lecture 34: social media, crowd source funding and neuroscience research Flashcards
What is the connectivity of the brain?
- more than 1000 nuclei of the brain
- cells within the nuclei are a heterogenous population
- an average neuron has approximately 1,000 connections to other neurons
- so how do we investigate the specific function of a brain nuclei or of sub-populations of neurons within a specific nuclei?
What are the pros and cons of testing lesion brain regions to investigate the brain?
- region specific
- complete ablation
- damage to fibres of passage
- off target effects
What are the pros and cons of cannulation
- region specific
- reversible
- versatile
- difficult to assess “normal” behaviour with chronic treatment
- risk of infection
- off target effects
What are pros and cons of using viral vectors to investigate the brain?
- region specific
- cell type specific
- versatile
- long term effects
- inducible
- affected cells easily identifiable
What are viral vectors?
- viral vectors are modified viruses
- lentiviruses - e.g. HIV
- adeno-associated viruses
- retroviruses - e.g. Moloney murine leukaemia virus
- adenoviruses
- herpex simplex viruses
- pseudorabies
- viral vectors are based on viruses
- viral vectors are generally modified to inhibit their ability to replicate
- viruses infect cells - can then produce more viruses
- viral vecotrs transduce cells - cannot replicate
- viral vectors have been selected for their low immunogenecity
- viral vectors deliver specifically packaged genetic material
- viral vectors have a wide range of applications
- gene therapies
- basic research; neuroscience, cancer, immunology etc
- vaccines - HIV, avian influenza (H5N1)
What are viral vectors as gene therapies?
- allows delivery of gene(s) to a specific region
- potential treatment for inherited conditions or cancer
- first viral-based gene therapy is now available in europe
- glybera is an AAV based therapy targeting the genetic condition lipoprotein lipase deficiency
- over 200 clinical trials involving viral vectors
- animal studies examining viral vectors as a potential treatment/cure for familial hypercholesterolaemia
- AAV vectors expressing LDLR gain-of-function variants demonstrate increased efficacy in mouse models of FH
What can we put in a viral vector?
- genes
- proteins
- agonist/antagonists
- anti-oxidants
- fluorescent proteins
- pharmacogenetic receptors
- optogenetically activatable ion channels
- promoters - PRSx8, sCAG, CMV
other regulatory elements: such as woodchuck hepatitis virus posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE) or internal ribosome entry site (IRES)
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What are cell-type specific promoters?
- lentiviral transduction of the rat hypoglossal motor nucleus
- a selection of cell type specific promoters available to put in viral vectors
- PRSx8 - noradrenergic
- TH - tryptophan hydroxylase
- GFAP - glial
- SYN - synapsin-1
- CamKS - alpha CamKII
- MCH - melanin-concentrating hormone
- GAD67 - GABAergic
- VGLUT1 -glutaminergic
What can we do with a viral vector?
- mapping
- LV-PRSx8-eGFP (noradrenergic) into C3
- chronic receptor modulation
- chronic expression of receptor agonist or antagonist
- gene silencing
- relaxin-3 IHC in NI
- AAV-eGFP-miR499/relaxin-3
- functional modulation
- pharmacogenetics
- designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs)
- activation within minutes, lasts hours, 2 day wash out
- free moving conscious animals
- designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs)
- optogenetics
- channelrhodopsins - stimulation
- halorhodopsins - inhibition
- switch on/off within milliseconds
- tethered conscious animals
What are DREADDs?
- designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs
- engineered muscarinic GPCRs with no basal activity, but respond to synthetic ligand, clozapine N-oxide (CNO)
What is optogenetics?
- channelrhodopsins/halorhodopsins
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What needs to be done outside the lab?
- scientific advocacy
- australian academy of science
- australian society for medical research
- australian society for neuroscience
- scientific communication
- visiting high schools, community groups
- other events such as science in the cinema, brain awareness week
- blogs
- podcasts/radio/TV
- articles for the public e.g. from scourge to saviour: using viruses to treat serious disease, 2000 readers and 3 comments
- science activism
- facebook, twitter (also weibo, pinterest etc)
- stop the australian (anti)vaccination network
- interactive, a conversation rather than a lecture
- collaborative, with both scientists and non-scientists
- anything you say or write is permanent
- why bother?
- facebook, twitter (also weibo, pinterest etc)
- science fundraising
What is science on social media?
- e.g. facebook page stop the australian (anti) vaccination network
- reaches up to 100,000 people a week
- stopped (positive) media attention for the Australian Vaccination Network (now called Australian Vaccination-skeptics Network) - an anti-vaccination organisation
- changed laws in NSW relating to health care complaints
- consulted by Australian politicians and journalists on vaccination policy
- two presentations at recent PHAA 14th national immunisation conference
- review article on HPV vaccination published in a peer reviewed journal
- twitter
- hashtags: #science, #health, #StopAVN, #HPV, many many others
- communities (e.g. scientists, athiests, sceptics)
- open forum - tweets can’t be removed except by the original account
- gives access to people who may be inaccessible through other methods
- why bother?
- passionate about a scientific topic
- understand community views on a topic
- not as time intensive as blogs/podcasts etc
- great way to collaborate
- promote your own research
- e.g. hawkes (the lecturer)
- adverse events as a result of chiropractic treatment: lack of a reporting system hinders informed health decisions and improvement of practice
- pharmacological examination of TCM should be evidence-based
- answering human pappilomavirus concers; a matter of science and time
- research trends in evidence-based medicine: a joinpoint regression analysis of half a century of publication data
How to promote your science through social media?
- e.g. paper: answering human papillomavirus vaccine concerns; a matter of science and time
- journal impact factor of 2.07 (infectious agents and cancer)
- open access journal
- promoted it on Facebook and twitter
- accessed 15,500 times since june, 2013
- 6th most accessed article for the journal
- twitter audience of up to 910,000
- cited by a leading HPV research group
- twitter as a research tool in itself:
- HPV vaccination has the potential to reduce global deaths from cervical cancer by as much as two thirds (url) vs
- lead developer of HPV vaccines comes clean warns parents and young girls it’s all a giant deadly scam
What is medical research crowdfunding?
- success rate of 50-60%
- small amounts: ~$5,000 - $30,000
- 2-3 months time span (~1-2h per day)
- growing number of platforms; pozible, thinkable etc
- over 30 crowdfunding research projects in Australia