Science in Society Review - Winter 2018

Winter 2018 | University of Chicago A Production of The Triple Helix

The Science in Society Review

ISSN 2164-4316

The International Journal of Science, Society, and Law

ASU - Berkeley - Brown - Cambridge - CMU - Cornell - Georgia Tech - Georgetown - GWU - Harker- Harvard Harker - Harvard- -JHU JHU- -NUS NUS- -OSU OSU- -UC UCDavis Davis -- UCSD UCSD -- UChicago UChicago -- Melbourne Melbourne - Yale

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TRIPLE HELIX CHAPTERS North America Chapters Arizona State University Brown University Carnegie Mellon University Cornell University Georgia Institute of Technology George Washington University Georgetown University The Harker School Harvard University Johns Hopkins University The Ohio State University University of California, Berkeley University of California, Davis University of California, San Diego University of Chicago Yale University Europe Chapters Cambridge University Aristotle University Asia Chapter National University of Singapore Australia Chapter University of Melbourne

TABLE OF CONTENTS The Math Behind Mars

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The CRISPR Patent Battle: Stakes of Scientific Research

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Edward Zhou...................................................................................................

Benjamin Hsu...................................................................................................

Protest: A Personal and Social Phenomenon

Exploring the Causes of Widespread Protest in America Today

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Introduction to Machine Learning

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Nishant Aggarwal.......................................................................................

Preethi Raju...................................................................................................

STAFF AT UCHICAGO President Salman Arif Vice President Nila Ray Editor in Chief, SISR Aya Nimer Production, SISR Ariel Goldszmidt Production, Scientia Elle Rathbun Events Director Peter Ryffel Events Coordinators Franklin Rodriguez Rachel Gleyzer E-Publishing Directors Isabella Pan Editors in Chief, Scientia Jeremy Chang Clara Sava-Segal Webmaster William Rosenthal

Message from Chapter Leadership Dear Reader, It is with great excitement that we present the 2018 Winter Issue of The Science in Society Review. A new year has introduced new directions to consider in some of the most pressing issues of science in society, and at The Triple Helix, Inc., we understand the need to investigate these questions in an interdisciplinary manner.

In this vein, our writers, aided by a strong support system of undergraduate editors and faculty mentors, strive to incorporate the perspectives of multiple fields in their articles.

For this reason and others, we at The Triple Helix, Inc. pride ourselves on the fact that we bring our writers together with eminent University professors and field professionals for one-on-one collaboration.

We are proud to encourage our future leaders in their rigorous exploration for the key issues in society today. It is our hope that the articles presented herein will stimulate and challenge you to join our dialogue.

Salman Arif President, The Triple Helix UChicago uchicago.president@thetriplehelix.org

The views and opinions expressed in the following articles are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Triple Helix or its staff.

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Š 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Math Behind Mars

H

Edward Zhou

would it be to witness the start of an age that has been a dream of humanity for as long as our ancestors gazed towards the stars?

If you’re like me, the idea that we might get to see humanity become a multi-planetary species seems incredible and, in more cynical moments, just as far fetched as Mars actually is. ow utterly surreal

Achieving the dream of inhabiting Mars appears to be an insurmountable task. Getting there is hard, landing humans safely there is harder, and creating a permanent human presence there would be one of the most monumental accomplishments in human history. What exactly needs to be accomplished in order to inhabit the Red Planet?

Taking into account the elliptical orbits of the planets, Mars and Earth are anywhere from 55 million to over 400 million kilometers apart.1 At closest approach, traveling approximately 100,000 kilometers an hour, the journey would take 550 hours, or around 24 days—approximately a month, if the time it takes to speed up and slow down upon leaving Earth and approaching Mars is accounted for. To pass through the Martian atmosphere, a spacecraft must survive temperatures of 1700°C, and then slow down fast enough in a pitifully thin Martian atmosphere (0.6% the density of our own) to get its cargo to the ground safely—and if that cargo is human beings, the final velocity before impact must be close to non-existent.2 And all this must be done before any attempt at inhabitation can even be made.

For reference, the Curiosity rover, our most recent attempt to land on Mars, launched near the end of 2011. It took over 9 months to arrive, discarded its heat shield upon entry (you can’t do that if you want to go back to Earth), was deployed by what was essentially an extremely expensive and precise hovering drone, and was infinitely more durable than a human being, allowing for a higher margin of delivery error.3 Our answer for dealing with the expensive delivery drone? Get it as far away from the rover as possible to ensure the rover does not get damaged when the delivery vehicle crash lands and explodes.

Needless to say, destroying the only means of transport back to Earth is not ideal for a human voyager. Due to the massive technical and safety challenges of landing a human on the Red Planet, the road to Mars has been unclear and the timeline seemingly inconsiderable in the foreseeable future—NASA puts its time-frame roughly “in the 2030’s,” providing little more than a graphic with no time axis on its website.4 Yet, as the Dot Coms boomed at the turn of the Millenia, a new entrepreneur with the goal to participate in revolutions across sustainable energy, the Internet, making life multiplanetary, AI, and rewriting genetics was about to enter to world stage and began to pursue his interests with incredible speed and startling success: Elon Musk. Musk made his first fortune founding Zip2, which provided companies with a presence online, employing functionality not dissimilar to the service Google would later refine and introduce as Google Maps to provide driving directions and company information to prospective customers. He then moved on to establish the © 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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world’s first internet banking system (Paypal), before taking the proceeds from his second major Dot-Com fortune and reinvesting it in Tesla Motors (today’s Tesla Inc.) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX).5 Simultaneously running two idealistic and expensive startups offering unproven technologies in incumbent-filled industries took Musk all the way to the edge. Musk had made approximately $22 million from Zip2 and $180 million from Paypal after taxes—$100 million of that went towards SpaceX, $70 million towards Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity (which would later become Tesla’s solar power sector).6 In comparison, competitors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, as well as the entire incumbent US automotive industry (the last successful new US car company was Chrysler in the 1920’s) had budgets in the billions of dollars.7, 8 With the funds available, Musk made three launch attempts—and failed. Even better, in 2007 and 2008, as Musk attempted to gather funding for one final launch, economies worldwide melted down as the real estate bubble imploded, sucking funding for unproven ventures dry.9 Remarkably, on the verge of bankruptcy, Musk’s fortunes took a turn for the better. After three failed rocket launches, SpaceX became the first non-government entity to successfully launch a spacecraft, and was rewarded with a multi-billion dollar contract from NASA to fly missions to the International Space Station.

SpaceX and Tesla have both gone on to become very promising companies. SpaceX, perhaps even more so than Tesla, has shaken its industry to the core. While Tesla refined and perfected technology, showing that battery powered electric vehicles were superior to combustion engines in nearly every way, SpaceX has blazed a path of innovation across the aerospace sector that most experts viewed as impossible. It has rapidly developed technologies and hit milestones at incredible speeds, all while dismantling costs and reimagining the engineering behind space flight. It would not be an overstatement to say that SpaceX, as the only entity in the world with the know-how to build landable, reusable rockets while offering the cheapest payload deliveries to orbit, has become the world’s foremost organization in space SpaceX, perhaps even more travel and technology, surpassing the capabilities of the governments so than Tesla, has shaken its of the world’s superpowers.10 industry to the core.

The rocket currently used by SpaceX is the Falcon 9, which primarily runs resupply missions to the International Space Station and satellite launches. At full thrust—a whopping 7600 kN of force, the Falcon 9 has an estimated per-launch cost of $62 million dollars and can deliver 22,800 kg of payload to Low Earth Orbit, or 8300 kg to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.11 With a 95.5% mission success rate, the Falcon 9 has successfully completed 42 of 44 flights (4) across its lifespan. Now, with a stunning record of 14/14 successful launches and a perfect 11/11 landing record to date this year (no attempt was made for 3 launches where the mission requirements demanded too much fuel to return to earth), it is becoming harder and harder to doubt SpaceX’s technology, vision, and ability to achieve its goals.

With the technology and innovations that made the Falcon 9 possible, Musk has announced recently at the International Astronautical Federation 2017 Conference that he is setting his sights on consumer flights to Mars by 2024, in barely more than half a decade.12 To get there, Musk will have to make ends meet, both on the 6

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technical side so that the journey will be possible, and on the consumer side so that people will go.

Fig.1 SpaceX Falcon9. Via SpaceX media gallery.

Musk, it seems, likes to dream big—really big. So the vehicle Musk wants to use to transport humans to Mars is, unsurprisingly, called the BFR, which means Big Falcon Rocket... officially. Musk sometimes has a crude sense of humor (Tesla’s core line of four cars are the Model S, E, X, and Y). The BFR will be the biggest rocket ever built. However, because so many of its parts can be reused, SpaceX is confident that it will also be the most cost-effective spacefaring vehicle ever built.

The cabin area will have more volume than an A380 Airbus and hold 40 suites, or enough room for around 100 people to travel. Crucially, the engines will not run on kerosene, as the Falcon 9 does, but will instead burn methane, a fuel which can readily be synthesized on Mars, and is an adaptation to make sure that the first Martian colonists will have a ticket home. The BFR will also be capable of Earthto-Earth travel, reaching top speeds of 18,000 mph, allowing it to reach anywhere on Earth within the hour—an entirely new mode of transportation that will surely help fund SpaceX’s colonization journey.13 But what about the consumer side? Musk expects tickets to be worth $500K such that colonization will become feasible. This is the price at which there will be enough people who want to go to Mars and can also afford the journey. With all of the efficiency that SpaceX has built into the BFR model, along with the cost reductions that come with the vertical integration Musk has built into the rocket production line, SpaceX just might be able to offer tickets at that price tag to explore the final frontier. But will people really want to go? Although no one can say for sure, I have a strong feeling that the answer to this question will be an unequivocal yes. Indeed, Musk will be asking most of those who volunteer for the journey to give up their worldly fortunes and everything that they have ever known; but he is asking no more than what was asked of frontier explorers throughout history.

For the chance to explore the final frontier, it seems like a price that some will be willing and able to pay.

If Musk’s and SpaceX’s 2024 estimate for the first manned Mars mission is even © 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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remotely accurate, it bears relevance now to consider a world, not too far in the future, in which the total population of Mars is rapidly approaching the 1 million mark—the head-count to hit in order to achieve a self sustaining city. In that world, the effects of turning humanity into a multi-planetary society will already have become enormous. Not only will all of Earth be within an hour’s reach, but the commercialization of space will be well underway, and the question of governance of the Red Planet will introduce likely the greatest diplomatic issue of our century. If SpaceX continues to be the frontrunner in Mars-capable technology, the largest entity on the Red Planet, government or otherwise, may well be SpaceX: a situation never before heard of in history. With this future fast approaching, it remains to be seen what new challenges will emerge and how humanity will face them in our pursuit of exciting new realms of possibility that will shape new chronicles of human history.

References 1

Vernon JA, Golec JH, Dimasi JA. Drug development costs when financial risk is measured using the Fama-French three-factor model. Health Econ. 2010;19(8):1002–5.

1

Redd, Nola Taylor. “How Long Does It Take to Get to Mars?” Space.com. November 14, 2017. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://www.space.com/24701-how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars.html.

2

YouTube. September 27, 2016. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo78R_yYFA.

3

Abilleira, Fernando. “2011 Mars Science Laboratory trajectory reconstruction and performance from launch through landing.”

NASA. February 10, 2013. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/handle/2014/44069?show=full.

4

Daines, Gary. “NASA’s Journey to Mars.” NASA. December 1, 2014. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://www.nasa.gov/ content/nasas-journey-to-mars.

5

“Elon Musk Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Accessed January 01, 2018. http://www.notablebiographies. com/news/Li-Ou/Musk-Elon.html#b.

6

Urban, Tim. “Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man.” Wait But Why. May 7, 2015. Accessed December 09, 2017. https:// waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html.

7

“Edgar | Company Filings.” U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 05, 2017. Accessed December 09, 2017. https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html.8

8

Urban, Tim. “Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man.” Wait But Why. May 7, 2015. Accessed December 09, 2017. https:// waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html.

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ibid.

Chaikin, Andrew. “Is SpaceX Changing the Rocket Equation?” Air & Space Magazine. January 01, 2012. Accessed January 05, 2018. https://www.airspacemag.com/space/is-spacex-changing-the-rocket-equation-132285884/.

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“Falcon 9.” SpaceX. November 16, 2012. Accessed January 01, 2018. http://www.spacex.com/falcon9.

12

YouTube. September 29, 2017. Accessed January 01, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUX3ypDVwI.

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ibid.

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The CRISPR Patent Battle: Stakes of Scientific Research

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Benjamin Hsu

February 15, 2017, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a key verdict in the battle for patent rights to the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. CRISPR-Cas9, or CRISPR for short, allows scientists to directly modify the genomes of living organisms, which paves the way for endless new applications and therapies. The stakes are high. The decision favored the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT (Broad) over University of California Berkeley (UC), setting a precedent that will define future patent battles and affect how scientists protect their discoveries. Lasting close to half a decade and with tens of millions spent on legal fees from both sides, this landmark litigation case has highlighted the many non-scientific challenges that modern-day scientific researchers face. n

What is CRISPR? Imagine a biological swiss-army knife, one capable of cutting the fabric of life, DNA. It is a multi-functional tool that allows scientists to make edits ranging from knocking-out a whole area to precise, single-letter insertions. CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, which describes a motif in DNA, originally found in bacteria, that provides the basis for this technology. Cas9 is short for CRISPR-associated protein 9, which is an enzyme produced by CRISPR that cuts DNA. This entire system works by targeting sites on DNA specified by a guide RNA which contain the corresponding CRISPR sequences.

The Cas9 protein is able to then cut at that specific site, destroying the original targeted sequence and sometimes silencing downstream sequences as well. Additionally, a new template can be provided to replace the destroyed sequence in desired ways.

CRISPR is revolutionary because it is the first precise gene editing tool that can be used on living cells, which has applications in medicine and beyond. Even without discussing far-fetched possibilities such as designer babies, which are human babies engineered to perfection, the ability to make small edits is already a huge achievement. For example, Sickle Cell Anemia, an inherited blood disorder, is excruciatingly painful and affects millions worldwide. Yet it is caused by a single mutation in the DNA, making the disorder well-poised to be cured by technologies like CRISPR. The Patent Battle The first patent for CRISPR was filed in May 2012 by Jennifer Doudna, a structural biologist at UC, and her collaborator Emmanuelle Charpentier.

Soon after, in June 2012, they published their seminal paper on genome editing in Science. In their paper, and in the patent application from which it was based, they describe the methods they used to edit bacterial DNA in a test tube. Additionally, they conjecture that the same methods could be applied to edit virtually any living cell’s DNA, such as human DNA. Importantly, they did not conduct any experiments beyond using CRISPR on bacterial DNA in a test tube. Later on, whether this conjecture of a broader application is true becomes one of the main points of contempt in the the legal case. Š 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Then, in December 2012, Feng Zhang from Broad also published in Science his accomplishment of successfully editing DNA in human cells, which he subsequently filed to patent in January 2013. He took a risky move and filed for fast-track review and was awarded a patent before UC received theirs. Fast-track review is unconventional because, while it is favorable to obtain the patent as soon as possible, the window of time between filling and being awarded the patent is crucial for adjusting and reinforcing the claims.

Lasting close to half a decade and with tens of millions spent on legal fees from both sides, this landmark litigation case has highlighted the many non-scientific challenges that modern-day scientific researchers face.

Key Issues UC appealed to the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board; here are the key issues in the case.

First-to-file vs. First-to-invent. These patents were filed before 2013, when the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) switched from a first-to-invent to a firstto-file system under the America Invents Act of 2011. As their names suggest, the first-to-file system awards the patent to whoever files for the patent first, whereas the first-to-invent system awards it to the first inventor. One of the reasons for this switch is that the latter is often hard to prove.

UC initiated an interference proceeding, claiming that since there was significant overlap between the two patents, the appeal board should investigate who discovered CRISPR first. However, the appeal board rejected this claim.

Interference. Interference proceedings assess which applicant gets the patent when both have submitted similar, overlapping patent applications. In an interview, UC used the analogy of tennis balls, claiming that rewarding the patent to Broad would be the equivalent of given them the patent to “green tennis balls” when they rightfully have the patent to “tennis balls” in general.

On the other hand, Broad claims that UC’s patent application is too broad. They claim that it was not an obvious step to go from editing bacterial DNA in a test tube to editing human cells.

Obviousness. At the heart of this multimillion dollar litigation is whether it was obvious to go from one step to the other.

One of the goals of patents is to have inventors disclose their invention in exchange for a temporary monopoly. The idea is that this encourages the dissemination of new ideas and helps scientific progress. Therefore, one of the rules of patent eligibility is the written description doctrine. The application must contain enough information for “a person having ordinary skill in the art” to be able to replicate it.

Given this, it would seem as if UC rightfully lost the appeal because their patent did not include the methods to implementing this technology in eukaryotic cells.

After all, they tried to claim the rights to apply CRISPR on anything when they have only tried it out successfully on bacterial DNA in a test tube. However, the problem 10

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today is that this rule is inconsistently enforced. As a result, numerous litigations ensue from people who try to get around it.

The Stakes The Bayh-Dole Act, or Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act of 1980 tried to encourage innovation by allowing federally funded research to be patented and commercialized. However, it has also inadvertently incentivized overly broad patent claims given the huge financial incentives. Some people claim that it was this Act that led to the legal fiasco today.

There are large financial incentives for the people involved with this legal battle.

While each respective research institutions hold the patents, the inventors are granted exclusive surrogate licenses by virtue of representing the institutions. They have gone on to start surrogate companies, to which they have licensed CRISPR. Moreover, some of these companies have even sub-licensed out smaller parts of their license.

As of the end of 2017, there are 5 surrogate companies and 24 licensee companies under CRISPR licensing agreements, all of which will be affected by the outcomes of this court trial. Of the companies, the one that is the most notable is CRISPR Therapeutics, Charpentier’s (UC) surrogate company, which recently obtained approval from the FDA to conduct the first CRISPR clinical trials in 2018.

Conclusion This is not the first time patent battles hindered scientific development. In 1999, the company Myriad Genetics obtained multiple patents covering the manipulation of BRCA genes, a target site associated with Breast and Ovarian cancer.

Those patents gave them a monopoly and prevented anyone else from conducting research on them such that 14 years’ worth of research was lost. It was not until 2013 that the litigation ended and the court ruled that this patent was unlawful.

CRISPR can save lives, but it is bogged down by legal hurdles. Scientists can change the world through their discoveries and inventions, but these non-scientific constraints can shape the course of scientific innovation.

References 1

Nature Video. CRISPR, Gene Editing and Beyond (Nature Videos). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YKFw2KZA5o

2

Broad Institute. Questions and Answers about CRISPR. https://www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/questions-and-answers-about-crispr

3

Cohen, Jon. Ding, ding, ding! CRISPR patent fight enters next round. Science Magazine, July 26, 2017. http://www.sciencemag. org/news/2017/07/ding-ding-ding-crispr-patent-fight-enters-next-round

4

Cohen, Jon. Round one of CRISPR patent legal battle goes to the Broad Institute. Science Magazine, February 15, 2017. http:// www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/round-one-crispr-patent-legal-battle-goes-broad-institute

5

Cohen, Jon. How the battle lines over CRISPR were drawn. Science Magazine, February 15, 2017. http://www.sciencemag. org/news/2017/02/how-battle-lines-over-crispr-were-drawn

6

Rai, Arti K. and Cook-Deegan, Robert. Racing for academic glory and patents: Lessons from CRISPR. Science, November 17, 2017. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6365/874.full

7

Conteras, Jorge L. and Sherkow, Jacob S. CRISPR, surrogate licensing, and scientific discovery. Science, February 17, 2017. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6326/698.full

8

Ledford, Heidi. Bitter CRISPR patent war intensifies. Nature News, October 26, 2017. https://www.nature.com/news/ bitter-crispr-patent-war-intensifies-1.22892

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Brown, Kristen V. Should Anyone Own the Most Powerful Gene Editing Technology Ever Invented? Gizmodo, February

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23, 2017. https://gizmodo.com/should-anyone-really-control-who-gets-to-use-crispr-1792659635 Brown, Kristen V. Could the Whole CRISPR Patent Kerfuffle Have Been Completely Avoided? Gizmodo, November 17, 2017. https://gizmodo.com/could-the-whole-crispr-patent-kerfuffle-have-been-compl-1820552861

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Brown, Kristen V. Here’s Why Today’s Decision on Who Invented CRISPR Matters. Gizmodo, February 15, 2017. https:// gizmodo.com/heres-why-todays-decision-over-who-invented-crispr-matt-1792402072

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Sherkow, Jacob S. Patent protection for CRISPR: An ELSI review. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, December 7, 2017. https:// academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsx036/4706243

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Lant, Karla. CRISPR Is on the Cusp of Eradicating a Host of Diseases. Futurism, October 6, 2017. https://futurism.com/ crispr-is-on-the-cusp-of-eradicating-a-host-of-diseases/

13

Do Patents Promote or Stall Innovation? https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46126/title/Do-Patents-Promote-or-Stall-Innovation-/

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Molteni, Megan. CRISPR Therapeutics Plans its First Clinical Trial for Genetic Disease. Wired, December 11, 2017. https:// www.wired.com/story/crispr-therapeutics-plans-its-first-clinical-trial-for-genetic-disease/?mbid=social_fb

15

Robbins, Rebecca. CRISPR Analogies, Ranked. Stat News, December 8, 2017. https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/08/ crispr-analogies-ranked/

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DeBoer, John. Inventor Series: Pros and Cons of Expediting Examination with the Track One Program. Rao Deboer Osterrieder, September 24, 2017. https://www.rdoip.com/blog/2017/9/24/inventor-series-pros-and-cons-of-expediting-examinationwith-the-track-one-program

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Protest: A Personal and Social Phenomenon

Exploring the Causes of Widespread Protests in America Today

L

Nishant Aggarwal

iberal.

Conservative. Student. Professional. Man. Woman. It seems everyone has taken to the streets to voice their support or opposition for the federal government since the election of Donald Trump. Each day seems to bring a new protest: Marches for Science, Impeachment Protests, Unite the Right rallies, Patriot Prayer marches, and more. Some of these protests, like the Women’s March, draw tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. And, some, like the Charlottesville rally, turn cacophonously lethal.

But, as I read and watch coverage of these rallies and protests, I wonder whether these diverse protesters are actually protesting ideas and policies or whether they are protesting simply to protest. After all, when a liberal, anti-Trump protestor replies “I don’t know man what do you think…” to a reporter who asks, “Why do you want Trump impeached?”,1 or when a conservative, for-Trump demonstrator says, “I come from a Christian background…now we actually get to celebrate Christmas”2 when 70.6% of the American population is Christian3 and people openly and proudly celebrate Christmas without any opposition, I cannot help but ask: do these people even know what they are protesting?

Well, I contend that no, these people do not know what they are protesting. While the act of protesting has been around for almost as long as the human race, people have always protested against injustice or wrong. Today, however, people are gathering in large numbers to protest not a dictator, but an openly and democratically elected leader, and, even more surprisingly, to support him after he has already won. That is because people today are not rallying against a grave injustice or a singular idea they oppose but are protesting to partake for personal and social reasons. An evolutionary necessity, an endorphin booster, a creative outlet, and a virtue signaling event; a protest in today’s America perfectly combines these four characteristics and becomes a personal and social affair, not a political one.

In the following paragraphs, I present an intuitive argument for why people are protesting today and why protests have become a social phenomenon. I also call for businesses to take advantage of this social trend by sponsoring protests. I strive to lay out a broad theory to conceptualize a recent phenomenon, and I hope you find it appealing.

Evolution Revolution Whether it was the Protestant Reformation, the storming of the Bastille, or the Berlin Wall protests, humans have protested for as long as we can remember. Why? Because whenever society comes to a standstill and the status quo refuses to give in, people take to the streets to set the wheel rolling again.

Rebellion is evolutionarily advantageous. Millions of years ago, it was most likely the rebellious ones, the ones willing to venture beyond their comfort zones, who discovered fire, built homes, and started farms. Thousands of years ago, it was the rebellious ones, the ones willing to challenge the authority, who laid the foundations of democracy, free speech, and individual liberty. And hundreds of years ago, it was again the rebellious ones, the ones unable to accept conventional wisdom, who gave us the heliocentric model of the world, Protestantism, and so on. We have always © 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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rebelled because rebellion is tied very closely to progress. Only when we choose to stray away from the accepted norms and try something new do we get something new and better. Robert Ryman’s white canvas is not lazy work, but avant-garde art.

So, what happens when there is no rebellion? Or, more aptly, what happens when people think that rules are not being broken? They think that society has grounded to a halt. And, that is exactly what is happening right now.

Today’s scientific and intellectual advances have greatly surpassed the understanding of the average person. They have become so complicated that you have to be literate in multi-variate vector calculus and complex variables to just barely understand a paper in an economics journal or be aware of the vastly detailed and complicated argot of neurobiology to understand its advances. And the problem only becomes worse as you move from Humanities to Social Sciences to STEM and the topic at hand becomes further removed from a person’s daily life. We have come so far in our intellectual development that the advances of today are simply beyond the intellectual reach of the average person. To make matters worse, academic papers are often written in a complex and obscure style, so even if a person were to get beyond the steep knowledge curve, he might still be bogged down the complex writing style. Steven Pinker, himself a professor at Harvard, “used adjectives like ‘turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand’ to describe academic writing.”4 Moreover, many of these advancements, barring those in popular consumer technology, are hidden behind expensive paywalls. Want to read the latest advances in the research on consumer behavior? A subscription to the Journal of Consumer Research will cost $193. Thinking about supplementing that with reading about Statistics? Your wallet will be another $185 lighter with a one-year subscription to The American Statistician. Want to save money and just access a single article? Some articles can cost upwards of $50 per piece. Not only are the latest advances hard to understand, but they also hard to access in the first place. In fact, of all the papers published, 82% in humanities, 27% in natural sciences and 32% in social sciences go uncited.5 Whether that is due to search time horizons or accessibility issues, those are worrying numbers any way you look at them.

This inaccessibility compounds to a point where the average person thinks our world is not advancing. He gets frustrated and that frustration takes the form of protests.

Wanting to take charge of the matters in his own hands, to stand up against the status-quo and to do something to somehow usher innovation, the common man takes to the streets and protests, thinking his protest is a rebellion that will grind the gears and set the world rolling again. It may not do anything substantial to advance our intellectual prowess per se, but it is a psychologically comforting act that assures those protesting and those watching the protests that someone is standing up against the status quo. And, optics are often enough for those desperately worried.

Endorphin Booster But, even more fundamentally, humans like joy. “Whether you sought a career, started a business, made money, or built a family, it was always because you wanted just one simple thing: joy,” says Sadhguru, a spiritual teacher.6 One of the ways our bodies allow us to naturally experience joy is through oxytocin and endorphins, neurotransmitters that interact with receptors in the regions of brain associated with pain and emotion to help a person feel good. Eating, exercising, and kissing give us an endorphin rush. Walking, singing, and physical touch increase oxytocin in our body. And, so does protesting. The very act of pumping your fist in 14

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the air, shouting slogans, and marching in tandem increases the number of oxytocin and endorphins in our body which gives us a feeling of pleasure and comfort. When one goes out on the street and shouts, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Donald Trump has go to go,” all the while holding hands with fellow protestors and throwing his arms in the air, it is chemically almost as if he is riding a rollercoaster.

This is not the case because protesting in and of itself is an endorphin booster.

Instead, protesting is a combination of various actions and processes that are oxytocin and endorphin boosters, and when done in tandem combine to give protests a joy boosting effect. Protesting primarily involves three things: body movement (walking, throwing your fist in the air, etc.), bodily contact (holding hands, large crowds, etc.), and shouting slogans. Body movement gives us an endorphin rush,7 bodily contact increases oxytocin,8 and screaming has a cathartic effect When done together, therefore, a protestor’s mind finds itself with a combination of all three: increased oxytocin levels, increase endorphins, and a release of frustration and anger. This gives him tremendous pleasure.

Moreover, as discussed in more detail later, many people protest by writing anti-bigotry posts on Facebook and In an age of desk jobs and Twitter. But these posts have little effect little physical exertion, at the personal or national levels. Most people tend to friend people of similar protests serve as physical or political affiliation and most politicians electronic stimulants of joy. do not seem to care about people’s opinions on social media, as evident by the repeated trial to repeal Obamacare despite the fact that “Obamacare [was] more popular than House GOP healthcare bill,” according to the Hill.9 But, anti-bigotry posts tend to generate a lot of likes. Barack Obama’s anti-racism tweet following the Charlottesville rally was liked by 3 million people.10 And, according to Adam Alter, a professor at NYU, “The minute you take a drug, drink alcohol… when you get a like on social media, all of those experiences produce dopamine, which is a chemical that’s associated with pleasure.”11 Anti-bigotry posts = more likes = more dopamine. As evident, people are protesting online in hopes of getting more likes which gives them dopamine and therefore pleasure. Protests in the streets are physical stimulants of joy whereas protests on social media are electronic triggers of joy.

This helps explain two things: why people protest and why protests are so widespread.

Firstly, people are protesting because it increases oxytocin, endorphins and dopamine in their bodies and gives them pleasure. They are protesting simply because it is fun. In an age of desk jobs and little physical exertion, protests serve as physical or electronic stimulants of joy. Secondly, protests have become so widespread because people are protesting simply to experience joy and thus do not have to be politically motivated or aware. You see, it does not matter if you are shouting “Dump Trump” (liberal slogan) or “Lock Her Up” (conservative slogan). It does not matter if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent. This activity is for one and all.

As long as you are shouting something, carrying a banner, throwing your fists in the air, and/or marching in tandem with others, you will feel joy.

But why protest? If the sole purpose is to get an endorphin rush and feel better, then why not just exercise? Or, even better, eat? Because millennials, who are the majority of these protestors, are increasingly cash strapped, lonely, and depressed.12, 13, 14 And © 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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protests address all of them: they are cheap, involve a group, and are fun. You see, eating might make a person happy, but requires that you purchase food. Exercising requires a gym membership. And, music requires an instrument, a concert ticket, or a subscription. And, all of these activities are easily done alone. So, traditional methods of joy may tackle depression, but require cash and do not address loneliness.

Protests, however, require very little or no monetary spending, involve more than one person, and boost your oxytocin, endorphin, and dopamine levels. It addresses all three problems faced by millennials in one solid package, and is therefore seems to be becoming a preferred method of seeking pleasure.

Creative Outlets It is important to remember, however, that these are not dull events.

Protests today are creative, if not outright glamorous. When Madonna, the “queen of pop,” herself takes the stage and welcomes people to the “revolution of love” it is an affair situated at the intersection of politics and Hollywood, of charisma and sensuality. As such, these protests allow people to be creative and to let their inner artist out. Not everyone’s art can be displayed at the Louvre, so protests like the ones we are experiencing allow people to show their creativity to the rest of the world.

Fig.1 Creative outlets.

Love Trumps Hate. Toxic Trump. Ban Bannon. We Shall OverComb. Mein Drumpf.

Dump Trump. These are six of the most common slogans featured in liberal, anti-Trump rallies. All of them are incredibly creative. They are a careful blend of words that play on common themes and images. Similarly, many people use protests to showcase their visual art skills. Using playful imagery, attractive fonts, or quirky details, they show their artistic talents to the world while at the same time conveying their opposition or support for the government. Many people even decide to use their bodies as canvases and come dressed in fancy costumes. They are able to not only show their artistic skills, but also go back in time and reminiscence their childhood when they could easily play with clothes without the fear of societal disproval. And, then there are people who combine all three: words, art, and costume, and fully embody the spirit of art to convey their message. By coming out to protests, therefore, people who would otherwise have little opportunity to showcase their knowledge of creative English, visual arts, or creative costumes are able to show their skills to the rest of the world. For free, too! This is attractive because the barriers to entry to showcase literary, artistic, and fashion skills are prohibitively high.

But, again, why protest? There are many other ways of showing your creativity.

Write a blog. Join a club. Et cetera. Well, because protesting isn’t a congested, scary thing for most Americans. It is an exotic affair. Just as many people are attracted to crime because of the high adrenaline, glamorous lives often associated with it in Hollywood movies, many Americans are attracted to protests because of the 16

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romantic portrayal of protests in stories and movies. Growing up hearing stories of the Revolution, Robinhood, Pancho Villa, and the like, people come to associate protests with bucolic imagery and social justice. As such, when Americans think of protesting, they think not of tear gas and attack dogs, but of the Goddess of Liberty in Liberty Leading the People. Moreover, just as many people reenact battles in the civil war to experience history, protesting is allowing a generation that has largely grown up in the modern era, surrounded by skyscrapers and digital gadgets, to connect with history and experience a bygone era, an age when digital petitions did not exist and one of the only ways to make change was to gather in the public square.

Nostalgia is a powerful force: “TV ad songs that are from old Hindi films can evoke nostalgia among young Indian consumers, even for products without an inherent recollection/nostalgia component (e.g., a motorcycle and a bottle of olive oil).”15 Virtue Signaling and Friendship Matching Of course, taking up banners and shouting slogans in the street is not the only way to protest. We are living in the digital age, so social media platforms have also become a medium through which to protest. Facebook and Twitter played such an integral role in the 2016 Presidential Election that, according to Brad Parscale, part of Trump’s digital media team, “Trump’s team advertised on other platforms, too, but ‘Facebook was the 500-pound gorilla, 80 percent of the budget kind of thing.’”16 Of course, they did so because a large percentage of the human population, 2 billion, uses the platform and at least 9% of these people discuss politics.17 Facebook was abuzz with posts denouncing bigotry the day Trump won.

But, liberals and conservatives tend to group with those who hold political views similar to their own. Each side religiously blocks the other side and avoids any conversation. So, what does it change or who does it help when one writes a short essay denouncing bigotry on Facebook? Well, no one except the author of the post itself. By writing a short post against sexism, one can, without much effort, and at a negligible cost, signal to the world that he is against sexism and a friend of women.

Warn you, he has not done anything concrete that would warrant such a label, but his friends think him a righteous person. This means that one could harbor some of the most sexist thoughts in the world, but a simple Facebook post would allow him to evade that identity and project a different one, an ideal identity that his friends would want to see. In effect we are basically seeing social media come a full circle: people are using social media to project inflated, if not outright fake, identities of themselves much like they used to do with platforms like MySpace. This helps people forge friendships that might be weakened.

Similarly, when college students carry large banners denouncing Trump on university campuses, they are projecting to the world that they are against bigotry. And once again, they have not done anything that would warrant one to know that they are against bigotry except that they say so. But, this time, the students get to show their virtues to others in person and not only solidify friendships, but also meet new people and forge friendships they might have otherwise been unable to. All in all, to protest in an environment where a large majority agrees with your viewpoints serves only one person: the protestor, who gets to signal how good he is and in turn make new relationships.

Any Applications? This is all well and good, you may say, but is there any way we could use this analysis to make a tangible difference? Rise from our armchairs and actually do something? Well, businesses can take great advantage of this shift © 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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in public mood by sponsoring protests. A vast number of activities in our society are already sponsored—award shows, television shows, sporting events, research projects, academic conferences… even charities. So, why not protests?

Yes, people might be carrying banners denouncing corporate hegemony, but as we have seen, people are protesting today primarily for social—not political—reasons.

In fact, the Pepsi protest ad inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, despite having been widely discredited by the media and drawing caustic criticism on social media, actually worked! According to Fortune, a “Morning Consult survey found that about 44% of people had a more favorable view of Pepsi after watching the ad. Only 25% of those surveyed has a less favorable view.”18 Moreover, the Pepsi ad initially attracted fierce criticism not because it was inherently wrong, but because it was new. Businesses have always tended to keep politics at bay for fear of potentially alienating half their customers and/or to avoid bureaucratic crackdown. So, when a company forays into politics, consumers are shocked, and the change-is-scary phenomenon kicks in: “Self-integrity is a sense of global efficacy, an image of oneself as able to control important adaptive and moral outcomes in one’s life. Threats to this image evoke psychological threat.”19 However, once more companies start to foray into this field, consumers will become habituated to seeing their once impartial brands taking an ideological stand.

Of course, traditional sponsorship methods will not work with protests. A large banner of Rolex on the stage? Nope, this isn’t Wimbledon. But, a space to gather and protest? A discount on the day’s food offerings? Small samples of an energy drink?

The cash strapped pockets, the tired bodies, and the empty-stomachs of protestors gathered in scorching sun would surely appreciate that!

Protest sponsorship is perfect for companies that a) have interactive and intuitive products, b) are small- and medium-sized, or otherwise not popularly synonymous with corporate greed, and c) can identify the political affiliation of a majority of their customer base. There are three main ways a business can sponsor protests: provide space for the protest itself, offer discounts for after-protest meals/services, and distribute product samples.

For example, Starbucks distributed small samples of its coffee to people as they queued up to exchange their notes during India’s malicious and ill-informed demonetization process. As a result, it got people who might not have otherwise ventured to their cafes to taste and interact with their coffee and in turn won many returning customers. And, it also got widespread social media coverage and won the hearts of consumers as a responsible brand. With an investment of only a few people and a small amount of coffee, Starbucks did what it would otherwise have had to spend millions of dollars in traditional advertising.

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References 1

“EPIC FAIL! Trump Protestors Can’t Talk, Only Want To Pick Fights!” The Alex Jones Channel, 29 Aug. 2017. www.youtube. com/watch?v=T7Msz5jI_Xc

2

“The Year of The Donald - The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper”, 13 Dec. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImBTtTdYgRY

3

“Religious Landscape Study.” Pew Research Center, www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

4

Clayton, Victoria. “The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing.” The Atlantic, 26 Oct. 2015. www.theatlantic.com/ edcation/archive/2015/10/complex-academic-writing/412255/

5

Remler , Dahlia. “Are 90% of Academic Papers Really Never Cited? Reviewing the Literature on Academic Citations.” LSE, 1 Nov. 2016. blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/23/academic-papers-citation-rates-remler/

6

Vasudev, Jaggi. Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy. Spiegel & Grau, 2016.

7

Breuning, Loretta Graziano. Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels. Adams Media, 2016.

8

Balchin, Ross, et al. “Sweating Away Depression? The Impact of Intensive Exercise on Depression.” Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 200, 2016, pp. 218–221. ScienceDirect. doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2016.04.030

9

Greenwood, Max. “Poll: ObamaCare More Popular than House GOP Healthcare Bill.” TheHill, 22 June 2017. www.thehill. com/policy/healthcare/338984-obamacare-more-popular-than-house-gop-healthcare-bill-poll Phipps, Claire. Obama’s Anti-Racism Tweet after Charlottesville Is Most Liked Ever on Twitter. Guardian News and Media, 16 Aug. 2017. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/16/barack-obama-anti-racism-most-liked-tweet-ever-charlottesville

10

Yates, Eames. “What Happens to Your Brain When You Get a like on Instagram.” http://Www.businessinsider.com, Business Insider, 25 Mar. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-to-your-brain-like-instagram-dopamine-2017-3

11

Beaton, Caroline. Why Millennials Are Lonely. Forbes Magazine, 7 Mar. 2017. www.forbes.com/sites/carolinebeaton/2017/02/09/ why-millennials-are-lonely/#18fbdef17c35

12

Donatone, Brooke. Why Are so Many Millennials Depressed? A Therapist Points the Finger at Mom and Dad. The Washington Post, 6 Jan. 2014. www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-are-so-many-millennials-depressed-a-therapistpoints-the-finger-at-mom-and-dad/2014/01/06/19f4f1c4-69a1-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html

13

Smith, Aaron. Millennials Aren’t Saving a Dime. CNNMoney, 10 Nov. 2014. www.money.cnn.com/2014/11/10/pf/millennials-negative-savings/index.html

14

Chou, Hsuan-Yi, and Divya Singhal. “Nostalgia Advertising and Young Indian Consumers: The Power of Old Songs.” Asia Pacific Management Review, vol. 22, no. 3, 2017. pp. 136–145., doi:10.1016/j.apmrv.2016.11.004.

15

Bump, Philip. ‘60 Minutes’ Profiles the Genius Who Won Trump’s Campaign: Facebook. The Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/09/60-minutes-profiles-the-genius-who-won-trumps-campaignfacebook/?utm_term=.b6fd38fb8b21

16

Duggan, Maeve, and Aaron Smith. 1. Political Content on Social Media. Pew Research Center, 25 Oct. 2016. www.pewinternet. org/2016/10/25/political-content-on-social-media/

17

“Farber, Madeline. “A Lot of People Actually Liked Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Ad.” Fortune.com, 13 Apr. 2017. www.fortune. com/2017/04/13/pepsi-kendall-jenner-ad-poll/

18

Cohen, Geoffrey L., and David K. Sherman. “The Psychology of Change: Self-Affirmation and Social Psychological Intervention.” Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 65, no. 1, Mar. 2014, pp. 333–371., doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115137

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Abrams, Dominic, and Georgina Randsley De Moura. “The Psychology of Collective Political Protest.” The Social Psychology of Politics Social Psychological Applications to Social Issues, 2002, pp. 193–214. doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-0569-3_10

20

“Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO.” VICE, 14 Aug. 2017. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrcB1sAN8I

21

Pies, Ronald W. “Campus Protests, Narcissism, and the Dearth of Civility.” psychiatrictimes.com, UBM Medica, LLC, 2 Feb. 2016. www.psychiatrictimes.com/blogs/campus-protests-narcissism-and-dearth-civility

22

Stekelenburg, Jacquelien Van. “The Political Psychology of Protest.” European Psychologist, vol. 18, no. 4, 2013, pp. 224–234., doi:10.1027/1016-9040/a000156

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Stekelenburg, Jacquelien Van, and Bert Klandermans. “The Social Psychology of Protest.” Current Sociology, vol. 61, no. 5-6, 2013, pp. 886–905., doi:10.1177/0011392113479314

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“Stressed? Try Screaming….” Http://Purplebuddhaproject.tumblr.com, Purple Buddha Project, 6 Jan. 2014. www.purplebuddhaproject.tumblr.com/post/72380850511/stressed-try-screaming

25

Vugt, Mark van. “Why We Protest.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 21 Oct. 2011. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ naturally-selected/201110/why-we-protest

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Introduction to Machine Learning

M

Preethi Raju

(ML) is a buzz word frequently heard in reference to a variety of fields and especially in conjunction with big data: datasets too large and complicated for traditional data analytics. This article will examine the use of ML particularly in healthcare by outlining possible uses of ML in hospitals both in current times and in the future. achine learning

Machine learning can digest large datasets in order to find patterns and create nonlinear predictive models. Unlike statistical predecessors like linear regression, ML can handle more variables, or dimensions, from much larger datasets without requiring human guidance.1 This is especially important in the modern era where advancements in recording, storing, and sharing information has yielded an unprecedented volume of data that is practically impossible for humans to process alone.

Professor Mark Davenport of the Georgia Institute of Technology notes that “machine learning can create thousands of models a week while humans can create two.”2 ML model creation involves either supervised or unsupervised learning. Supervised learning means the machine has data with clearly marked inputs and outputs, similar to the X input and Y output of linear regression. Supervised learning’s task is to find the function relating input to output. Unsupervised learning involves data without output variables; as a result, the data is clustered into classes.2 Uses of Machine Learning in Medicine A significant and growing portion of doctors are embracing collaborations with companies in order to create apps, websites, and other products that incorporate ML in the hospital. Two examples are health records that automatically search through medical literature to recommend treatments and wearable technology doctors use to monitor changes in their patient’s health.3 Given how expensive diagnostic errors can be, ML can add the most value to medical diagnosis. For example, Google partnered with University College London Hospital to use ML to create software that can successfully detect cancer using radiology images.

Additionally, ML can greatly improve precision medicine, an approach that involves curating treatments to each individual based on idiosyncratic variation in genetics, environment, and lifestyle.4 ML has been used to predict the best cancer treatments based on similar patients,5 recommend courses of action based on data collected by wearable sensors,6 and discern optimal diets using a person’s unique gut bacteria composition.1 ML can also improve drug discovery by assisting in the initial screening of drug compounds. Other uses span from predicting malarial outbreaks to digitizing handwritten electronic health records to creating “smart” patient records that recommend treatment plans to physicians.3 Why Should Healthcare Use ML? In medicine, incorrectly diagnosed cases could cause as many as 10% of hospital deaths due to inefficient communication and integration of information.6 However, we have amassed enough data over the past several decades that ML can be used to solve this issue. McKinsey estimates that if ML is used extensively in medicine, it could generate up to $100 billion in value annually “based on better decision-making, optimized innovation, improved efficiency of 20

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research/clinical trials, and new tool creation for physicians, consumers, insurers, and regulators.�4 Moreover, ML in many past studies has demonstrated predictive prowess at least equal to that of seasoned human physicians.3 This comes as no surprise; ML can understand big data much better than the unassisted human mind can. For example, while a human doctor could never recall all the results of clinical trials, ML could quickly examine the entire database of trials in order to recommend comprehensive treatment options.7 This allows ML to decrease skyrocketing healthcare costs by increasing the efficiency, comprehensiveness, and speed of both diagnosis and treatment.6

ML in many past studies has demonstrated predictive prowess at least equal to that of seasoned human physicians.

Problems Using Machine Learning The main concern of using machines in lieu of doctors stems from factors like human emotion in diagnosing conditions or recommending treatment. A more data-specific issue is that medical records are often fragmented or inaccessible due to privacy laws. However, many surveyed patients indicate willingness to release private records for treatment purposes as long as anonymity is protected. The more complicated problem is that of imperfect recordkeeping. Data must be heavily processed and cleaned before it can be used in analytics.

Another general issue with data analytics is that analysts must rigorously test predictive models to make sure they actually identify causation and not merely correlation. Overcoming this problem is difficult since ML cannot describe its reasoning in creating a model. This ambiguity is an issue in a high-stakes field like medicine, where patient lives are on the line and dependent on accurate diagnosis and treatment. As such, medical professionals hesitate to place too much power in the hands of machine learning.

There are other questions regarding implementing. Who pays for ML? Would patients be uncomfortable being treated by machines? Would doctors lose their jobs? If machine learning makes a treatment error, who takes responsibility? These questions are difficult to answer, and leave the integration of ML in hospitals open-ended.3 Future of Medicine Since several studies have shown that combining ML with physician expertise has the greatest efficacy, ML will soon become more embedded in hospital workflows and patient recovery. A current project in its early stages works on using ML to restore function to paralyzed limbs by reading a patient’s brain waves. In addition, ML could be used to treat patients automatically. Medtronic, for example, is working on developing automatic insulin pumps. Other uses for ML include using apps to track mental illnesses based on changes in speech or behavior and using software to identify ideal drug trial candidates based on social media usage and genetic information.3 Several medical professionals have even predicted that ML will become advanced enough to replace physicians such as radiologists, since ML can more accurately analyze images to detect abnormalities.1 Š 2018, The Triple Helix, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Conclusion Machine learning has already been used by many popular companies to affect our daily lives. Just a few examples are Apple’s personal assistant Siri, Uber’s surge pricing model, and Facebook’s friend recommendation algorithm. Naturally, many healthcare related organizations are also looking to take advantage of this powerful statistical tool to tackle big data, improve health outcomes, and decrease costs. Early applications of machine learning look promising, in fields from radiology to psychology. Despite the obstacles of implementing large-scale changes in physician and patient routines, ML will revolutionize medicine by making precision medicine a mainstream approach. In the future, patients may have wearable sensors that allow doctors to monitor them remotely for a number of disease states and recommend treatments in real-time using the help of ML. With such a large variety of uses for ML, the possibilities of its application in healthcare are endless.

References

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1

Obermeyer, Ziad, and Ezekiel Emanuel . “The Future of Big Data, Machine Learning, and Clinical Medicine.” NEJM Catalyst, 10 Oct. 2016, catalyst.nejm.org/big-data-machine-learning-clinical-medicine/.

2

“Machine Learning: What It Is and Why It Matters.” What It Is and Why It Matters | SAS, www.sas.com/it_it/insights/ analytics/machine-learning.html.

3

Faggella, Daniel. “Machine Learning Healthcare Applications - 2017 and Beyond - Tech Emergence.” TechEmergence, 24 Nov. 2017, www.techemergence.com/machine-learning-healthcare-applications/.

4

Faggella, Daniel. “7 Applications of Machine Learning in Pharma and Medicine.”TechEmergence, 1 Sept. 2017, www. techemergence.com/machine-learning-in-pharma-medicine/.

5

Halamka, John D. “Using Big Data to Make Wiser Medical Decisions.” NEJM Catalyst, 23 Dec. 2015, catalyst.nejm.org/ using-big-data-to-make-wiser-medical-decisions/.

6

Sennaar, Kumba. “Machine Learning for Medical Diagnostics - 4 Current Applications -.”TechEmergence, 23 Nov. 2017, www.techemergence.com/machine-learning-medical-diagnostics-4-current-applications/

7

Park, Alice. “Machine-Learning Programs Help Doctors and Their Patients.” Time, Time, 26 Oct. 2017, time.com/4967153/ artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/.

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The Triple Helix International Leadership

The Triple Helix, Inc. is an undergraduate, student-run organization dedicated to the promotion of interdisciplinary discussion. We encourage critical analysis of legally and socially important issues in science and promote the exchange of ideas. Our flagship publication, the Science in Society Review, and our online blog, The Triple Helix Online, provide research-based perspectives on pertinent scientific issues facing society today.

Our students at twenty chapters at some of the most renowned universities in the world form a diverse, intellectual, and global society. We aim to inspire scientific curiosity and discovery, encouraging undergraduates to explore interdisciplinary careers that push traditional professional boundaries. In doing so, we hope to create global citizen scientists. thetriplehelixuchicago.strikingly.com

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