#10
ENDURANCE Science by Newcastle Students Latest science news ▪ Spores in space ▪ Miniscule motors Persistent plastic pollution ▪ Measuring mental toughness
E
ndurance, the ability to continue, is multidimensional. Here at {react} we are celebrating our 10 th edition by exploring what endurance means to science. Human activity has produced persistent plastics in our oceans, increased greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, and we have overused antibiotics to the point that bacterial resistance is a very real threat. Yet, the growing global population (and our environment) can survive with the help of microorganisms. Life itself, protected by sporification, can survive extreme hostile conditions; from the vastness of outer space to our own scorched soils. Our longevity continues to be enhanced by unique insights provided by longitudinal human studies, and in this shrinking world of increasing pressure, we can train our mental toughness to reinforce our resilience.
Philippa Rickard, Editor
Meet the Team EDITOR: Philippa Rickard FEATURES EDITOR: Cassandra Smith LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Ryan Calmus NEWS EDITOR: Clare Tweedy
SUB-EDITORS : Abbie Kelly, Michelle Delatore-James, Emma Kampouraki, Christina Julius, Ryan Calmus, Jess Newman, Alethea Mountford, Cassie
Want to edit, organise or design this magazine? Get in touch
Bakshani, Jess Leighton BLOG MANAGERS: Alethea Mountford, Jess Newman BLOG TEAM: Leonie Schittenhelm,
Philippa Rickard, Justin Byrne, Emma Kampouraki, Jess Leighton, Cassie
react.mag.team@gmail.com
Bakshani PUBLIC RELATIONS : Justin Byrne blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
@react_magazine
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Contents News
4
What’s new in science?
The spore
8
Soil spores and their survival
Bacterial astronauts
10
The earliest space travellers?
News What’s new in science?
4
Speaking of spores
12
An interview with Dr Ralf Moeller
Bacterial flagellum
16
The origin of nature’s smallest motors
Plastic endurance
18
A marine disaster
Synthetic biology
20
Clearing up after ourselves
Phage therapy
22
An alternative to antibiotics?
Spores Ready, set, grow
8
The ‘red spots’
26
Exploring longitudinal studies
Experience
28
“I am a medical research volunteer”
The Paris Agreement
30
Time for change
A day in the life
32
Suzan Dudink, Sports Psychologist
Mental toughness
34
Dealing with pressure in higher education
Pressure Mental toughness
34
Book review
36
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”
Fun and games
38
Take a break and enjoy a puzzle
NEWS
News The latest science scoops from Newcastle
Clare Tweedy
Bacterial “dark matter”
brings hope for new therapies
Bacteria that currently can’t be grown in a laboratory are termed bacterial “dark matter”. Learning more about how the newly discovered bacteria grow and can be cultivated for medical research is an important next step.
The coastal Atacama Desert in Chile is an extreme climate exposed to high levels of UV radiation. It may not be a place you would expect to find life. Yet a team of researchers from Newcastle University, the University of Chile, Kent University, and Aberdeen University, found just that. Soil taken from mountains 3,000 to 5,000 metres above sea level were found to contain high levels of bacteria, most notably a type called actinobacteria. Actinobacteria are crucial parts of the soil system but are also sources of compounds that can be used to make new medicines. With the threat of antibiotic resistance on the horizon, the discovery of new medicines is promising. In fact, 40% of the actinobacteria found in the soil samples had never been discovered before.
Acidimicrobium ferrooxidans, an actinobacterium
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European
project
research
aims
to
improve liver disease diagnosis A €34 million project has been announced to improve the diagnosis of liver disease. Researchers at Newcastle University will work closely with pharmaceutical partner Pfizer and join 47 other international research partners in the scheme. The project “Liver Investigation: Testing Marker Utility in Steatohepatitis”, also known as LITMUS, was funded by the European Innovative Medicines Initiative. Work will focus on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is thought to affect as many as 30% of people worldwide.
LITMUS project aims to identify which people are at risk of then developing liver disease and scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). Many patients are not diagnosed with NAFLD until later when symptoms begin, and LITMUS will bring together academic and industrial researchers to create new diagnostic tests that can both catch NAFLD in the early stages, and also monitor and predict the likely outcome for a patient.
NAFLD occurs when fat is deposited in the liver and is closely linked to obesity. Many people have a build-up of fat in their liver and the NAFLD is closely linked to obesity blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
PHOTO:
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NEWS
The North East Centre for Energy Materials will aim to increase the efficiency of energy technologies
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N o r t h
E a s t
Universities invest in energy research The universities of Newcastle, Northumbria, and Durham have announced their collaboration as part of a new research centre to improve energy technology. The North East Centre for Energy Materials will be created by a £2.25 million investment from the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The Centre will include a multidisciplinary team of engineers, chemists, biologists, and physicists, working together to study how energy can be generated, stored, and transmitted more efficiently. Such research is important given our dependence on carbon-based fuel and the inefficiency of current energy technology. Research will focus on the likes of tidal energy, solar energy, battery efficiency, energy storage methods, biomass, and smart grids and will include studies at the atomic and molecular level. It is hoped that through collaboration with local energy companies, the North East can set a precedent for the UK in sustainable energy use.
Growing
curved
artificial
corneas
using cells in a dish Researchers have developed a method to grow curved corneas from cells taken from human donors, in a collaboration between Newcastle University and the University of California. The cornea is the clear outer layer of the eye which
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focuses vision, but it can change shape in a disease called keratoconus. This requires a cornea transplant to treat, but there is a shortage of corneas being donated in the UK. While plastic corneas can be rejected by the body, corneas grown from human donor cells provide a solution to this problem. When the cells are grown on a surface in the shape of a dome, they form a lattice structure and grow in to a curved human cornea. This is different to what happens when grown on a flat surface, where the lattice structures do not form. The human cornea that is grown is more transparent that ones grown previously, and even curves the right way to focus light more efficiently. This has important implications for the development of artificial corneas for human transplantation.
The cornea is the transparent outer layer of the eye. Disease can cause it to become deformed.
Find out more about these stories and more on the Newcastle University website at www.ncl.ac.uk/press/news
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FEATURE
Surviving everything from scorched soils to sick patients: the extreme world of
the spore
Clare Willis, Errington Lab Group, CBCB www.ncl.ac.uk/cbcb/
T
here are few living things that can endure starvation, extreme heat or cold, or high levels of radiation. However, compact, tough, resistant forms of bacteria, called spores, can actually survive all of these conditions. But what exactly are bacterial spores, how do they form and how do they affect us? We can answer these questions by looking at the life of the soildwelling bacterium Bacillus subtilis, a species commonly found in the wild and used as a lab model organism. Research over the last three decades has helped us understand how this bacterium forms spores. Some of this work has been carried out at Newcastle University in the lab of Jeff Errington at the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology. Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) is a bacterium that can make spores in order to cope with the harsh environmental pressures of living in the soil. When nutrients are poor, this bacterium changes from a growing and dividing life-style to a dormant state, where it exists as an endospore (“spore� for short), via a process known as
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sporulation. Spores are small, rounded, dormant cells with thick outer coats, which allow them to survive for hundreds of years in the soil. When nutrients become available, the spores can germinate (much like seeds germinate), by bursting out of their shell and starting to grow and divide once more. Spore formation is not only a fascinating
Illustration of Bacillus subtilis, circa 1900 blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
from one. When B. subtilis bacteria begin to run out of nutrients they finish duplicating their DNA, but often do not divide in the middle. Instead various pathways in the cell are activated in response to the lack of nutrients, causing hundreds of genes to be turned on and others to be turned off - therefore the cell behaves differently.
Scanning electron micrograph of C. difficile process, but also one implicated in health and disease. Some harmful bacteria can form spores, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax disease) and Clostridium difficile (“C. diff.”, the hospital
The cell begins to form a division site - not in the middle, but at one end, making two un-equal sized cells. The smaller cell (the early spore or “prespore”) must contain one copy of the chromosome, so that the developed spore will have all the genetic information for a viable bacterial cell. To ensure this happens, the cell pumps one chromosome into the prespore. Once it is safely inside, the prespore can develop further, gaining its thick coat layer and eventually is released into the environment.
They can germinate by bursting out of their shell once more acquired pathogen). It is thought that the spores of C. diff. may be able to survive in the human gut for several months after antibiotic treatment, leading to recurrent infection when spores germinate and bacterial cells grow and divide again. Study of B. subtilis spores can serve as a useful model for understanding these pathogenic bacteria. So how does B. subtilis form spores? The normal form of bacterial growth is binary fission: bacteria double in size, duplicate their DNA (a single chromosome) and divide in the middle of the cell, making two identical cells blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
Transmission electron micrograph of Bacillus
subtilis The overall mechanisms supporting this interesting process are largely understood, but the details behind some of these steps are still very much unknown. Answering questions about the fine details will improve our understanding of how spores form, of the amazing fundamental processes involved in transporting DNA around a cell, and of the best ways to combat the survival of bacteria harmful to humans.
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FEATURE
Bacterial astronauts Could spores be the earliest space travellers? Abbie Kelly
M
any bacteria are capable of existing as endospores (spores); highly resistant dormant cells that persist in unfavourable environments for extended periods of time, and “reawaken� when conditions are favourable. With claims that spores have been isolated from 25-40 million year old fossils, and the known abilities of spores to withstand environmental stresses including heat, UV radiation and high pressure, it has been suggested that spores may enable the transfer of life between planets, as bacterial astronauts. Spores have a drastically different physiology to their vegetative cell counterparts; their main function is to protect the DNA within the innermost layer, the spore core. To do this, the spore is composed of several layers surrounding the core. The nearest layer to the core, the cortex, contains modified peptidoglycan, the main building block of the bacterial cell wall. This layer aids dehydration, which helps protect the spore from UV radiation. Surrounding the cortex are the inner and outer spore coats,
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which help prevent degradation by chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide and peptidoglycandegrading enzymes. These modifications enable the spore to transfer between organisms and environments. The incredible hardiness of spores has encouraged research into the concept of lithopanspermia: the idea that microscopic life, in the form of spores, can be transferred through space via meteorites. The transfer of
The anatomy of a typical endospore
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Beneath a meteorite’s surface, spores could survive searing temperatures at re-entry
viable microbes between Earth and Mars is highly probable and has likely happened many times in the solar system. For lithopanspermia to be possible, the spores must be capable of surviving a variety of assaults as they escape their initial habitat, journey through space and re-enter the new environment. We know rocks can escape Mars and travel the relatively short distance to Earth, and that organic material can survive re-entry, as Martian meteorites have recently been discovered on Earth. Various experiments have demonstrated the possibility of spore survival following the environmental conditions encountered during ejection from Mars. So far, so good for lithopanspermic spore survival! After surviving the crushing pressures and high temperatures of ejection from the home planet, spores must survive the journey to their new environment. This could take millions of years, but it is thought that a small percentage of Martian meteorites could journey to Earth in as little as a few months. This timeframe is well within known spore-survival rates in space blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
conditions, as long as the spores are protected from UV radiation.
If the spores have survived thus far, they have one final stage in their space-flight: entry into the new planetary atmosphere. On Earth, the duration from atmospheric entry to landing is in the region of 30 seconds to a minute, so only the meteorite’s outer layers are heated to high temperatures, with the remainder staying close to space-temperature. Therefore, if spores were buried deeply enough within the meteorite, they would have a relatively comfortable journey during atmospheric entry. Despite all the adaptations a spore has against environmental damage, UV radiation has proven to be a particularly difficult challenge for the spore to overcome. This problem would be unavoidable in space for the free-travelling spore, but perhaps spores hidden in an asteroid could manage the journey. The question remains: Has bacterial life already managed the trip, and if so, how might this have impacted the evolution of life on Earth?
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PROFILE
Speaking of spores {react} interviews Dr Ralf Moeller, head of the Space Microbiology Research Group, Deutsches Luft- und Raumfahrtinstitut (DLR; German Aerospace Centre), Germany Christina Julius Bacteria can endure extreme environmental conditions here on Earth, surviving hot springs, salt brines, deserts, or within glaciers; at Germany’s DLR, Dr Ralf Moeller, amongst others, investigates the incredible finding that Bacillus spores can even
survive in outer space.
What is your research about? I work at the DLR in the Space Microbiology research group within the Institute of Aerospace Medicine. We study the influence of space conditions on the biology of astronauts and microbes, both in manned and robotic space missions. For manned space missions we need to consider the interactions between microbes and astronauts, and how space conditions might alter these interactions. For example, the immune systems of astronauts might be changed while they are in space, affecting how easily disease can be acquired. For unmanned missions our focus lies on the survival of microbes in space and [avoiding] the possibility of contaminating other planets. If you
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want to find out whether a planet harbours life you need to be able to determine whether or not a given organism (e.g. bacteria) has been
“Scientists have found spores estimated to be 250 000 years old that have survived in ice crystals” introduced by the mission itself. We have a project called “planetary protection” within which we investigate the ability of microbes to survive in extra-terrestrial environments and blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
how these environments change their physiology. We also evaluate novel and existing decontamination procedures for space equipment.
How do researchers replicate outer space conditions or environments of other planets and what are the limitations of these approaches? It is possible to simulate individual space conditions separately in the laboratory, e.g. vacuum, radiation, temperature, pressure or even weightlessness. Some characteristics of outer space, however, cannot be replicated, such as the changed distance to the Sun or specific gas compositions. Likewise, simulating combinations of different features, let alone all of them, is close to impossible on Earth.
The more similar a planet is to Earth, the easier is it to replicate this planet’s environmental factors in an experiment. This is one of the reasons we choose to study Mars: because it is the most similar to Earth among the planets around us. We can use so-called ‘Earth analogue’ sites – areas on Earth that have a lot in common with Mars, e.g. the desert or the Antarctic (which feature high UV radiation levels and low water availability) – or create an artificial environment in the lab.
Can you tell us more about endospores? Sporulation (the process of building an endospore or “spore” for short) is a mechanism that some bacteria have developed to be able to survive temporary hostile environmental
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changes such as a lack of nutrients or drought. In a special form of cell division they create an offspring whose DNA is wrapped up in protective layers and whose metabolism is practically stopped. As a spore, the bacterium might even be immortal. In fact, scientists have found spores estimated to be 250 000 years old that have survived in ice crystals. Once conditions improve, the spore can germinate, or return to its vegetative, growing form. The DLR started a 500-year experiment two years ago: we enclosed bacterial spores in a special environment in the absence of nutrients and will monitor their viability regularly over a period of 500 years. Bacillus is one of the bacteria that can sporulate. As it is a very abundant organism that lives mostly in soil, Bacillus spores are often isolated from ice, the desert, or salt lakes, where they would have met hostile conditions that caused them to sporulate. Bacillus spores have also been found in cleanrooms, specialised manufacturing rooms for equipment sensitive to pollutants or microbial contamination. These rooms are regularly sterilised, thus the presence of spores indicates they are resistant to many sterilisation techniques.
How is it possible that Bacillus spores endure extra-terrestrial conditions? If you look at the conditions that are prevalent, for example, on Mars – low water availability, low temperatures, altered pressure, raised radiation, a different radiation spectrum, etc. – it is theoretically possible that spores can endure these. The spore protects its most important content, its DNA, in two ways. Firstly,
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PROFILE damage is prevented. The cell is wrapped up in layers of proteins and sugars like an onion. Sometimes this complex coat contains pigments which provide an additional shield from radiation. The inside of the spore is dehydrated compared to that of a vegetative cell; it contains only about 30% water (compared to 50-80% in a living cell) and it contains a high amount of ions. This prevents loss of water by osmosis in dry environments. Secondly, damage is repaired by elaborate repair mechanisms. The DNA is wrapped around protective repair enzymes.
Owing to the special strategies employed by spores they can survive pressure and radiation that would be deadly to a living cell. Because of this we also use Bacillus spores on Earth as a sort of biological dosimeter to evaluate decontamination procedures.
Can you tell us more about the new sterilisation methods you are working on? In astronautics we use various methods to decontaminate the equipment sent to the international space station (ISS) or other extraterrestrial destinations, encompassing physical as well as chemical methods. Spores pose an increased challenge for decontamination due to their resilience and because nature usually pairs them with layers of organisms or biofilms which drastically decrease the efficacy of sterilisation methods. Therefore at the DLR we are looking for ways to eradicate complex multilayers and biofilms while at the same time preventing damage to the sensitive technology and hardware that is supposed to be decontaminated. One of those methods is plasma sterilisation. Plasma is ionised gas (e.g. hydrogen or argon gas). The electrons that are
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set free in ionisation are very harmful to biological systems. They interact with DNA, proteins and other cellular structures. This broad selectivity of targets makes it very effective to kill microbes, while technology is not
“They can survive pressure and radiation that would be deadly to a living cell” damaged. Here, Bacillus spores as biological dosimeters come into play: we compare the efficacy of killing of Bacillus spores by plasma sterilisation to standard methods that are in use in cosmonautics today, like heat or hydrogen peroxide treatment.
How likely would you say it is that Bacillus spores are present on Mars already? This is an interesting question. It could also be paraphrased as “Did the decontamination procedures we used fail?” We know that single Bacillus spores would definitely be inactivated by UV-C radiation on Mars. However, if they get covered by Mars dust it is very likely that they may survive. In addition, our experiments at the DLR have shown that specific Mars conditions both allow the survival of Bacillus spores and do not prevent their germination. However, germination depends on contact with water and nutrients. As long as those are not available on
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BOTH IMAGES: DR R. MOELLER, D.L.R.
The DLR’s EXPOSE-R project started in March 2009 and left Bacillus spores without nutrients, protection from radiation or the cold for 22 months. Main picture: Russian ISS module with spore sample tray circled. Inset: Close-up of tray containing about 300 samples under different conditions. Mars, the spores would still be in a dormant, practically non-living form.
How did you get into this kind of research? My career was very lucky. I’ve always had a fascination with astronautics. During my studies of biology I was looking for interesting applications of what I learnt and one of my professors had contacts at the DLR. With his help I managed to get a position at the DLR and now am leader of the space microbiology group. What makes the DLR such a great employer is the opportunity to connect different areas of space research with fundamental applications for everyday life. We don’t only research astronomy and astrophysics, but also botany, ecology, physiology and many other areas, and develop applications that all fields can benefit from. blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
What are your future research plans? Within our two main areas of research, manned and unmanned space flight, the DLR currently focusses on the astronauts and how to optimise their lives up there, e.g. how to clean air, how to re-use urine, which medication provides the
best health for our astronauts and how space conditions affect the host-microbe interaction. As for unmanned space flight, we investigate how technologies and materials can be used in space, as it is not a given that in a drastically changed environment everything works as it would on Earth. Read about the fascinating work of the DLR at www.dlr.de/me/en/
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RESEARCH
The evolution of the bacterial flagellum into a biological motor An ideal model of adaptation Ayman Albanna
D
id you know that a highly efficient motor with significant energy conservation exists in the biological world? This motor can rotate at extreme speeds of up to 1500 times per second, excessively faster than a car engine. What is remarkable regarding this engine is that it self-assembles from individual components made inside a bacterial cell. This motor is known as the bacterial flagellum: a tiny cell wallembedded organelle only 40 nanometers in size and comprised of up to 30 protein components. It’s role? To provide enough horse-power to flagellated bacteria to allow movement from A to B, adapting its speed and directional course according to ever changing surrounding conditions. Thus, the flagellum is a biological example of a perfect blend of high-performance engineering and design that top sports car manufacturers may only dream of. Anatomically, the flagellum has three regions: a basal body, a hook and a filament (see figure). From an evolutionary perspective, the bacterial flagellum is an ideal model of adaptation since
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some of the key components resemble other bacterial organelles that facilitate transporting molecules either out or into the bacterial cell. Scientists propose that the flagellum evolved
A perfect blend of high-performance engineering and design from these parts into the motor we observe today. At the flagellar base is a system that allows the necessary building components to be pumped through the growing structure for assembly at its tip. This pumping system, or more commonly called the secretion system, has strong functional similarity to another rotating organelle that generates the key blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
biological energy molecule ATP (the F1F0 ATPase). Moreover, flagellar evolution can also be observed in the way that the basal body is held in place: two rings surround the structure that similarly resemble structures associated with other bacterial secretion systems. An extraordinary level of adaptation is also evident when we compare the structures of flagellum from different bacterial species. This has been achieved using clever developments in electron microscopy to visualise very small structures. For example, a bacterial species that likes very fluid, liquid environments has slim looking flagellum, whereas species that like thick wet environments, such as those bacteria that live in mucus, have adapted by building an extra stabilizing structure around the flagellar base, enabling it to generate the needed force to thrust the bacterial cell through the sticky environment.
Demonstrating the origin of a particular system like the flagellum will always be difficult. The famous evolutionist Cavalier-Smith argues that “Specifying transitional stages in considerable detail is not unwarranted speculation, but a way of making the ideas sufficiently explicit to be more easily tested and rigorously evaluated” (Cavalier-Smith, 2001b). Certainly, “checking and exploring” each adaptation, acquisition or replacement has happened over a long timescale, possibly thousands of years, leading to the flagellar motor we marvel at today. Overall, the bacterial flagellum is one of the most sophisticated organelles of known biological mechanisation. Further scientific investigations are still discovering new insights in to the physics, chemistry and mechanics of this amazing but tiny engine.
The structure of the prototypical flagellum
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RESEARCH
Plastic endurance in the marine environment Alethea Mountford
S
ince the world’s first fully synthetic polymer, Bakelite, was invented in 1907, plastic production has skyrocketed, with a near exponential increase since the 1940s and 1950s. The popularity of plastic is due to its low cost, versatility and durability, making it the perfect material for numerous applications, from packaging to space craft. Recent estimates propose that 8.3 billion metric tonnes of virgin
Marine plastic pollution has spread as far as both poles and almost 5000 metres below sea level 18
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plastics have been produced to date, of which 4.9 billion tonnes (around 60%), have been thrown away and are accumulating in either landfills or the natural environment. The production of ‘single-use’ plastic items, such as drinking straws (500 million used per day in the US), plastic bags (8.5 billion used in the UK in 2014) and drinks bottles (more than 2 million tonnes sold per year), is of particular concern. Through poor waste management, insufficient wastewater treatment and storm events, it is estimated that 4.8 to 12 million tonnes of plastic enters the world’s oceans annually, with up to 80% of this being single-use plastics. There are five well documented ‘garbage patches’ located within subtropical ocean gyres, where ocean currents come together in a circular motion (in the North and South Pacific Ocean, the North and South Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean). However, marine plastic pollution has been shown to have spread as far as both poles and almost as deep as five thousand metres below the sea surface. blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
The vast majority of plastics produced, both retrospectively and today, derive from petrochemicals, meaning they are synthetic polymers that are highly resistant to degradation. While degradation does occur through a number of means, including physical, biological, photodegradative (through light) and thermal processes, this degradation is never complete. Large plastics, known as macroplastics, typically fragment and break down into increasingly smaller pieces, or microplastics. Within the marine environment, these degradative processes are much slower than in a terrestrial setting, due to lower temperatures and decreased ultraviolet radiation. As plastics break down, they release certain chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates; and other chemicals, such as persistent organic pollutants, adsorb onto the particles. If ingested by organisms these chemicals can bioaccumulate and biomagnify
within food chains. One of the most devastating effects of the accumulation of these chemicals is on the endocrine system, which can affect reproduction and cause a multitude of other harmful effects. In recent years, there have been increased efforts in the production of biodegradable plastics. These include biodegradable additives and bioplastics, which are produced from renewable, natural sources, such as cellulose, corn starch and vegetable fats. Efforts such as this, as well as a greater focus on recycling and a reduced reliance on plastic, will help slow the exponential increase in the global production of such an enduring and harmful material. Ocean clean-up projects may also help to reverse the damage already done. However, if we continue producing, using and discarding plastics at our current rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.
In December 2017 more than 200 nations signed a U.N. resolution committing to the reduction of marine plastic pollution — a problem affecting seas worldwide, even as deep as the Mariana trench
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RESEARCH
Synthetic biology Eliminating environmental waste and pollutants Anna Walsh Synthetic biology and its applied form, Engineering biology, are emerging fields that are predicted to revolutionise areas such as medical technology, biofuel production, environmental protection and agriculture.
T
he presence of non-biodegradable waste materials and pollutants in our environment, caused by human activity, is a crucial problem and risk to our health as well as many global ecosystems. It is predicted that by the year 2050 the total world population will increase to 9.1 billion (34% higher than today), which means that if nothing is done this issue will only get worse. As an interdisciplinary field, biology, engineering and informatics are combined in order to resolve global issues. Synthetic biology involves engineering and modifying the DNA within living organisms in order to carry out specific tasks for a range of beneficial applications. Many current methods of environmental remediation are unsustainable, expensive and some, such as incineration and landfill, can be harmful to the environment. Synthetic biology has the potential to provide a better way of
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reducing environmental waste and pollutants by developing and improving methods of bioremediation.
Synthetic biology involves the modification of DNA to accomplish specific tasks blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
Landfill is not a solution to the problem of non-biodegradable waste, but bioremediation could be
Bioremediation involves the use of microorganisms and plants to break down, detoxify and remove pollution. Biological systems are currently used in some cases to reverse damage caused by nuclear waste/ leakage and oil spills. Biological modification of these organisms could enhance and optimise their beneficial properties. To date, bacteria and fungi have been genetically engineered to recycle non-biodegradable plastics and toxic chemicals. Additionally, some plants have been genetically modified to absorb and immobilise pollutants from the soil. Common bacteria such as Escherichia coli have been genetically engineered to contain genes that respond to pollutants, and so can be used to detect and measure levels of environmental contamination by pesticides, heavy metal ions and explosives. A major source of atmospheric pollution is the use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Biofuels, including methanol, biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol, are an alternative energy source that blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
do not release high levels of harmful gasses into the atmosphere. However, many biofuels are relatively inefficient at producing energy compared to their non-renewable counterparts – this is not ideal for a growing world population with constantly increasing energy demands. Engineering biology has the potential to produce synthetic biofuels, which are more advanced and energy-efficient than current biofuels and thus could replace fossil fuels in the future.
The increasing amount of research into synthetic biology and rapid advancements in this field mean that the global engineering biology market is predicted to increase from less than ÂŁ5 billion, (2013 value), to over ÂŁ10 billion by 2019. Just as scientific advances in the 19th and 20th Centuries created new drugs, industrial materials and energy sources, synthetic biology will provide us with the tools to make invaluable improvements to our health, environment and economy.
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OPINION
Phage therapy An alternative to antibiotics? Christina Julius Phage therapy – in a nutshell – is the treatment of bacterial infection by administering a virus. It could be a treatment option comparable to biological pest control in agriculture, a step away from drugs that both help and harm. But after its
invention a century ago it seems as if the simplicity and ingenuity of phage therapy is a thorn in the eye of the pharma sector. When will the world finally be ready for the so-called “intelligent medicine”?
V
iruses are tiny parasites. Their physical form is minimalistic; they are not able to “live” on their own; only by invading a living cell and taking over cellular processes can they reproduce. There are many different kinds of viruses. Some of them infect and kill humans, for example Ebola, HIV or SARS. But it is not only humans that are affected by viruses. Although bacteria themselves are mostly known to be infective agents, they can also be infected by viruses, and these viruses are called bacteriophages, or phages for short. Phages were first observed in 1896 by Ernest Hanbury Hankin who described a miraculous healing effect of drinking water from the River Ganges on patients of a cholera outbreak in India. Back then, he did not know that the water
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contained phages that are infective to the cholera bacterium Vibrio cholerae. However, the term bacteriophage (“bacteria eater”) was coined in 1918 by the French microbiologist Felix d’Herelle precisely 20 years before the discovery of penicillin. D’Herelle was studying a dysentery outbreak when he noticed random clear spots on his bacterial cultures which he suspected to be caused by a bacteria-killing virus. Soon realizing the potential of his discovery, d’Herelle as well as other microbiologists and pharmacological institutes started to produce and distribute phage preparations against a variety of diseases.
Phage therapy has thus been known since before antibiotics. However, back then the complexity of phage biology was nowhere near blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
understood, as opposed to the more simple working mechanism of antibiotics: they are composed of just one effector molecule that usually has one target structure — for example, penicillin attacks the bacterial cell wall. Consequently, antibiotic use outpaced phage therapy quickly. Nevertheless, the spread of antibiotic resistance is an ever growing problem in today’s medicine. Antibiotics originate from molecules that are produced by microbes to kill off their competitors – bacteria around them that eat the same food or occupy the same space. These molecules have been isolated, improved and turned into drugs. Antibiotics have increased our life expectancy significantly and made surgery much easier by eliminating the high likelihood of deadly surgery-introduced blood and wound infections. But with every new antibiotic we find, usually less than a decade later we see its efficacy reducing. Bacteria
develop resistance. They do so by acquiring so called resistance genes which are often the natural “antidotes” that the original producer of the antibiotic uses by horizontal gene transfer (“bacterial sex”); or by mutating their own genes to change the drug target or its accessibility by the drug. Scientists prophesise that we will soon be back in the pre-antibiotic era when all antibiotics fail and we will helplessly face the full threat and scope of bacterial infections. Reports of untreatable bacterial infections are becoming more and more common. In our search to heal the infections of the future, science is now trying to look back into the past. The big advantage of phages over antibiotics is that they can be considered a kind of intelligent medicine. Firstly, it is not solely the presence of the phage that kills the bacterium — a phage has many deadly weapons. The rupturing of the host cell when the offspring is set free kills the bacterium. Also, the bacterial DNA, the cell wall, or essential cellular processes (e.g. the metabolism) are destroyed beforehand by phage effectors. Secondly, phages have had to continuously overcome the development of resistance over thousands of years of evolution. In consequence, their effectors often have found a way to affect their target that the bacterium cannot protect itself from. In general, the short generation time of viruses (they can replicate several times in the same time the host replicates once) enables them to adapt to genetic changes quickly.
Phages look like little machines or mechanical spiders with their leg-like tail fibres and torsolike needle. They attach to a cell via binding on cell receptors with the tail fibres, then inject their DNA genome, which is stored in the capsid (or “head”) into the bacterial host cell. blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
Thirdly, phages are specific to their host, meaning they can only infect one bacterial strain. Consequently, they will only kill the bacterium that they are meant to fight. This alleviates the common problem of antibiotics which kill bacteria without specificity, causing
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OPINION damage to the body’s natural microflora (the “good” bacteria that live in and on the body and that are beneficial e.g. as producers of nutrients). Lastly, a major advantage of phage therapy as opposed to antibiotic therapy is intelligent dosing. When phages reach the site of infection (e.g. the lung in case of a respiratory infection) and they start parasitising the first bacteria, the phage numbers will increase exponentially. However, once the harmful bacteria are eliminated and the phages run out of hosts, they will die and will be eradicated by the human immune system. Altogether, phage therapy could be a real alternative to antibiotics. In fact, it has been named one of the top medical research priorities in a report on the antibiotic resistance issue commissioned by former British Prime Minister David Cameron. Yet, the medical community as well as the pharmaceutical sector
Phage lifecycle. After the phage attaches to a bacterial cell, it injects its DNA. Some inject products such as enzymes that destroy host cell DNA. The phage multiplies its genome and expresses its genes. The cell is forced to serve its parasite. Eventually mature offspring burst out of the cell, ready to infect further cells.
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show very little interest in the field, as reflected by their absence in research publications as well as in phage-therapy-focused conferences in recent years. The main progress is being made in Eastern Europe, where phage therapy has been in use on a regular basis in areas of the former Soviet Union which had no public access to antibiotics in earlier times. However, their research results do not seem to be accepted in the West, possibly owing to the language barrier (publications in Russian or Polish) and the failure to abide to Western standards. These standards include a certain chronology of studies clearing first drug safety and then effectiveness, which – owing to the fact that this treatment has been in use for a century – is arguably unnecessary. Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies often veil their formulations and procedures to the benefit of their marketability, but to the loss of scientific research. There are also more dubious reasons such as reports of study results being withheld by the KGB (security agency of the former Soviet Union), and dismissal of phage therapy as a “Stalinistic cure” that should not be taken seriously. Western phage research is restricted to the food industry which has a more pressing interest in phage/host interactions. Many foods are produced with the help of bacteria, e.g. cheese, and the use of phages to combat spoilage bacteria is accepted by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Also, the food industry is much more loosely regulated than medicine. A big barrier to adoption of phage therapy is the high regulatory demand (e.g. how clinical trials are regulated, or the sterilisation of the final product). As a consequence, medical research is progressing slowly. The few clinical trials launched in the last year were mostly aborted without publishing any results, although a few years ago a trial of combining phage and
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IMAGE : CC BY-SA 3.0 DR GRAHAM BEARDS
Transmission electron micrograph of an infected bacterial cell. Phages are attached to the outside of the cell; this is most likely the parental generation that have just injected their genome. Inside the cell, some new phage particles have already been formed. antibiotic treatment showed success and recently a phase I and II clinical trial (involving a small number of human participants) have been performed demonstrating phage therapy as safe. Nonetheless, there seem to be certain pitfalls that justify the lack of interest in investing in this treatment. Chiefly, phage therapy would not be very profitable. Since antibiotic resistance has taught us to be parsimonious with new drugs, phage therapy will likely be used as a last resort treatment when antibiotics fail. Since this is (as of yet) not regularly the case, the number of purchases of last resort drugs is too small to foresee financial gain. Additionally, the production of phage preparations is very simple and does not require many steps that would justify a high price of the end product. Another economical concern is the legal difficulty to patent a naturally occurring organism. In hope of overcoming the concerns of “Big Pharma” companies, a related branch of medical research has been developed in the last decade: the use of isolated phage products. The idea is to take one of the phage-encoded killing blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
mechanisms separately to use it as a simple antibacterial, comparable to an antibiotic. One example of this is the phage endolysin (which translates to “rupture from within”), the effector molecule the phage uses to burst out of its host cell. A couple of years ago researchers from the USA discovered that phage endolysin can also rupture bacterial cell walls “from the outside” (so it could potentially be administrated as an antibacterial) and furthermore that resistance development is hardly observed. Additionally, at Newcastle University, research is moving in this direction. At the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology (CBCB) we are currently studying phage products that interact with bacterial transcription, an essential cellular process whose disturbance would lead to cell death. One can only hope that Western medcine will soon begin to change in favour of progress towards the medicines of the future. Phage therapy could be a biological and economical treatment alternative for infectious diseases and help to save many lives when antibiotics finally fail.
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OPINION
The ‘red spots’ Exploring longitudinal human studies at home and abroad Leonie Schittenhelm A red dot placed on the hospital file of a new-born, 70 years ago. Inconspicuous as it may seem, this small act was the start of a scientific study that would chronicle human life and ageing in Newcastle for the next seven decades. But how, and more
importantly why, are we interested in following peoples’ lives over such a long period? We explore the risks and benefits of longitudinal human studies.
O
riginally conceived as a 1-year study to investigate harrowing infant death rates in the North East at the time, the 1000 Families Study enrolled 1142 babies born in May and June 1947 in Newcastle. Health information was meticulously recorded, as well as additional information such as socioeconomic factors. When the potential significance of the study was realised, the ‘red spots’, as the 967 remaining children would be called from now on, were continued to be followed for the next 14 years. One of the most striking results this study revealed at the time: children from poor families were significantly smaller and contracted more infections than their more affluent peers, informing health and social services of the special risks disadvantaged children face. But this was not the end of the 1000 Families
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Study. Follow-up studies reached out to the ‘red spots’ at ages 22 and 33. An enormous effort to retrace members of the study, who had since moved away, was again made at ages 50, 60 and, just last year, at 70 years of age. The study resulted in a wide range of published literature, highlighting everything from the importance of healthy lifestyle on cardiovascular health to the link between childhood deprivation and developing depression in adulthood. Other famous examples of longitudinal studies give us similarly useful insights into how our circumstances and our behaviour can shape our health. The Framingham Heart Study, arguably one of the most influential longitudinal studies, has followed their participants (and subsequently their children) every two years since 1949. Recognising that enrolling blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
incorporate novel methods with data collected decades ago. Repeatedly obtaining the large amounts of funding needed for these studies can also have its pitfalls. When the Grant Study, the longest-running study on healthy ageing, ran out of funding in 1955, a tobacco company financed their questionnaires. Questions such as ‘If you never smoked, why didn’t you?’ were included, and while hilarious by today’s standards, questions like these would surely not be considered strictly ethical now.
In a longitudinal study, data is gathered in the same subjects over time — sometimes over decades, and even continuing across generations participants who already suffered from heart disease did little to understand the origins of cardiovascular problems, they chose a large healthy cohort instead. This enabled them to retrospectively identify early warning signs of common heart conditions. In fact, the term ‘risk factor’, now ubiquitously used to highlight the dangers of smoking to genetic predisposition for disease, was first used in the context of this study. A lot of knowledge gained is common knowledge now, but the association of high blood pressure with heart disease and the positive effect of exercise on blood pressure were virtually unknown before. While the knowledge that can be gained from longitudinal human studies has the potential to change our lives for the better, the unique challenges and ethical questions posed by these studies are not to be underestimated. One example is the rapid technological developments made since the 1950s. Both the 1000 Family Study and the Framingham Heart Study increasingly make use of genetic testing to blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
On a more serious note, a long-term human study was at the centre of one of the biggest scientific ethical scandals of the 20th century. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, started in 1932, enrolled African-Americans as study participants to investigate the long-term effects of the disease. But when a cure for syphilis was
The unique ethical questions posed by these studies are not to be underestimated identified in 1940, researchers deliberately withheld treatment and information from their patients. This continued until 1972, when a whistle-blower made the inhumane treatment public. This atrocious example highlights the need for strict ethical control of human studies. But if properly supervised, as seen in the 1000 Families Study right here in Newcastle, longitudinal studies of human beings have the potential to make us understand human disease in a completely new context: an individual’s whole life.
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EXPERIENCE
“I am a medical research volunteer” Irene Soulsby
I
’m Irene. In 2003 I was given a cancer diagnosis, successfully treated, and am here because of research. I found out about opportunities at the University and wanted to contribute as a member of the public. I started off as a “pretend patient” for Early Clinical Experience for 1st and 2nd year medical students. Volunteers come along to the sessions to help give students confidence in carrying out
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basic examinations and talking to patients (we are not diagnosed at this point). We give feedback on our “appointment”. I decided to look for more opportunities and discovered the wonderful Institute of Neuroscience (IoN) based at the Medical School. I am sent emails about projects that are looking for participants and always think “Oh, that looks interesting!”.
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Several IoN projects have involved finding out how my brain connects with various parts of my body. It can take a lot of time to get me prepared for the trial, finding the correct position to give me a “stim” on my head or arm. This is often very repetitive for the researcher and for the volunteer. Some of the trials can take several hours; occasionally I am enjoying watching Tom and Jerry cartoons to keep me occupied (and trying not to laugh!). One occasion involved 3 doctors attaching a “cap” to my head, which had lots of wires attached. I also had electrodes on my leg. This took about an hour to connect up and left me looking like a Dalek’s best friend! Then I had to go on a treadmill for approximately 4 hours, walking at a steady, comfortable pace, sometimes a bit faster. I was asked questions, had to think about them and then give an answer. This was being recorded on a screen, which showed the different areas of activity in my brain. I participated in a study for Sarcopenia, which I learnt meant "muscle poverty". At the beginning and the end of the trial I gave a muscle biopsy from the top of my leg! I had to use the exercise bike at the gym several times a week for 30-40
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minutes. Every few weeks, I had to go back to the Clinical Research Lab, to see what improvements (hopefully!) were taking place in my body. I was definitely fitter after all that cycling! I have participated in gait lab studies at the Campus for Ageing and Vitality. I wear sensors and am filmed walking around, walking up and down, perhaps having to step over obstacles. Sometimes I have to remember a sequence of numbers and repeat them. I also wear a headset with a tiny camera attached, which tracks my eye movement. I was told that the process is similar to making a Hollywood movie with Computer Generated characters; I am filmed at about 20,000 frames a second, which makes me think WOW! I have also had brain scans as a healthy person and have taken part in supplement trials, which shows what a wide range of research is taking place at the University. For further information, I have made a film about taking part in research as a healthy person; visit http://www.curiositycreative.org.uk/ story/as-a-healthy-person
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OPINION
The Paris Agreement and the environmental impact of hydrofluorocarbons Time for change Alessandro Giampieri
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he discussion over global climate change has escalated in recent months subsequent to the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. This deal between 195 countries represents a global intervention to combat climate change, via a control strategy focussing on the modulation of global average temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs). This GHG emission containment policy relies predominantly on the progressive phase-out of HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons); starting in 2019 for developed countries, 2024 for China and 2028 for India and other less developed countries. Therefore, what are these HFCs and why are they a menace to the environment? HFCs are synthetic refrigerants used primarily in industrial, commercial and domestic refrigeration and air-conditioning systems, and secondarily in foam blowing, aerosols, fire extinguishers and solvent cleaning. These GHGs belong to the family of gases known as F-Gases
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(fluorinated), together with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons). Following the Montreal Protocol and the ban of CFCs and HCFCs, responsible for ozone layer depletion, HFCs replaced these fluids. However, HFCs are a prevalent GHG when released into the environment.
These gases could have devastating impacts on the environment, agriculture, health and oceans The potential of a substance to be a GHG is evaluated by its Global Warming Potential
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(GWP). It is defined as the heating effect produced by 1-kg of GHG over a period of time (usually 100 years), respective to that of a reference substance e.g. CO2, which has a GWP of 1. The GWP of the most commonly used HFC134 is 1300. This value indicates the high heattrapping ability of HFCs and thus their formidable impact on the climate. In addition, global population increase and higher standards of living have resulted in consumption of refrigerants at levels not previously seen. Presently, HFCs represent approximately 1-2% of the carbon-equivalent emissions, however this value is projected to rise to 20-40% by 2050 at the actual HFCs emission rate, if action is not taken. Without direct global intervention, through strategic management frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, the heat-trapping ability and longevity of these gases in the atmosphere could have devastating impacts on the environment, agriculture, health and oceans. For the targets set out by the Paris Agreement to be reached, it is essential for alternative refrigerants to be developed and applied in the blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
short to medium term. Replacements consist of low GWP refrigerants (HFOs - hydrofluorooleins) or alternative fluids, including hydrocarbons such as propane and ammonia used in conventional vapour compression systems. Alternative technological solutions include absorption cooling, trans-critical cooling (employing CO2), solid and liquid desiccant dehumidification and evaporative cooling. These energy-efficient technologies can reduce energy consumption whilst utilising refrigerants with a GWP of 6 or below.
Despite progress made to diversify away from HFCs, the alternatives require refinement through research and development before they may be employable worldwide. This could be achieved through implementation of an international financing policy, to support the market adaptation of these substances. Ultimately, this is the only way to reach the objectives of the Paris Agreement and alleviate the devastating effects of global warming. The right time to do that is now.
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PROFILE
A day in the life of
Suzan Dudink Philippa Rickard Suzan Dudink studied a PhD in animal behaviour, is a Visiting Lecturer in Sports Psychology at Sunderland University, a climbing coach (including the Great Britain youth team) and route setter, SCARPAÂŽ Team athlete, Founder of Upgrade Climbing,
and has competed nationally in climbing and athletics.
Do you have a typical day? No, I don't. A typical day depends on the time of year. Autumn, winter and spring are mainly determined by university commitments, and coaching and setting around England/abroad, whereas summer is mainly home based (i.e. preparing for the academic year ahead and setting and coaching in and near Newcastle). However, most days have a 5:30am start. They all involve some form of physical activity (for example climbing, running, athletics, hiking and cycling). I aim to learn and/or do something new every day (both for myself and for my daughter). How did you get to where you are today? Coincidence, luck, the motivation to be able to do what I love to do and the determination to achieve this. All the things I've done (degree, PhD work, teaching, coaching etc.) involved
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learning (progress) and/or helping others (humans and animals) achieve their potential; they must be the two things that drive me most. You have experience in academic, mental and physical endurance. Are these separate or synergistic skills?
Tricky question. All (obviously) depends on how these terms are defined. As I said before, like a lot of people I'm strongly driven by learning (progress in both knowledge and skills). Endurance (i.e. persistence, stamina, patience, determination, tolerance etc.) can be (or is one of) the enhancing or limiting factors in learning. It's what helps you or stops you from going past that plateau you've reached; you need to be able to endure the chore of writing up a paper to be able to start new research. Similarly, your body needs to be able to endure blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
Suzan Dudink, Visiting Lecturer in Sports Psychology (Sunderland University) and accomplished climber certain physical training to be able to get more skilled.
What is the most enjoyable and most frustrating aspect of having such multi-faceted jobs?
So yes, within both my work and hobby I experience all three forms regularly.
Learning new things and helping others progress. Some say that the best way to learn something new is to teach it. As a university teacher and climbing coach, I've learned so much and I still do. I'm in the lucky position that my coaching and academic work are interchangeable: for example I can use my coaching knowledge during my lectures and I can use my lecture notes during my coaching. In addition, my work involves all three endurance processes mentioned above and because these three are partly synergistic I can learn faster. Therefore, for me, it's not frustrating at all to have a multifaceted job.
As for the second part of the question: in my opinion, they are both separate and synergistic 'skills'/ 'processes'- without the drive to increase your anaerobic capacity you're unlikely to improve it. But on a similar note, this same drive can't just overrule neural inhibition or other physiological processes (for example). Therefore, your progress is probably often determined by the weakest of these three endurances.
“Some say the best way to learn something new is to teach it� blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
How do you stay motivated? By knowing that learning is limitless. Any advice for our postgraduate readers?
Make sure you know what drives you and always keep that in focus.
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RESEARCH
Mental toughness in higher education Helen St Clair-Thompson Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Newcastle University
T
he term “mental toughness� describes a set of attributes related to how well we deal with stress and pressure. The term is sometimes used synonymously with resilience, and overlaps somewhat with hardiness, grit and mind-set. The term originated within sports psychology, as a way to describe characteristics helping athletes to successfully deal with intensive training and competition. However, most of us meet these stressors and pressures in our everyday lives. Therefore mental toughness has recently been explored within other domains, including occupational success, mental health, and education. The most commonly used framework of mental toughness is comprised of four subcomponents. Firstly, challenge, referring to seeking out opportunities for self-development. Secondly, commitment, defined as the ability to carry out tasks successfully despite problems or obstacles. Next, control, this denotes emotional control: the ability to keep anxiety in check without
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revealing emotions to others, and life control: the belief in being influential and not controlled by others. Lastly, confidence, comprised of both confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence.
Challenge
Commitment
Mental Toughness
Control
Confidence
The most commonly used framework of mental toughness blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
In several research projects I have explored the role of mental toughness in higher education. Research has revealed that mental toughness is an important predictor of educational outcomes and experiences. For example, in published work I have evidenced relationships between mental toughness and students’ end of year grades. Also between mental toughness and students’ adjustment to undergraduate study. Ongoing research is examining the underpinnings of these relationships. The role of mental toughness in adjustment may stem from those with higher mental toughness persevering more with difficult learning tasks, experiencing less anxiety about new experiences, and becoming more involved in university activities. In other research I have explored the role of mental toughness in the mental health of undergraduate students. This has come at a time when there is growing concern about the mental health of students, and the consequent pressure that is being placed on wellbeing services. Mental toughness predicts several aspects of student’s mental health, including life, psychological wellbeing and depression. It is thus becoming increasingly recognised as a stress-resilience resource, which may help people cope successfully with stressful and challenging circumstances. One of the most interesting things about mental toughness is that is often considered to be a mind-set, or a state rather than a trait. This means that it could be enhanced through psychological skills training. Given its relationships with educational attainment and aspects of mental health, interventions targeting mental toughness have the potential to have blogs.ncl.ac.uk/react
widespread and important effects. Mental toughness training has been employed in sporting situations, and evidence of its utility in educational settings is starting to emerge. A number of schools, colleges and universities across the world have introduced mental toughness development programmes. These involve a variety of activities, such as positive thinking, visualisation, anxiety control, attentional control and goal setting. In one example, teachers of students aged 11-18 delivered mental toughness lessons, after partaking in a mental toughness questionnaire and two-day training, to some of their students over a period of 12 weeks. These involved a series of activities focussed on challenge, commitment, control and confidence. Students completed a mental toughness questionnaire both before and after the 12-week period. There was a clear upward trend in all aspects of mental toughness, with significant increases for some of the components. In 2016-17 first year students in the School of Psychology and the School of Dental Sciences at Newcastle University were given the opportunity to take part in mental toughness workshops. They completed a questionnaire and received and reflected on their mental toughness scores. They then had the opportunity to take part in sessions on mindfulness and confidence building. I will soon be examining students’ perceptions of these sessions. Given the interest of academics and researchers in factors that are related to academic attainment and mental health, I imagine that the next few years will see the development and evaluation of several mental toughness training programmes.
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REVIEW
Book review
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Jess Leighton
T
he subtitle of Rebecca Skloot's debut book seems like clickbait: "She died in 1951. What happened next changed the world." But The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks lives up to the hype. A one-in-a-million scientific discovery framed in a heart-warming friendship, it's no wonder Skloot made the NYT bestseller list for 2 years and had her work adapted into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey. After introducing the ethics of segregated hospitals and tissue donation in 1950s America, Skloot investigates Lacks' childhood before addressing her legacy - the cells taken from her cervix, which were the first ever human cells to multiply outside of the body. We then meet Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, who becomes close to Skloot as they learn more about the spread of so-called 'HeLa' cells to research facilities around the world.
used in research all over the world, and have even travelled into space. Skloot's writing on the science behind the HeLa cells is the only area not comprehensively explored - there is a passage on the biological theories and documented abnormalities in the cells, but in such an engaging tale, it may leave more scientifically minded readers hungry for more. Alongside addressing issues of genetic identity, medical ethics and racial disadvantage, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an intensely personal book, delivering a deservedly sentimental account of the serial manipulation of the Lacks family. Lacks' story reaches far beyond the breadth of most pop-science books, and is accessible to non-scientists in content and voice. Whether you read the book or watch the movie, it's certainly worth familiarising yourself with such an important figure in biomedical history.
The impact of HeLa cells will probably never be fully acknowledged, but we know they were instrumental in creating the polio vaccine, are
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PUZZLES
Fun and games Christina Julius
Wordsearch
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