Drug resistance and the need for good writing

There's an interesting article published in Science: "Permissive Secondary Mutations Enable the Evolution of Influenza Oseltamivir Resistance" (Science 328:1272, 2010). Oseltamivir is the flu antiviral drug that is also known as Tamiflu. What's interesting about this article is that the resistance to Tamiflu partly became prevalent in the seasonal H1N1 influenza strain because two other mutations allowed the Tamiflu-resistant virus to effectively infect cells. A lot of times, antiviral mutations often make the viruses less potent. The drugs target an important enzyme for the virus and the mutations need to occur at the site in the enzyme that interacts with the drug for resistance to develop - and this is often the same site that the enzyme needs to function properly - and hence the mutations will make the enzyme not work as well. Even more interesting is that the resistance to Tamiflu came about in the absence of widespread use of the drug and therefore there was little selection for drug-resistant viruses.

Now this is a bit more scientific than what I have written here; what brought this post about is a statement in an accompanying article in the same issue of Science. Science will often solicit short reviews (called Perspectives) of papers published in this journal. The reviews are written so that a wider audience can understand and appreciate the research published in the journal. And these reviews are often very well written. I have even used them in my classes to give students a view of research that is on-going on the topics they are studying in class.

But what was puzzling was this statement in the accompanying review to the paper above: "More puzzling, drug resistance can occur in the absence of the main agent of selection". This is a common misperception of a lot of people - and surprising to be written by a prof at Penn State. Mutations occur all the time – and agents of selection (antivirals and antibiotics) don’t cause mutations – but SELECT the mutants that have arisen! This is how drug resistance in viruses occurs - first there is the mutation and then in the presence of the antiviral (which is killing all the non-resistant viruses) the resistant virus becomes the predominant virus. I think the point that the author was trying to make was the fact that the antiviral resistant virus has become the predominant virus in the absence of drug selection. But this isn't what was stated in the sentence above - the author did come around to his conclusion - but he did so after making an erroneous statement. 

Now a few people might think - so what? Well I have a little pet peeve about good writing and proper grammar (heck I've gone through my previously published blog posts and corrected myself!). I tell my students that using the correct words (I work with a lot of undergrads) and speaking and writing clearly are the only way to make sure people understand what you are talking (or writing) about. And this is a good example of how - what looks like a well written sentence - is actually wrong information!

Just my 2 cents. :)

Baking

So I used to bake fairly regularly - at least when I had roommates who could share in the eating - or I would be invited to pot-lucks for school or with friends. I have such a sweet tooth that I would eat all the cookies/cake, etc. if I could. So one of my friends told me about this food blog: Not So Humble Pie (NSHP), that I occasionally check out. NSHP makes some delicious sounding desserts and takes wonderful pictures to show her work. Today I decided to check out her blog and came across a recipe for chocolate mousse: http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2010/01/frangelico-dark-chocolate-mousse.html. The mousse looks and sounds delicious, especially with the hazelnut liqueur. Luckily I don't have a candy thermometer - which means that I won't be tempted to make and eat all the mousse. Plus it is 100 F here in NJ so doing any sort of baking or cooking would be insane! But there are days when my sweet tooth gets the better of me - and I resort to buying a cookie - which never tastes as good as home made.

A new cat

I was trying to see how easy it is to add pictures to my blog - and it was quite easy! This little fellow (actually I think it is a girl cat), showed up on my friends' porch while I was house and cat sitting (they have a 15 yr old male cat, Alvin, that can be affectionate). She checked out the porch and even hopped up on my lap! Adorable! She even tried to get into the house when I went to get my camera.

After I left, the cat came to the porch on a regular basis. My friends decided to adopt her after they weren't able to find the owner. She's a little cat so they thought she was a kitten but she has her adult teeth and is likely 2-3 years old. They named her Allison Catherine (Alley Cat). She's settled into the house but I hear Alvin is taking his time getting used to the new addition to the family.

Over the years I've thought about adopting a cat. My allergies to cats have pretty much disappeared (may be I should look into how allergies change over time - I had allergies all my life. They got worse when I was in grad school & disappeared 10 yrs later!) so I can have a cat, but I've never really had pets growing up. And I worry about the cost of a cat & what the cat might do when I'm not at home (I sometimes work quite long hours during the semester). And do I really need to add cat hair to my hair that I already have to vacuum?!? My poor vacuum cleaner!

I get to visit Alley and Alvin next weekend when I head to the shore. I'll be participating in a kazoo band in the Ocean Grove parade - should be interesting!

toxins in sperm whales

Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans

This is based on a news piece I read in Yahoo news (toxins&whales). I'm not sure why is this such a shock. It is well known that animals & fish that feed on other species of animals will accumulate the toxins that their prey have eaten. And as you go further up the food chain the toxins accumulate to higher concentrations (it was noted that sperm whales eat sharks!). This is why pregnant women, children & other susceptible groups shouldn't eat salmon, mahi mahi and similar fish. See: http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=12667 for information about this (I tried to find the information at the USDA or EPA websites but found it difficult to do so). And given the fact that ocean currents will carry waste & debris from one end of the earth to another (see: http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8q.html) it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that Artic whales have high levels of toxins.

I also think an explanation of one of the statements by Roger Payne, who headed the study, is needed:
"the concentration of chromium found in whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish"

Sometimes you can't make the jump from what is observed in animals to what you would expect to observe in cells in culture. Healthy cells in Petri dishes aren't normal cells; although scientists use them as if they are to do their experiments. These are cells that have been transformed (changed) to become immortal so that scientists have time to do their research (normal cells from humans or other mammalian species have a limited life span in culture). To become immortal the cells have acquired mutations or have oncogenes (cancer causing genes) inserted into their genomes - many of the changes that are associated with immortalization are not known and there may be other mutations that may not be related to immortalization but will contribute to how the cells act in culture.

Take home message: (1) don't take science news articles at face value - the reporters writing these articles often don't have the background to ask the right questions or see the 'big picture'; and (2) take care in choosing the foods you eat. I have found the book, "What to Eat" by Marion Nestle to be quite informative. She also has additional information at her website www.foodpolitics.com

A start

So I've finally decided to start a blog. I've posted links and comments to Facebook about a variety of topics and the ones that garner the most interest are those related to exercise, nutrition, vaccines, etc. And friends have suggested I start a blog (I guess they think my thoughts are insightful enough). I'm also a member of Sigma Delta Epsilon/Graduate Women in Science (check us out at http://www.gwis.org)* and we are trying to reach out to more people via Facebook, LinkedIn, as well as other social media - including this blog.

So check back soon. I hope to have a new post in which I actually discuss something!

*I'll also figure out how to make hyperlinks!