Take a moment to check out Julia Lohmann's crazy and awesome creation - an incredibly beautiful lamp, created from preserved sheep stomachs. If my brain was to somehow shed my body and move on in search of greener pastures, I imagine this is what it would look like.

song of the day


i am steadfast in my belief that there is an appropriate beatles song for (almost) every moment in which one has need of a song.

a young man in my neighborhood recently shared a story with me about his experiences with the plant salvia divinorum, which he received as a birthday present. unfortunately for him, nobody took the time to discuss the reverse tolerance effect that salvia is known to have, leading to some short-lived chaos for this young gentleman. later that day, while exploring the internet for more information on the neurological mechanisms behind reverse tolerance, i came across a page that discussed reverse tolerance in regard to marijuana use which was (obviously) quite heady but coincided with my personal theory regarding psychedelic drugs. the exact mechanism(s) by which many psychedelic drugs interact with the cns is remains largely unknown, (though there are many theories out there). according to this article, over time, the human brain develops its inherent capacity to become high and that the use of marijuana merely potentiates this ability, (as opposed to causing it). i have always thought similarly about other drugs, such as lsd, that rather than being the sole cause of an altered state of consciousness, these drugs prime the human body to activate pre-existing neurological pathways, and the capacity to achieve this altered state of awareness increases as we become more familiar with it (acid flashbacks, anyone?). the ability to control these pathways is not yet a voluntary process, at least not for anyone i know personally, but i would consider it well within the realm of possibilities of the human mind.

i'm sorry guys - i've totally been slacking on my posting. i've started studying in earnest for the mcats and kaplan (bastards that they are), in addition to providing hundreds of pages of written review material, also has the most stuff ever available online. so every time i go online without a specific purpose, you know, to just bull shit around on the internet, i just get tormented by guilt because i'm not using that energy to be studying and end up either succumbing to the guilt and studying or turn off my computer and stare at the walls.

in other news, i have learned how to knit! which i'm extremely excited about. i don't know why i never learned how to knit before, it's far easier than i imagined! after making the obligatory hat and scarf as my first knitting projets, i am currently working on a birthday present for a certain girl, who goes by the alias HJAngel15. in addition to being the first real garment i've ever knit, i'm also doing a simple eyelet pattern - not so complicated, but a step up from the seed stitch and garter stitch stuff i did when i was first learning. pictures to follow soon.

on sunday i visited my future home in red hook, brooklyn. despite the lack of subway, i am extremely excited about moving there (in august) and hope you will come visit, as there will be lots of room! and free parking!

recently i learned of an advent in the field of medical and biological research: the artificial immune system. this is, essentially, an in vitro simulation of the human immune system. the process begins by growing an artificial epithelium, using huvec cells (human umbilical vein endothelial cells) over a collagen matrix. (picture a honeycomb with each little compartment coated in huvec cells). through the secretion of growth factors and human matrix proteins a complete layer of human of epithelial tissue is formed. this becomes the vaccination site. after vaccination diapedesis of monocytes occurs, followed by transendothelial migration and morphology of dendridic cells. the next step is to expose the dendritic cells to the LTE or lympoid tissue equivalent. this is an environment that mimics that of a human lymphnode. from the reaction that occurs within the LTE, various assays can be used to determine the immune response of the artificial immune system.

this process uses 96 well plates - and each well represents cells from a different person. the advantage to this is that studies can be conducted across a very diverse population at a drastically reduced cost compared to what conducting an equivalent study using actual human immune systems would cost. the downside is that this artificial environment doesn't make allowances for any variables that might have an effect on an individual's immune response.

regardless of the pros and cons, simply learning this system existed blew me away. or maybe freaked me out slightly. i don't know if this is the wave of the future or not but it's certainly taking one more step down a strange and bizarre path in the world of research.

a week or so ago a second interim analysis was conducted, examining two hiv/aids trials being conducted in rakai, uganda and kisumu, kenya. these trials were looking at circumcision as a public health intervention method.* earlier today the WHO and NIAID released the information that these trials, like the orange farm trial which was halted in 2005, these two trials will also be interrupted because of strong correlate of protection. the rate was approximately 50% (48% and 53% i think?) and 61% in south africa. this is because the foreskin contains langerhans' cells, which are more susceptible to viral infection (this is the prevailing theory, i don't know if anyone has actually proven yet).

the impact of this is...mind-blowing. first all the fact that circumcision is by far the most effective preventative ever? and that no one really looked into it (or came up with anything better) in twenty five years of money being thrown at this problem. all right, the first few were a little rough but once people (sort of) got over that whole gay disease thing, the situation improved. which brings me to another problem - most of the money allocated to aids right now is for vaccines and drugs. i'm not certain how much money bill gates has given to circumcision training services recently...and then there's the obvious problem of trying to convince adult men (of the populations that are most at risk for hiv) to let someone cut part of their penis off. i sure as hell wouldn't want to. and there is a very strong anti-circumcision sentiment in the world these days. there's also the problem of how and where are people going to get circumcised. sub-suharan africa isn't exactly rife with medical facilities. which is where mohels without borders would come into the picture. i'm not kidding, it's been seriously discussed. and on a less urgent level, i wonder how this factors into the way data has been analyzed in previous vaccine or drug trials for any std?

so this is going to be a large part of my job for the next few months. there are very mixed in my office about what iavi's role should be in this. to me, it seems pretty clear - every possible resource should be put to addressing the problems stated above. finally something has been found that works, far better than anything else to date. but how do you balance that with continuing vaccine research work? especially when an efficacious vaccine still seems pretty far off? i'm not entirely certain there will ever be a vaccine. right now, microbicides seem far more promising.


*i'm not certain about other types of clinical resarch but in typical hiv drug or vaccine related trials in humans the standard is one interim analysis. because of the ethical issues involved with withholding this strong of a correlate of protection, multiple analyes were part of the protocol for all three trials)