HIV Vaccine

Researchers at the University of Western Ontario and Sumagen Canada are one step closer to creating a marketable HIV vaccine. Last week, Dr. Chil-Yong Kang successfully completed the first phase of human clinical trials. The vaccine SAV001-H, is a genetically modified, killed whole-virus vaccine. First, the virus is genetically altered so that it does not cause disease, and then inactivated with chemicals and radiation before it enters the body.

The human immune system works by producing cells that recognize and destroy invaders. When you contract a new virus, it takes time for the body to react and the delay results in illness. However, the virus will be destroyed immediately the next time it enters your system. The closer a vaccine is to the real virus, the more effectively it will prepare the body to defend against that particular attack. The advantage of a whole-virus vaccine like SAV001-H is that it closely mimics the real HIV virus. Because HIV mutates quickly, vaccines containing only parts of the virus are unsuccessful in guarding against the disease.

Patients participating in the phase I trial were already HIV-positive, so the test only proved that the vaccine does not produce adverse side-effects. The next two phases of the trials will test whether the vaccine effectivly prevents HIV infection. Dr. Kang’s lab will conduct the next test phases on volunteer patients who are HIV negative, but who are at high risk of contracting the disease. The researchers will give half the group a placebo, and the other half the vaccine. After several years, researchers will take stock of how many from each group contracted the disease.

Spanish researchers are currently developing another HIV vaccine—MVA-B. Scientists there say that the MVA-B vaccine has the potential to reduce the disease to a chronic mild infection, on par with the herpes virus.

‘Quantum weirdness’ in computer chips

As electronic devices like cell phones shrink every year, the computer chips inside them are shrinking too. Physicists at McGill and General Motors R&D recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on stretching the limit of this trend. Computer chips have gotten so small that some circuits are merely atoms in thickness, and these thin strips of metal are subject to strange phenomena.

McGill researchers measured the changes in current flowing between two types of metal—tungsten and gold. As the connection between the metals got smaller and smaller, they found that current losses were unexpectedly high after a certain point—a sign that there are challenges ahead for ultra-tiny electronics.

In a recent interview with the McGill Reporter, McGill Professor Peter Grütter, who worked on the experimental side of the research, described the behaviour with an analogy of water flowing through a hose.

“If you keep the water pressure constant, less water comes out as you reduce the diametre of the hose. But if you were to shrink the hose to the size of a straw just two or three atoms in diameter, the outflow would no longer decline at a rate proportional to the hose cross-sectional area; it would vary in a quantized ‘jumpy’ way.”

Researchers often find unusual behaviour as they zoom in on tiny processes; this phenomenon is called ‘quantum weirdness.’ Jesse Maaseen, who works with a McGill Physics research group, used cutting-edge electrical modeling to back up Grütter’s experimental results.

While there are ways to work around quantum weirdness, by carefully choosing materials for example, this research sheds light on a host of new challenges that will face computer designers as we enter the age of nanotechnology.

75-year-old track stars

McGill researchers are in the process of studying elite athletes over the age of 75 for clues on how they have managed to maintain fitness. Tania Taivassalo and Russell Hepple, both associate professors in McGill’s Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, are in the process of studying athletes like Olga Kotelko—a 93-year-old track star who holds 17 world records in the 90-95 age group. Taivassalo and Hepple will then measure the athletes’ aerobic power (VO2 max), bone density, fat content, and muscle strength and endurance, comparing them with non-athletes in the same age range. The researchers will also measure cognitive ability, hoping to build on recent research that suggests a link between exercise and mental longevity.

Taivassalo and Hepple are interested in discovering how athletes like Kotelko have managed to retain impressive muscle mass. Usually, muscle fibres and the neurons that activate them deteriorate as part of the aging process. It’s possible that Kotelko’s body has a natural resistance to this deterioration that could provide important advances in anti-aging medicine. Using samples of thigh muscles, the researchers will be testing the participants’ mitochondrial function (mitochondria are responsible for energy production at the cellular level), as well as their fat content. Researchers are also combining the athletes’ blood serum with non-athlete muscle, to see if it will improve regeneration.

Athletes from around the world will be participating in the ongoing study, and Taivassalo and Hepple are also looking for non-athletes to continue their work.

Photos: a syringe (blog.timesunion.com), a wormhole (quantumweird.wordpress.com), Olga Kotelko (canadianmasters.ca).

Jacob Barnett is only 13, but he is set to become a paid atrophysics researcher at Indiana Unversity-Purdue University Indianapolis. He believes that he is close to disproving Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Matthew Savage is now 20, but he was solving complex mathematical problems at the age of six, and by the age of 12 had released five jazz albums. Although neither of their parents had experience in mathematics, astrophysics, or music, both of these wunderkinds developed talents in these fields at very young ages. Both have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

ASD is an umbrella term for a wide number of developmental disorders. Most common amongst them are autism and Asperger’s syndrome, which are characterized by limited social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive patterns of behaviour.

A genius, on the other hand, is traditionally defined by extraordinarily natural intellectual or creative ability.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be an overlap between ASD and genius. However, many have speculated that some of the world’s greatest geniuses—from Einstein to Newton, Michelangelo to Mozart—had autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s syndrome.

Can special insight or genius arise from the inability to form strong social connections? Do attention to detail and constant repetitive patterns of behaviour result in genius when applied to music or to memorizing mathematical formulae at a young age? Is there really a link between autism and genius? Not all geniuses have autism, and not all autistic individuals are geniuses.

A study by Joanna Ruthsatz and Jourdan Urbach, published June 2012 in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence, examines eight child prodigies, ranging from six to 23 years of age. These prodigies had a variety of specialties, ranging from cooking to computer programming, music to mathematics. They were tested on the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale, a measure of both verbal and non-verbal intelligence, and also took the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test. The results were surprising: generally, the prodigies’ IQs were only slightly higher than normal, ranging from 108-142 (the US average is 100), but they all had excellent working memories—an ability to store and sort information—in the 99th percentile.

Of the eight prodigies, only three of the eight had been diagnosed with ASD, but nearly all had family members with ASD. When tested for autism, however, these prodigies consistently displayed only one autistic trait: attention to detail.

The origin of childhood genius is part of a long-standing debate over development: nature vs. nurture. Individuals like Savage and Barnett, as well as Mozart, appeared to have an inborn talent at music or mathematics.

Others are prodigies and geniuses because they worked at it. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell provides numerous examples of individuals who became exceptionally skilled after working for 10,000 hours.

Autistic children appear to have an upper hand in both cases: their brains may be better designed for certain tasks (nature), and an affinity for constant repetition is an important trait in the 10,000 hours it requires to perfect a task (nurture).

However, many prodigies, such as Alexander Prior (who became conductor at the Seattle Opera at the age of 17) and Andre Agassi (who was playing tennis by the age of 2) that do not fit within the diagnoses of autism. The link between autism and genius remains ambiguous.

There has been a dramatic increase in ASD across the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Epidemiologic Database also reports increases in at least three Canadian provinces. Current prevalence in the U.S. stands at one in 88 children, a 79 per cent increase in ASD since 2002. The reasons for this increase are not yet known, but  they are at least partly due to increased knowledge and diagnosis by physicians. Whether this result in a generation with more geniuses remains to be seen.