Yesterday, a few AS biologists from our school went to the University of London to attend the Sixth Annual Science Week. We sat in an enormous lecture hall and listened to Israeli scientists who came all the way from Israel to introduce us to some amazing, ground breaking medical advances and how their applications have saved lives around the world.
Our first lecture was by Rebecca Khalandovsky who spoke about “Tissue Engineering Approaches to Treating Disease Biology”. She focused on the issue of Diabetes and how her team have tried to approach it using tissue engineering. Her team are successfully using induced pluripotent stem cells from patients themselves and differentiating them into pancreas beta cells which are then moulded by using a polymer ‘scaffolding’ and empty vessels, to be transplanted into diabetic patients. She showed us how successful this has been when they tested this technique on diabetic mice.
Our next speaker was Oren Cohen who told us about the company he works for; “Neuronix”. He gave a very interesting and remarkable lecture regarding an actual treatment for the neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s. We were told how a combination of magnetic stimulation and cognitive activities can help stimulate weaker parts of the brain in order to strengthen neuron responses. This simple idea has lead the company to create a chair-like apparatus, where Alzheimer patients sit and have magnetic fields aimed at their brains while they do some electronic problem solving. After lunch we had a very short lecture by Anton Alexander who raised awareness of the devastating disease Malaria, and how we can avoid it when we go on holiday to a less developed country. Lastly, our final lecture was about “Understanding our Genome: From Patients to Families and Communities”. This lecture was conveyed by Professor Tzipora C Falic-Zaccai. Her lecture consisted of her telling us some facts about the major groups of people who are living in Israel and how the marriages they practice affect their offspring. We understood that people in these groups opted for marriages within families i.e. first cousins, who all share around 25% of their DNA. This then created problems like new genetic diseases, which can be screened for many times during pregnancy. Her team went around different parts of Israel and counselled many people on what they can do if they are a carrier (and if their spouse is too) of a certain genetic disease.
My most favourite lecture was the last one about Genetic disorders. This was because the issues raised were so interesting and the team’s work was so influential on many people in Israel who were not aware of the implications of family marriages and being carriers of certain diseases. I also learned some new information such as, due to high levels of inbreeding in groups of people, new genetic diseases can be created that can stay in families for generations. I also found the Alzheimer’s lecture interesting as I never knew there could be an actual cure for Alzheimer’s, as the numbers of deaths per year are increasing due to it.
Miriam Aziz