My time at the Department of State has come to an end.

On September 1 I return to my former life, that of a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore.

I’ll be taking the next two weeks off to move and relax and spend time with family.

It’s been a pleasure reading and responding to your comments and e-mails.

Check back here in September for more news about Science Planet.

Image by Ben Emery

Immature oligodendrocyte cells from mice, growing in a Petri dish, in the process of maturing. Only mature oligodendrocytes produce myelin in the brain. The magenta and green stains represent proteins found in myelin, the insulating sheath that helps neurons conduct electricity.

When it comes to science, there is more cooperation than rivalry. Australian scientist Ben Emery worked with American colleagues at Stanford and discovered a gene that is required for cells in the brain to produce myelin, the insulating sheath that allows neurons to function properly.

Emery grew up in Kyneton, Australia. Interested in aquatic life, he planned to study marine biology, but a psychology course at the University of Melbourne got him hooked on neuroscience. He remained in Melbourne for his Ph.D., studying how chemicals from the immune system affect the survival of oligodendrocytes, the cells in the brain that form myelin.

Image by Jennifer Zamanian

Ben Emery

Emery’s wife is a physician; she had just completed her first year of post-medical school training when they moved to California. Because of the difficulty using her Australian medical degree to practice medicine in the United States (she would need to take licensing exams and repeat part of her training), she has put her career on hold for the past four years.

This makes being far from home particularly difficult.

The absence of family locally is keenly apparent since the birth of their daughter late last year. According to Emery, in Australia it is common to attend university close to home, but geographic separation from family seems more common and routine in the United States.

But all this sacrifice appears to have paid off for Emery’s career. He recently discovered a gene that tells oligodendrocytes to form myelin.

Immature oligodendrocytes are not capable of forming myelin. But as the brain matures a series of genes turns on in the immature oligodendrocytes, causing the cells to mature. The mature oligodendrocytes then alter the composition of their cell membranes and wrap around neurons, forming an insulating sheath known as myelin. Scientists have identified genes that trigger an immature oligodendrocyte to mature, but the genes that trigger a mature oligodendrocyte to form myelin were unknown until Emery’s discovery.

By comparing the genes that are turned on in immature and mature oligodendrocytes from mice, Emery and his colleagues identified a gene that is turned on at very high levels in mature oligodendrocytes but is on at very low levels in immature cells. The gene, which Emery named myelin regulatory factor, is not turned on in other cells in the brain, such as neurons.

Emery then genetically engineered mice to lack myelin regulatory factor in oligodendrocytes. Immature oligodendrocytes matured but failed to form myelin (the mice died at 3 weeks old). When Emery forced the myelin regulatory factor gene to turn on in oligodendrocytes growing in a Petri dish, the cells began producing proteins required for myelin.

Based on its similarity to other genes, it’s likely that the myelin regulatory factor gene produces a protein that activates other genes. Emery speculates that myelin regulatory factor acts as a master regulator of myelin, turning on the genes that allow the oligodendrocyte to form myelin. But Emery is quick to point out that turning on the myelin regulatory factor in a kidney cell does not cause that cell to form myelin - there must be other factors at work as well.

Emery proved that myelin regulatory factor is required for myelin formation in the brain when an animal is growing and developing. Now the question is whether this factor is required when myelin forms in adults. So called re-myelination occurs after injury, but is compromised in diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Emery is working to answer this; meanwhile another group found that the myelin regulatory factor gene is turned on in regions of the human brain that contain lots of myelin.

Emery’s discovery landed him two job offers: one at a university in the United States, one at a university in Australia. Other than family considerations, he does not feel compelled to return to Australia to practice science. “You can contribute [to science] wherever you wind up.”

Source: “Myelin Gene Regulatory Factor Is a Critical Transcriptional Regulator Required for CNS Myelination” by Ben Emery, Dritan Agalliu, John D. Cahoy, Trent A. Watkins, Jason C. Dugas, Sara B. Mulinyawe, Adilijan Ibrahim, Keith L. Ligon, David H. Rowitch and Ben A. Barres, published in Cell, July 10, 2009.

Bassam Jalgha won the inaugural ‘Stars of Science‘ competition, an Arab reality television show where 16 aspiring scientists and engineers compete to have their idea selected for development and commercialization.

Image by Stars of Science

'Stars of Science' finalists Bassam Jalgha (right) and Mohammed Orsod

Jalgha’s winning idea, an automated tuner for the oud (a musical instrument), is the perfect blend between his two passions: science and music.

“I was always amazed by science, and I always had a curiosity to discover how things work,” Jalgha told me. “Since I was a kid I used to reverse engineer anything around me, without necessarily bringing it back to operation.”

Born in Furn El Chebback, a suburb of Beirut, Jalgha joined the Lebanese National Conservatory at age 12 and studied the oud, an Arabic string instrument similar to a lute or mandolin.

After receiving a music degree from the conservatory, Jalgha moved to the American University of Beirut and received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.

Jalgha continued playing the oud, even finding time to compose music (he wrote the score for the documentary film “The Sky Was Angry“).

During one of his engineering classes, Jalgha realized that he could combine his musical interests and his engineering skills to design a device that would tune the oud automatically.

The oud commonly has 11 strings: 5 pairs of strings plus a 6th individual string. Each string (or string pair) is tuned so that it plays a different pitch when plucked. By turning pegs at the end of the string, the player can change the tension of the string, listen to how the instrument sounds and adjust the pitch. Tuning the oud is similar to tuning a guitar, cello or violin, except that the oud has more strings (guitar usually has 6, cello and violin, 4).

Tuning the oud, however, is no small matter. Jalgha describes it as “a tedious task that requires much time and dedication.” Humidity, heat, and vigorous playing cause subtle changes to the length and tension of the strings; this requires the oud to be tuned frequently.

Jalgha remembers times when he was a beginner. In between lessons the oud would need to be tuned, but Jalgha couldn’t tune the instrument accurately. He had to wait until his next lesson so the teacher could spend 15 minutes and tune the oud for him. Meanwhile, Jalgha would practice with an instrument that was out of tune - not fun for Jalgha, and probably not pleasant for his neighbors.

Jalgha devised an apparatus that connects to the tuning pegs, listens to the sound of the plucked string, analyzes it and sends a signal to a motor that adjusts the peg until the string sounds the correct pitch. A powerful digital signal processor acts as the autotuner’s brain, identifying the frequency of the sound (the pitch) and comparing it to the desired frequency. After comparing the measured tone with the desired one, the processor sends a command to the motor, ordering it to rotate in a certain direction and with a certain speed to achieve fast tuning accurately.

The device is only connected to the oud during the tuning process; once the oud is properly tuned the device is removed.

The project is still in an early phase. “With the acquired money and support I received from the [Stars of Science] competition, I intend on further developing the tuner device as a product to enter the commercial market,” Jalgha said. He also hopes to modify the autotuner for use on other stringed instruments beside the oud.

Jalgha is now studying for a master’s degree in engineering at the American University of Beirut. He continues to play the oud, despite the intense time commitment of his engineering studies.

“I believe that if someone wants to do something and he gives it all the energy it needs he cannot but succeed in a way or another,” Jalgha said. “You just need the will to do it, and to convince yourself that you can do it.”

Image by Stars of Science

Bassam Jalgha celebrates his victory

Meet Grace, a scientist who works in the office of international health at the U.S. embassy in South Africa. (Listen to a brief interview here, a transcript is here.)

Grace is concerned that female scientists in South Africa lack the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

Unfortunately, here in the United States we struggle with the same problem. It appears that women have the same opportunities - at least initially - as men in many science disciplines. When I was in graduate school, half of the students were female. Yet there are far fewer female professors than male professors.

Women’s share of tenured or tenure-track science and engineering faculty - what we commonly think of as professors - increased from 10 percent in 1979 to 28 percent in 2006, according to a study by the National Science Foundation. An improvement, but the percent of female full professors is still much lower than the percent of women awarded Ph.D. degrees. In psychology, 33 percent of all full professors were women in 2006, despite the fact that women earned 71 percent of psychology doctoral degrees that same year.

The Association for Women in Science is a nonprofit organization in the U.S. that advocates for the interests of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They support creating family-friendly policies in the scientific workplace.

There are many other organizations that support women in science. Check out the L’Oreal-UNESCO booklet on young women in science.

Are there similar organizations in South Africa, or in other countries in Africa?

James Ntambi, second from right, with members of his laboratory

What is the best way to encourage science in Africa?

Some African scientists come to the United States to train and then return to their home countries to teach and perform research (read about two examples here).

James Ntambi took a different approach - after receiving his Ph.D. he remained in the United States and now leads a lab at the University of Wisconsin, where he trains African scientists and teaches Americans what life is like in Uganda.

Born and raised in Mukono, Uganda, Ntambi studied biochemistry at Makerere University in Kampala. In 1980 he received a Fulbright award to attend graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore - with every intention of returning to Africa. For his Ph.D. thesis he studied the biology of trypanosomes, parasites that cause sleeping sickness (endemic in parts of sub-Saharan Africa).

After receiving his Ph.D. Ntambi decided he needed more research experience. He remained at Hopkins for a research fellowship in the lab of Dan Lane, studying how fat cells develop. Though seemingly unrelated, the way in which fat cells and trypanosomes mature and develop is similar, and Ntambi hoped to learn more about trypanosomes by studying fat - intending to return to Africa to study trypanosomes. 

At the end of his fellowship in 1989, however, Ntambi got a job as an assistant professor at Georgetown Medical School. He decided that he could improve science in Africa by remaining in the U.S. but returning to Makerere to teach.

With funding from the NIH, Ntambi and a colleague from the City College of New York took 10-15 students from minority institutions (historically black colleges) to Makerere University every summer between 1990 and 1995. Ntambi paired the American students with their Ugandan counterparts and taught them all basic molecular biology techniques. The NIH funding also allowed Ntambi to set up a small laboratory at Makerere.

Now a full professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Ntambi runs a similar program as part of a course called ‘international health and nutrition.’ Every fall, students in the course study public health issues that affect Africa - as part of their standard classroom work - and then spend three weeks in Uganda. Not just in Kampala, but also in rural Uganda, which comes as quite a shock to students from Wisconsin.

Ntambi stresses the value of teaching Americans about the difficulties people face in Africa. “After those three weeks, when they come back here, they are different people,” Ntambi told me. “They come back with a totally different perspective.”

Ntambi also hosts scientists from Uganda in his laboratory for three or four months at a time. These mini-sabbaticals allow Ugandan scientists to learn new techniques and develop networks with scientists in the U.S. In reality, most of the techniques they learn are conceptual - genetically engineering mice is standard practice at research institutions in the United States, but is not available in Uganda.

A visit to Ntambi’s laboratory is likely to encourage African scientists because of the exciting, cutting-edge work. Ntambi and his group recently showed that a protein in the skin regulates how the entire body stores fat. Mice genetically engineered to lack the SCD1 protein in the skin are lean, and do not become obese even when fed a diet high in fat. Surprisingly, the same is not true of mice genetically engineered to lack this protein in other parts of the body.  If you remove SCD1 from the liver or from fat tissue, the mice still became obese on a high-fat diet. It is the protein’s presence in the skin that regulates fat storage throughout the body.

We know the brain, the liver and the gut communicate with one another to monitor and control energy intake, storage and expenditure. Ntambi’s work suggests that the skin is part of this metabolic control apparatus as well. But while scientists have identified some of the hormones that the liver, brain and gut use to communicate with one another, it’s not known how the skin tells the body to store fat. Does the skin communicate with the liver or the brain or the gut, or directly with fat cells?

Ntambi is working to answer these questions. Meanwhile, he continues to lead students to Uganda, teaching African students that diet and exercise can prevent obesity and diabetes, stressing prevention over treatment. In Uganda, Ntambi explained, treatment is too expensive. Prevention is the only option.

The Congo River Basin, viewed from space (image by NASA)

When I return to the lab on September 1, I’ll have access to sophisticated equipment, expansive animal husbandry facilities and financial support for my research. Spoiled American that I am, I can’t imagine working in a lab without these amenities, which is why scientists like Yolande Munzimi and  Bwangoy Bankanza have my utmost admiration and respect.

Munzimi and Bankanza are from Kinshasa. Both are Ph.D. students in geospatial science and engineering at South Dakota State University in the United States. Both plan on returning to Kinshasa after they receive their degrees.

“Whatever I’ve been learning so far is to help people back in Africa,” Munzimi told me.  She hopes to return to the Congo and become a professor at the University of Kinshasa. Munzimi likes the United States, but she says she will not settle here. Her goal is to learn and then return, to help the Congo Basin in particular and Africa in general. The best way to do that is to live and work in Africa.

Bankanza is also committed to return to Kinshasa, in part because his wife and children live there. After spending more than ten years teaching at the University of Kinshasa, Bankanza came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship to further his education. Like Munzimi, Bankanza’s research will have practical applications for people who live in and around the Congo Basin.

But what type of barriers will these two scientists face when they return to Kinshasa?

“In my country, being a professor, it doesn’t pay,” Bankanza said. Before coming to the United States he made about $100 per month teaching. His monthly rent was $200. Fortunately, he also worked for UNESCO’s remote sensing lab at the University of Kinshasa, which paid a decent wage. He was even able to use the lab infrastructure for his own research projects and to train students.

Munzimi pointed to the lack of continuing education as a problem hampering science in Africa. Even though you have the diploma and the education, there are still knowledge gaps about new technologies that were developed since you received your diploma. You might have a good idea but not know about a technique that would allow you to implement your idea. Also, you don’t have the funds to go out and learn the new technique. 

In the United States, Bankanza and Munzimi are learning state-of-the-art methods for monitoring the environment, according to geographer Matthew Hansen, who is Bankanza and Munzimi’s Ph.D. advisor.

“The Congo Basin is a comparatively data poor region when it comes to the environment,” Hansen told me. ”Their expertise will serve the region well by quickly advancing basic knowledge of environmental dynamics.” 

Before starting graduate school, Bankanza spent more than ten years as a teaching assistant at the University of Kinshasa. He was one of the first to offer instruction and training in geographic information systems there, according to Hansen. “Almost all Congolese working in this area now, whether in private, civil society of government sectors, learned from Bwangoy.  Now they train others.”

“I believe that Central Africa can quickly catch up to the likes of Brazil in terms of independent scientific inquiry and analysis through the talents and ambitions of people like Bwangoy and Yolande,” Hansen said.

Munzimi encapsulated the motivation to work in Kinshasa, under less than ideal conditions:

“Africa needs me much more than America may need me.”

Image by Garth Dyer, Architectural Graphic for FGG Architects ©2009

Artist's rendition of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV in Durban, South Africa.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal are working to change this.

In March the two organizations established the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH) on the campus of the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa. Construction will begin in the fall.

HHMI is providing $20 million towards construction of the 6 story building which will include two floors of biosafety level 3 labs - facilities specially equipped to study dangerous biological agents such as bacteria that cause tuberculosis. The University of KwaZulu-Natal and the South African government are also providing support.

The new institute has two goals: to make major scientific contributions towards controlling TB and HIV, and to train a new generation of scientists in Africa.

“The problem is that one group of people were studying HIV by itself and another group was studying TB by itself,” said HHMI vice president Peter Bruns in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education. “We know a lot about each of them separately, but not together - and they do change each other when they happen together.”

South Africa had nearly half a million new cases of TB in 2006 and is home to TB bacteria that are resistant to many of the antibiotics normally used for treatment (the so-called multidrug and extensively drug-resistant strains). South Africa has more residents infected with HIV than any other country on Earth. 44 percent of new TB patients test positive for HIV.

“The projects defined in the K-RITH program are there to address important research questions that would provide greater insights, understanding and the potential for solutions. All these should bring hope to people who are infected and affected,” Malegapuru William Makgoba, UKZN’s vice chancellor, said at a press conference announcing the new institute. “Most critically, this partnership is an investment into the future, in the training of a new generation of scientific leaders in this important area of health research.”

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Africa August 4-14, Science Planet will highlight African scientists and science in Africa.

Are there too few professors in Africa? Or is lack of laboratory facilities a bigger problem? Do most young African scientists choose to make their careers outside of Africa? Are there really “vanishingly few” opportunities for foreign-trained African researchers to return to do research in their home countries? What can be done to encourage African scientists to remain in Africa? Is it fair to discuss the entire African continent as if it were one nation?

Sir Paul Nurse is a Nobel prizewinning geneticist who examined his own family tree and found something unusual.

I don’t want to ruin the story - it’s a great one - by telling you what he found. Listen for yourself (here or here) and see how scientists are not emotionless automatons focused only on data and logic. We actually have problems and emotions just like you!

Sir Paul told his story about how discussing family trees can be dangerous during the World Science Festival in New York in June. The story was recorded in front of a live audience for The Moth, a not-for-profit storytelling organization.

The European Environment Agency recently released a report on greenhouse gas emissions, saying that emissions from the European Union (EU) declined for the third consecutive year.

The overall combined domestic emissions of the 27 EU countries were 9.3 percent below 1990 levels, a drop of 1.2 percent or 59 million tons of CO2 equivalent compared to 2006, according to the report.

Two points:

1) Most of this reduction comes from households using less fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, likely due to warmer weather and higher fuel prices. Household fossil fuel use is not covered by the EU Emission Trading System, an international trading system for CO2 emissions. It seems that so far this trading system has not put much of a dent in EU greenhouse gas emissions.

2) Combining the EU countries together shows a decline in CO2 emissions, but the story is different when we examine individual EU members. Spain’s emissions increased from 433 to 442 million tons of CO2 equivalents (total emissions) in 2006 and 2007. Austria’s emissions declined, but are still above target levels established by the Kyoto treaty.

There are huge disparities in how EU member countries are reducing greenhouse gas emissions (or not).

Image by PLoS One

A mobile phone with microscope attachment.

Bulky, expensive microscopes help diagnose tuberculosis, sickle cell disease and malaria. In the developing world diagnosis is hampered by lack of equipment and difficulty accessing remote and rural areas.

If you can’t bring the people to the microscope, then bring the microscope to the people.

Daniel Fletcher and his colleagues at the University of California in Berkeley developed an attachment to a mobile phone, allowing it to be used as a portable microscope powerful enough to see blood cells and diagnose disease. Images are captured using the phone’s built in camera. Analysis and diagnosis can be made on the spot, or the image can be e-mailed from the phone to a clinic for more detailed examination.

The resolution of the device is about 1.2 micrometers (µm), good enough to see many different types of cells. Red blood cells are 7-8 µm in diameter; a human hair is between 60 and 120 µm wide.

What makes this even more impressive is that the team did not modify the mobile phone itself, a Nokia N73. They used the phone’s built-in camera (3 megapixels) and the phone’s photo capture software and settings. They could not control shutter speed or aperture and had limited control over exposure conditions.

Image by PLoS One

A human blood sample viewed with a mobile phone microscope. Arrows point to sickle-shaped red blood cells, a sign of sickle cell disease. The white scale bar (bottom right) is 10 µm long.

Despite these limitations, the mobile phone microscope appears to be able to detect misshapen red blood cells (a sign of sickle cell disease) and malaria-infected blood.

Fletcher’s team was also able to detect tuberculosis bacteria in sputum using fluorescence microscopy, a technique that normally requires an expensive and delicate light source and filters. Instead the scientists used a rugged LED as a light source and incorporated the filters into their device. After staining a blood sample with a fluorescent dye that specifically sticks to tuberculosis bacteria, you shine blue light on the specimen, and the bacteria will glow green. This green glow is very dim, requiring filters to insure that only green light reaches the camera.

Image by PLoS One

(a) Fluorescence image of Auramine O-stained TB sputum sample. (b) Enlarged view of two tuberculosis bacilli from red-outlined area in (a). Scale bars are 10 µm long in (a), 1 µm long in (b).

In the future, installing standard imaging software on the phone will allow users to count the number of tuberculosis bacteria in a sample automatically.

Fletcher and his colleagues seem to be following a standard model for commercializing their invention, which is to sell it in the developed world and use the profits to provide the device free, or at low cost, in the developing world. (Check out the award-winning nonprofit company Diagnostics For All to learn about an unconventional approach to commercialization.)

Ideas include using the device to count blood cells in patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment, which often make patients more susceptible to infections. Using the mobile microscope to perform routine cell counts at home would reduce the number of hospital visits, reducing exposure to pathogens.

Here’s another use: a microscope for children. Toy science sets abound, but microscopes are difficult to use in the field. To encourage a young biologist, provide your child with this microscope attachment to his or her mobile phone. In addition to texting friends, your child can now examine plants and bugs up close in the field. This could be a great way to instill a love of science and the natural world.

Source: Breslauer, D., Maamari, R., Switz, N., Lam, W., & Fletcher, D. (2009). Mobile Phone Based Clinical Microscopy for Global Health Applications PLoS ONE, 4 (7) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006320