching is contradictory, conflicting results can be amended if we stratify sports: In sports that require a compliant muscle– tendon unit (aka. flexible muscles that can accommodate explosive movements in sports such as football and soccer), stretching reduces injury rates in otherwise stiff athletes. In sports that do not have these requirements (i.e. cycling, jogging), stretching is kind of a waste of time. What does slightly newer evidence suggest? McHugh and Cosgrave in 2010 reviewed several more studies, and came to the conclusion that stretching doesn’t do a whole lot in terms of injury prevention for overuse injuries, but may be somewhat useful in reducing the risk of muscle strains (Oh hey, that makes sense!).
Stretching also has an annoying tendency to reduce muscle strength immediately after. The authors therefore made some practical recommendations: To stretch muscles that are at risk for strains (adductors, hamstrings and hip flexors), stretch long enough to be confident that you actually stretched, and to allow enough time after stretching before your big event, for the muscles to regain what strength they may have lost, since strength deficits are neurally induced. Bottom line: Let’s keep in mind that with stretching, as with any hot topic, there are a lot of ifs, ands or buts. Consider the dance population. If ballet is your thing, you had better be sitting in a split basically 24/7 to acquire the requisite turn out (disclaimer: I’m not suggesting this is good for the hip joint.). On the other side of the coin, if you’re a sprinter, you may want to shy away from stretching just before an event, as basic research has shown that stretching leads to an acute loss of strength. So the best thing for you is to consider a) what type of activity you’re engaging in, b) your goal for stretching, and c) how seriously you want take all of this.
Comics » XCKD By Randall Monroe
Piled Higher and Deeper Dumesic, P.A., et al. (Madhani, H.D.). Cell. 2014 Dec. 18. Epub ahead of print. In eukaryotes, from yeast to humans, the DNA of the genome is bound by histone proteins. Modifications of these histones help control the activity of this DNA. For example, a histone modification abbreviated as H3K27me3 supports repression of gene activity. Control and targeting of the PRC2 complex that makes this H3K27me3 modification remains incompletely understood. Now, Dumesic and colleagues have identified and characterized a yeast PRC2like complex. This protein complex in Cryptococcus neoformans (there is no PRC2 homologue in the more frequently studied Saccharomyces) is essential for formation of H3K27me3 in this yeast. They further found that this complex has a component that binds H3K27me3, and that in the absence of H3K27me3 binding, the complex instead associates with H3K9me3. That is, binding by the complex to its product reinforces localization of the complex’s activity to regions distinct from that of a different histone modification. AUTOIMMUNITY & STEM CELL BIOLOGY: Tolerance induction and reversal of diabetes in mice transplanted with human embryonic-stem-cellderived pancreatic endoderm. Szot, G.L., et al. (Bluestone, J.A.). Cell Stem Cell. 2014 Dec. 18. Epub ahead of print. For the millions of patients with type 1 diabetes, there is no cure—only lifelong glucose monitoring and insulin injection to keep the disease largely at bay. One active area of diabetes research is aimed at developing ways to effectively transplant insulin-producing cells into patients to produce a durable cure. Here, Szot and colleagues describe their use of human embryonic-stem-cellderived cells to reverse diabetes in mice. After differentiating these ESCs into pancreatic endoderm, they transplanted them into diabetic mice and saw normal glucose levels result. In this paper the authors found that blockade of the T-cell costimulation pathway—a more mild level of immunosuppression than is often used in transplantation--was enough to protect the transplanted cells. They were using mice in which a human immune system had previously been grafted. Taylor LaFlam is a fourth-year BMS / sixth-year MSTP student.
By Jorge Cham
This Date In UCSF History » By Taylor LaFlam Science Editor
From 35 Years Ago: Vol. 24, No. 12, Jan. 10, 1980: Today, it widely recognized that many cesarean sections are performed needlessly. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists even issued a document in March 2014 titled “Safe Prevention of the Primary Cesarean Delivery.” Yet, concerns about the increasing frequency of C-sections are nothing new. Thirty-five years ago, Michael Bader reported on this trend in the article “Area cesarean rate tripled in 20 year.” He wrote, “In California as a whole, the rate rose from 4.8 per cent in 1960 to 15.4 per cent in 1977.” According to the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, 29.8 percent of deliveries were uncomplicated C-sections in 2013, a level that has remained steady for the past several years. Bader observed that the use of C-sections varied greatly from hospital to hospital. “At Children’s Hospital, for example, almost one quarter of the women are ‘sectioned,’ while at San Francisco General the rate is less than one in ten.” To a lesser degree, such disparities remain today. At the Pacific Campus of California Pacific Medical Center—
descendent of the Children’s Hospital just mentioned—26.6 percent of deliveries were uncomplicated C-sections in 2013, compared with 15.3 percent at SFGH and 20.5 percent at UCSF Medical Center. A few experts interviewed by Bader pinned some of the blame for this increased rate of C-sections on increased use of electronic fetal monitoring, which became nearly universal over the course of the 1970s, arguing that equivocal findings from this monitoring provided a justification for performing the C-section. Baden closed with the historical note: “Residents trained at UCSF in the 1950s will recall that in order to perform a Cesarean, one needed the permission of no less than the chairman of the department to do so. Today, the procedure is almost routine.” And now, too routine. Taylor LaFlam is a sixth-year MSTP / fourth-year BMS student.
Also from 35 years ago: