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Volume 7, Issue 1
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1 Science in vitro

Stanford’s Clark Center is the biggest experiment on campus. Nestled between the sleek structures of the engineering quad and the expansive buildings of the medical center, it is the home of Bio-X, Stanford’s interdisciplinary life sciences program. The building, as far as architecture goes, is a work of art. Apart from Hoover Tower and the original sandstone buildings of the Main Quad, it is arguably Stanford’s most stunning structure. But is it an effective laboratory? Most people who work at the Clark Center think so. The complaints of a few, however, show that some practical considerations in the building’s design may have lost out to aesthetic ones.The comments of these workers especially matter because, at its heart, the Clark Center is a bold attempt to answer a question that faces any multidisciplinary effort: can a carefully planned building bring researchers from different fields together and foster collaboration across disciplines under one roof? 		Manu Lakkur 157
2 Ancestral Origins

Many preconceptions about individuals start with the assumption that a person's ethnicity can be judged by simply looking at her or her physical traits. Eyes, skin, even hair all yield clues about the origin of a person's family. But in the lab of Dr. Serafim Batzoglou, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, ancestral analysis goes much deeper. Dr. Batzoglou and graduate students Eugene Fratkin, Andreas Sundquist and Chuong Do have developed software that can pinpoint the ethnicity of ancestors from ten or even twenty generations ago by looking at the historical information buried in their descendant's DNA. How was this level of precision achieved, and what can it tell us about our ancestry? 		Nikki Breaux 160
3 Genomic Health

For many of us, the ability to select from and customize products to suit our individual needs has long been a given. From personalized ringtones to tailored wardrobes, we consume products everyday that match our personalities and needs. However, some of the most important products on the market, pharmaceuticals, have lagged behind in their adaptation for individualized use. In a controversial statement at the end of 2003, Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derive any benefit from them. Many factors, ranging from drug concentration to rate of absorption to target of action, all play crucial roles in determining the functionality of a pharmaceutical agent. However, while the drug itself may be administered consistently, individual genetic differences can also affect the ultimate efficacy of drug treatments. 		Ryan Tong 145
4 Snakes and Newts at War

Could you dedicate your life to a newt? Stanford’s postdoctoral biologist, Dr. Charles Hanifin, probably will.In a study published on March 11, 2008 in the renowned journal, PLoS Biology, Hanifin and his colleagues contributed their extensive data on the rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa) and its co-evolutionary relationship with the common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) to the biological community, significantly enhancing current thinking about evolutionary theory. The study’s far-reaching geographical underpinnings, along with Hanifin’s 3-month education in an advanced Japanese lab technique, were among many factors that secured its credibility. Hanifin added to decades of his colleagues’ garter snake data, collecting 383 newts from 28 sites covering over 15,000 miles of Pacific coast, from British Columbia, Canada, to southern California. 		Annie Peterson 163
5 New AIDS Drugs Target Resistant Virus

Watch out, viruses: the recent FDA approval of two new classes of antiretroviral medications promises to turn the tables in the fight against HIV/AIDS. While several powerful drug treatments have appeared in the last few years, the HIV virus’s capacity for rapid mutation continues to thwart treatment.  The slippery virus mutates so quickly that resistant strains appear quickly – sometimes breaking through every combination of drugs that doctors can throw at it.   For patients with highly resistant viruses, the new drugs – maraviroc, from Pfizer, Inc., and raltegravir, from Merck & Co. - help overcome this problem by targeting the virus in different stages of its reproduction. In combination with the currently available medications, these new drugs are able to control even the most resistant strains of the virus, helping many more patients live relatively normal lives in the face of the infection. The drugs completed the last stage of clinical testing at Stanford Positive Care Clinic, where they have been creating dramatic results in Bay Area patients with advanced-stage HIV infections. 		Adrienne Sussman 151
6 Putting the 'Me' Back in Medicine

Western medicine has progressed significantly since its humble beginnings, when doctors carrying their tool bags would travel to patients’ houses by horse and buggy or even on foot. Early physicians were often unable to cure diseases that seem trivial to us today. Though we pride ourselves on the vast improvements in medicine that have occurred during its modernization, we often forget that medicine aims not only to cure, but also to heal. Dr. Abraham Verghese, Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford Medical School, aims to remind us of precisely that idea. For Dr. Verghese, the doctor-patient relationship is holy, a hallowed connection to be celebrated. Over the course of time, however, he believes we have turned our focus more towards the celebration of new cures for diseases and new technological advances. As a result, we have ultimately neglected the most integral aspect of medicine, the one-on-one interaction between patient and physician. 		Ashley Lau 196
7 Discovering Cellular Immortality

The concept of immortality has intrigued mankind since the very beginning. From the first major literary work, the Epic of Gilgamesh, to the Bible and other religious texts to modern fantasies such as Harry Potter, we find the theme of immortality rooted in our culture and our imagination. However, immortality is not merely the subject of fiction. It exists on a cellular level—when man is formed from the division of embryonic stem cells, and when cancer develops from malignant cells’ uncontrollable growth. One important player in cellular immortality is telomerase. Telomerase is a massive enzyme complex that prevents a cell from aging by preserving the integrity of its DNA during cellular division. Since its discovery in 1984, scientists and pharmaceutical companies have been intensely interested in the enzyme because of its implications in both cellular and systemic aging, stem cell proliferation, and cancer. 		Vivek Athalye 322
8 Boiling Point of Emotions

When watching shock drama television shows such as Nip/Tuck and Law & Order: SVU, people often turn away in disgust at the excessive blood, open flesh, and story lines that sometimes hit too close to home. For surgeons and profilers, however, who are used to staying composed in highly stressful situations, watching these shows can be easy. Recent research by Philippe Goldin, Ph.D., Kateri McRae, Ph.D., Wiveka Ramel, Ph.D., and James Gross, Ph.D. of the Psychology Department at Stanford University explores how two different emotion regulation strategies influence a network of brain areas, which subsequently control emotional responses to stimuli that would typically turn stomachs. 		Kevin Weiner 220