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Volume 4, Issue 2
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1 Two-Photon Microscopy

Try pressing a flashlight against your fingertip, and you’ll f nd that it produces an eerily pink glow reminiscent of E.T.’s glowing fingers. This phenomenon occurs because light can penetrate a small distance through living tissues. Transillumination is used in two-photon microscopy to create nanoscale images of living tissues. Stanford scientists have been using and perfecting this method of imaging live cells to gain a better understanding of cellular function in our bodies. 		Tina Zhang and Nicole Pepperi 144
2 Think Positively

The image of the “grumpy old man” may be more myth than reality.  Recent research by Dr. Laura Carstensen, a Stanford professor in the Department of Psychology and director of the Life-span Development Laboratory, suggests that emotional experience and satisfaction actually improve with age.  Carstensen’s group has found that old people are happier, more pleased with their relationships, less depressed and better able to manage their emotional lives than younger people.   Data from Carstensen’s studies indicate a developmental pattern in which a preference for negative material in youth shifts to a disproportionate preference for positive material in later life – what she refers to as the “positivity effect”.  This effect can be seen as an increase in the ratio of positive to negative material remembered as an individual ages.  Carstensen argues that this effect is driven by increased memory for and attention to negative information in youth, as well as increased memory for and attention to positive information in old age.  Her theory posits that this shift is due to changing motivational goals throughout life, rather than any type of cognitive decline.  This line of research prompts the development of methods for improving the lives of both older and younger adults. 		Rachel Nass 155
3 The Link between Down Syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease

What does Down Syndrome have in common with Alzheimer’s disease?  Down Syndrome is a common genetic disorder that causes delayed physical and cognitive development from birth. It affects over 350,000 people in the United States alone, and 1 out of every 1,000 live births.  Alzheimer’s is a neurological disorder that is associated with aging in otherwise normal individuals.  However, individuals with Down Syndrome develop Alzheimer’s by age 40, suggesting that the genes that contribute to Down Syndrome may be implicated in Alzheimer’s as well. 		Lauren Mamer 192
4 Sun Damage

On a cloudy day, up to 80% of the sun’s rays can penetrate through clouds, mist and fog. On a snowy day, the snow acts as a mirror and refects up to 95% of the sun’s rays. Even water and sidewalks can refect up to 12% of the sun’s rays. No matter what the weather is like outside, whenever you leave the house you’re at risk of sunburn, which can lead to serious skin diseases such as melanoma.An article published this year in Nature Medicine, “Oxygen Deprivation Provokes Melanoma,” asserts that melanoma has become the most aggressive common skin cancer, and its incidence has increased more rapidly in the United States than any other malignancy.  The article showcases research by Dr. Barbara Bedogni in the Radiation Oncology Department at Stanford University, which aims to stop the rapid growth of melanoma through the correlation of melanoma sites on the skin and the low levels of oxygen at those sites. 		Jennifer Awakuni 130
5 Small RNA, Big Potential for Treating HCV

The estimated 170 million people infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV) have been living with limited medical options.  There is no cure for HCV, and today’s therapies work in only about 40% of the patients. However, recent f ndings in Stanford’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology have opened the door to discovering a  possible new way to treat HCV.
Hepatitis C Virus
HCV is one of several different hepatitis viruses  that cause inf ammation of the liver. Other common hepatitis viruses include food and water-borne Hepatitis A, which does not typically cause a chronic infection, and blood-borne Hepatitis B, which causes chronic disease in 10% of those infected.  Vaccines are available for both Hepatitis A and B.  		Sean Mathewson 118
6 Sky Monsters

Two years ago, Professor Margot Gerritsen, Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering and, by courtesy, of Mechanical Engineering, undertook the challenge of creating a functional replica of an ancient giant, fying lizard called the pterosaur for a documentary by National Geographic. The Stanford-National Geographic Pterosaur Replica Project was conducted primarily at Stanford, under Gerritsen’s lead in collaboration with pterosaur fight expert and engineer Jim Cunningham. The project team included scientists, graduate students, engineers, paleontologists and paleoartists. The group’s efforts culminated in “Sky Monsters,” an educational documentary featuring the team’s working pterosaur model. In the process, they gained fascinating insights into the fight mechanisms of one of the world’s frst fying animals. 		Nancy Falxa-Raymond 148
7 Scandals in Biomedical Research

Fraudulent data published to substantiate the effectiveness of Merck & Co.’s painkiller Vioxx and stem cell line production in South Korea have undermined the public’s trust. Are unethical cases in the life sciences industry just a few outlying, extreme examples giving research a bad name? 		Victoria Parente 140
8 Personalized Medicine

It is estimated that over 106,000 people die every year because they are given the wrong dose of medicine. Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) are a signifcant problem in today’s health care industry, hospitalizing an estimated 2.2 million people each year. It is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.—ranking signifcantly higher than AIDS, pulmonary disease and diabetes.  Before you become wary of taking your next medication, there is good news. Scientists have made progress in personalized medicine, the identifcation of drug treatments based upon an individual’s genetic profle. While revolutionary, personalized medicine has profound ethical implications. Dr. David Magnus, Director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, reveals the ethical considerations at stake with personalized medicine. 		Caryn Kunz 132
9 Overcoming Obesity

If you are sitting in a room right now with two other adults, statistically one of you should be overweight or obese. Obesity is a serious and growing health threat, and it usually leads to other health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes.  There are many approaches to treating obesity:  some involve personal initiative such as exercise and diet, and others involve medical intervention through weight-loss drugs or surgery.  The possible value and effcacy of these two approaches are actively researched at the Stanford Medical Center, where teams of doctors and scientists are attempting to fgure out the best educational programs to promote exercise and potential candidate drugs for suppressing appetite.  		David Sherman 131
10 Open Source Drug Development

Share and you’ll succeed. This is the motto for the open source software movement that started in the 1990s. It is characterized by the free sharing of software to a community of computer programmers who debug and update the software online. The result? High quality computer programs rivaling those of Microsoft and IBM. Fast-forward a decade and a half later, and the musings of the open source software movement have inspired the Tropical Diseases Initiative (TDI), a small group of scientists in the biotechnology industry, to create a web forum for scientists to collaborate in developing drugs. By open sourcing, or freely sharing drug research, TDI hopes scientists across the world will work to create drugs for neglected tropical diseases.   		Tania Rojas 147
11 Gene Patenting

As the 19th century imperialist leaders of Europe once jostled to stake their claims in African territories, the leaders of biomedical research are currently scrambling to stake their claims in the governing particles of our very bodies. Over this past decade, the biotechnology industry has frantically patented their rights to our molecular biology. With the rise of proteomics and genomics - the study of our proteins and genes - in drug discovery, scientists are detecting protein mutations that are responsible for life-threatening diseases. However, by discovering such knowledge, a research institute can claim all research rights to that biological molecule for several years.  Does gene patenting prevent other institutions and scientists from studying the molecule further, slowing down research and development for treatments, medical applications, and general scientific knowledge?  Or does the patent make it safe for an institution to expend vast amounts of resources – time and money – into studying this molecule, stimulating research that would otherwise be abandoned as too risky and costly? 		Hanh Nguyen 208
12 Two Radically Different Metabolic Processes

Octopus Spring in Yellowstone National Park is one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.  Yet, life fourishes there at temperatures that reach nearly 90°C (194° F), close to the temperature of the boiling water that emanates from the source of the spring. Living in effuent channels of the hot springs at temperatures ranging from under 50°C to just above 70°C are Synechococcus. These single-celled cyanobacteria are part of a complex and diverse microbial ecosystem forming mat-like structures on the surface of the springs. This past summer, Stanford Scientists Devaki Bhaya, Arthur Grossman, and Anne Soisig Steunou from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology collaborated with genomicists, population biologists, evolutionary biologists and physiologists from Maryland, Montana, Connecticut and Denmark to investigate the question: What are the interactions of different species that are required for survival in microbial communities? 		Benjamin Tran 146
13 Bacterial Pathogenesis: Friend or Foe?

It may be scary to think that our bodies are home to ten times more tttttv cells than our own cells. However, in a recent article published in the journal Cell, “Is Persistent Bacterial Infection Good for Your Health?” Dr. Stanley Falkow, professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford, suggests that the “sea of microbes” living in both our external environment and inside our bodies is an integral part of our natural fora. 		Chelsea Young and Nisha Gadgil 146