The NIH Big Read Microscopy As Masterpiece
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NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH • OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR | VOLUME 25 ISSUE 3 • MAY-JUNE 2017 The NIH Big Read Microscopy as Masterpiece A Review of Inaugural Event With A Beautiful Way to Study Neurons Writer Siddhartha Mukherjee BY LAURA STEPHENSON CARTER BY HAYLEY RAQUER, NIAID Excitement built throughout NIH this spring when NIH’s inaugural Big Read program had dozens of people reading and discussing Siddhartha Mukherjee’s new book, The Gene: An Intimate History. Then, on April 17, the Big Read culminated with an appearance by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author himself to discuss his book and meet his fans. It was his second book visit to NIH, the first being in 2011 to talk aboutThe MARK STOPFER, NICHD STOPFER, MARK Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, the bestseller that won him the Pulitzer Prize and was the basis of a PBS film on cancer. Although he carries obvious credentials within literary circles, Mukherjee’s This composite image shows two neurons, in the locust brain, that process olfactory information. background is rooted firmly in the biomedical sciences. In 1992, he graduated Perhaps only a scientist can find the beauty within a locust brain. An from Stanford University (Standford, image—looking like mirrored, psychedelic-colored mushrooms—captured by Mark California) with a B.S. in biology. He Stopfer—reveals the intricacies of neurons in the brain of the Schistocerca Americana had undergraduate research experience locust. The image is one of several included in the “Microscopy as Masterpiece” in the lab of Nobel Prize winner Paul digital exhibit at the Strathmore arts center in North Bethesda, Maryland. NIH Berg. After completing his Ph.D. at and the Strathmore partnered to develop the exhibit, which complements the “Arts Oxford University (Oxford, England) as a and the Brain” lecture series, and features beautiful brain microscopy images and Rhodes scholar, Mukherjee matriculated videos created by NIH-supported researchers. to Harvard Medical School (Boston) where he received his M.D. in 2000. Now an CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University in New York City, he splits his CONTENTS time as an oncologist, researcher, and science FEATURES • |1| Big Read |1| Microscopy as Masterpiece |6| How Oxidative Stress Kills Cells writer. |7| Delayed Walking and Autism |12| WALS Superstars |14| Profile: Teresa Przytycka Given his extensive curriculum vitae DEPARTMENTS • |2| DDIR: Population-Based Research |3| SIG Beat: Light Microscopy; and contributions to science, medicine, and Scientia et Philosophia |4| Training Page/News Everyone Can Use: Data-Science Skills |5| New CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 Methods: Mouse-Behavior Monitoring System |8| Research Briefs |11| Announcements: Kudos |16| Colleagues: Recently Tenured |19| Abbreviations |20| Back Page: More Cajal on Campus FROM THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR INTRAMURAL RESEARCH FROM THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR INTRAMURAL RESEARCH Population-Based Research Improving Public Health BY MICHAEL GOTTESMAN, DDIR In the past I have pointed out how and environmental factors that increase Today, expectant mothers take folate laboratory-based research at the NIH has the incidence of cancer. NCI scientists supplements, and bread is supplemented changed the practice of medicine. An have discovered a substantial percentage with folate to ensure adequate maternal even greater impact on public health can of the human genetic syndromes that concentrations for normal fetal development. be attributed to the epidemiological studies predispose one to cancer, including the As a result, there has been a dramatic drop done by NIH scientists or as collaborations eponymous Li-Fraumeni syndrome that is in neural-tube defects in the United States between intramural and extramural due to inherited p53 mutations that lead to and several other countries. investigators. Such population-based cancers in multiple organ systems. People NICHD epidemiologists have made intramural programs have been established who carry mutations that predispose them other important contributions. They were in about half of the institutes and centers, to cancer can be counseled to undergo earlier the first to show an association between including the NCI, NICHD, NIAID, and more frequent screening to improve the maternal diabetes and poor fetal outcomes. NIEHS, NIMH, NHLBI, NHGRI, likelihood that cancer can be discovered in They also showed that participation in NEI, NIA, NIDDK, and NIMHD. an earlier, more treatable stage. formal swimming lessons was associated Epidemiologic studies provide rigor- DCEG scientists also did many of with an 88 percent reduction in the risk of ous statistical evidence of the association the early epidemiological studies that drowning in children aged one to four years between human behavior or environmental showed the relationship between human old. (Drowning is a common cause of death circumstances and disease that may moti- papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical in childhood in many parts of the world.) vate more detailed mechanistic studies to and oropharyngeal cancer. Their work That demonstration has influenced the advice enhance prevention or suggest other inter- pointed to the need for an HPV vaccine, that pediatricians give parents and will, we ventions to ameliorate disease and disability. which was developed by John Schiller and hope, lead to universal swimming lessons. Such studies use a wide range of research Douglas Lowy in NCI. Some studies have been reassuring; for designs, often involve multidisciplinary and NCI has also demonstrated example, NICHD epidemiologists have multi-investigator collaborations, and may associations between environmental shown that children conceived by assisted generate mechanistic data that support find- exposures, such as medical X-rays and reproductive technologies have the same ings from laboratory-based studies. computed-tomography scans, and an growth and developmental trajectories as By way of example, allow me to cite increased incidence of cancer. These children conceived without treatment. studies that have led to changes in the studies have resulted in changes in medical NIEHS has also contributed to studies practice of medicine and have made obvious practice that should reduce the incidence of pregnancy and human development. improvements in the public’s wellbeing. of radiation-associated cancers. The observation that up to 25 percent of These studies represent a tiny percentage Another distinguished population- embryos fail to survive six weeks (before of the population-based studies done at the health program at the NIH is NICHD’s women know they are pregnant) came from NIH and have been chosen only to illustrate Division of Intramural Population Health an NIEHS study, as did the finding that how powerful such studies can be. Research, which will be celebrating its 50th by age 50 up to 80 percent of black women The focus of NCI’s Division of Cancer anniversary soon. Epidemiologists in this and 70 percent of white women have uterine Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG), program study human populations across fibroids. For black women, especially, the founded more than 50 years ago by Joseph the lifespan. Twenty-five years ago, NICHD earlier development of fibroids has significant Fraumeni Jr. (who has just retired but will scientists in collaboration with researchers public-health implications. continue as a scientist emeritus at the NIH; in Ireland found an association between For NHLBI, the iconic Framingham congratulations, Joe!), has been on genetic neural-tube defects and folate deficiency. Study represents a comprehensive effort to 2 THE NIH CATALYST MAY-JUNE 2017 FROM THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR INTRAMURAL RESEARCH FROM THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR INTRAMURAL RESEARCH THE SIG BEAT NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS enumerate the risk factors that contribute LIGHT MICROSCOPY NEW SIG: SCIENTIA ET PHILOSOPHIA to the development of atherosclerotic The Light Microscopy Interest Group (LMIG), The Scientia et Philosophia Interest Group cardiovascular disease. Most of the which aims to build a bridge between NIH seeks to foster and expand the knowledge seminal observations about the association biologists and microscopists, informs the NIH and understanding of the NIH research among smoking, high blood pressure, community about cutting-edge research in community and staff of the philosophical lipid abnormalities, obesity, and diabetes light fluorescence microscopy and about avail- foundations of the scientific endeavor. In and heart disease came from the rigorous able resources, both extramural and intramural. an interdisciplinary, open, and inclusive envi- population-based studies conducted by the NIH researchers are at the leading edge of ronment, the group promotes an exchange intramural leaders of the Framingham study this fast-growing field. Do you want to learn of knowledge in a diversity of fields and and their many extramural colleagues who about madSTORM, the super-resolution tech- topics including the philosophy, origins, and contributed. Additional studies to test the role nique multiplexed antibody size–limited direct foundations of science; logic and rational- of these factors in more diverse populations stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy ism; cosmology and cosmogony; biology are underway, but the primary methodology developed in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research and biogeny; ethics, meta-ethics, and meta- came from the Framingham study. and applied to localization of 25 proteins