One Last Vote for 2008

Friday, 19 December 2008 by aurora_guy.

It’s only natural this time of year to kind of recap recent events in one way or another.  I’d like to know what you think are the most important developments related to science and/or medicine in 2008, and why.

My picks:

#1. The election.  I already get a sense of shifts in policy tones, which will impact alternative energy development and space exploration.  Obama’s energy secretary nominee, Steven Chu, is a physicist for all occasions, demonstrated by his industrial experience (former head of the quantum electronics group at Bell Labs for many years and director at NVIDIA since 2004) as well as running Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since August 2004. I recently discovered Dr. Chu serves as director of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which focuses on educational, social, and environmental issues.  The question remains, of course, about whether or not his leadership can get a seriously dysfunctional agency back on track.  There’s a lot of inertia to overcome.

John Holdren, another physicist, is rumored to be top pick for science advisor.  This clearly strengthens the upcoming administration’s ostensible commitment to alternative energy and reducing human impact on the environment.  Dr. Holdren, a specialist in energy and technology policy and nuclear proliferation, also runs the Woods Hole Research Center, which has a lot to say about climate change.

NASA seems to be sweating the transition, but I have little doubt it’s for good reason.  The back-to-the-moon-and-onto-Mars projects are about to run into major funding problems.  Manned space exploration is all fine and dandy, but it is a hugely expensive endeavor.  In today’s economy, an era when other important (unmanned) space-related projects lack talent and/or money, manned space seems a luxury, a sensible space science policy would cut back on the latter.  We shall see how much.  I predict continued political pressure to fund big manned-space programs in the US, since China made quite a spectacle over their first space walk a few months back.

#2. I have to confess I am torn here.  I get all tingly over exo-planets, Mars polar scrapings, and dark energy.  However, after much teeth-gnashing, I decided to give my vote to Jon Miller, a professor from Michigan State University, who has been tracking scientific literacy for two decades.  Although his work covers quite a long time, he did get a fair amount of press in 2008.  His latest survey placed the US second of 33 countries in rankings of adult scientific literacy. Sweden is first with a rate of 38%, and the US is right around 25%.  By Dr. Miller’s definition, a person considered “scientifically literate” can read and comprehend, at least on a basic level, most of the articles written at a level of, say, the NY Times weekly science section.

The research shows that the strongest single predictor of scientific literacy in the US is having participated in a college science course.  This argues in favor of retaining or strengthening general education requirements that include science courses for non-science majors.

The news is actually a bit depressing to me, since it does mean the vast majority of people in this country are scientifically illiterate.  More and more important policy decisions seem to depend on a basic knowledge of scientific principles, whether it’s climate change or the teaching of creationism in the schools.  Such a disparity in the general population means it’s easy for politicians to handily dismiss scientific arguments inconsistent with their economic or religious interests, and the majority of Americans would have no rational basis to disagree or to demand change.

#3.  I thought there was a lot of interesting medical-related news in 2008, not the least of which were promising results from malaria vaccine trials in Africa.  Malaria is a huge and deadly problem across vast regions of the globe.  Nearly a million people per year die of the disease.

These are just trials on the vaccine, so I’ll have to split my vote here and also go with the body of research related to developing sources of stem cells and therapies derived from them.  While embryonic stem cell research remains somewhat controversial, non-embryonic stem cells were in the news a lot in 2008.  Just a couple of months ago, researchers at University of Tübingen in Germany reported in Nature they harvested samples from testicles to form stem cells.  The team took spermatogonial cells, which normally mature into sperm, and used a series of chemicals to turn them into various cell types like skin, bone, muscle, and neurons.

Scientific American recently featured the work of Shinya Yamanaka .  Dr. Yamanaka “led one of two teams that showed that normal human skin cells can be genetically reprogrammed into the equivalent of stem cells. These so-called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) seem to be essentially identical to embryonic stem cells and possess the ability to become any cell.”

Multiple methods of creating stem cells — as well as understanding their similarities and differences — go a long way towards developing treatment of serious injuries and illnesses.  Although a bone marrow transplant is a well known stem cell therapy for some cancers and blood disorders, in theory, any condition in which there is tissue degeneration can be a potential candidate for such therapies. Potential applications include treatment of Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, muscular dystrophies, and liver diseases.  In addition, retinal regeneration with stem cells isolated from the eyes can lead to a possible cure for damaged or diseased eyes and may one day help reverse blindness. This is exciting stuff!

Your turn.

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