NEWS
THE SCOOP
Fire in the Blood Screening and Panel
IN THIS ISSUE
Three Twins Ice Cream News Briefs » PAGE 3 Beloved Scoop Shop returns Mythbusters » PAGE 5 to the Lower Haight Puzzles » PAGE 7 » PAGE 6
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Big pharma behaving badly? » PAGE 3
The UCSF Student Newspaper
Thursday, Feburary 20, 2014
MAMA M.
Struggling with SelfConfidence
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ear Mama M., I am a student in the School of Nursing. I guess I don’t have a lot of self-confidence in general, but I know I am in the right place. The thing that I don’t understand is how other people seem so much more confident than me, especially the medical students with whom we occasionally share teaching sessions. It seems like they are so much more confident, and that they might even feel superior to nursing students. Or is it that I feel inferior to them? It’s hard enough feeling OK about myself, I don’t need others to make me feel “less than.” Is my whole career as a nurse going to make me feel inferior to doctors? What am I getting myself into? Inferiorly yours, Less Than
SELF-CONFIDENCE » PAGE 3
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Volume 58, Number 20
NEWS
UCSF Group Wins “Stand Up for Science” Video Contest By Jeannine Cuevas Contributing Writer
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ive UCSF graduate students—Osama Ahmed, Florie Charles, Nir Oksenberg, Argenta Price and Marta Wegorzewska—and Christin Chong, a postdoc, together have taken first prize in the second annual Stand Up for Science video competition. The contest, sponsored by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), is aimed at increasing public awareness of federal funding support for biological and biomedical science. So, rather than “preaching to the choir,” entries for the prize were supposed to appeal to a general, non-scientific audience. The winners received $5,000 for their submission. The basic science students' outstanding video, entitled “Funding Basic Science to Revolutionize Medicine,” starts with a “social science” experiment. Random passersby near the Giant's ballpark in San Francisco were asked to imagine that it was 1960, and to vote on whether they would rather give $10 to develop an affordable treatment for diabetes, or to give the same amount to support basic research into how bacteria protect themselves. Predictably, everyday people tended to vote for the diabetes treatment. But the video shows that research that began around 1960, examining how bacteria defend themselves against viruses, yielded the revolutionary technique of gene splicing. The video goes on to show how this development led to
Photo courtesy of Florie Charles/BMS Five UCSF graduate students and a UCSF postdoc took first prize in FASEB’s second annual "Stand Up for Science" video competition. Top row. from left to right: Florie Charles, Argenta Price, Marta Wegorzewska, Christin Chong. Bottom row, from left to right: Osama Ahmed, Nir Oksenberg.
huge advances in the treatment not only of diabetes, but also of many other diseases, including cancer and HIV. Today, recombinant human insulin is produced by cutting certain genes from human chromosomes and inserting them into bacteria, which produce the insulin now used by the majority of diabetics. Charles, Oksenberg and Wegorzewska are PhD students in the Biomedical Sciences program; Ahmed is in Neuroscience; and Price is in Biochemistry and Biophysics. Chong is a postdoc in Ying-Hui Fu's lab in Neuroscience. All are active in science advocacy groups at UCSF, namely Carry the One Radio, You-
reka Science and the Science Policy Group. FASEB is a nonprofit organization that works to advance health and welfare by promoting progress and education in biological and biomedical sciences through service to its member societies and through collaborative science advocacy. You can see the award-winning video and the noteworthy runners-up at faseb.org/ About-FASEB/Scientific-Contests/Stand-Upfor-Science/About-SUFS.aspx
Jeannine Cuevas is the Communications Director of the Graduate Division.
ARTS & CULTURE
NEWS
Pay it Forward at Letters to a Pre-Scientist Interplanetary Volunteer: Lauren Shields Organization: Letters to a Pre-Scientist - A collaboration between educators and scientists who want to show children a more personal view of science, beyond their typical classroom lessons.
time it takes to hand write four letters and write responses), but a nice way to let kids know that scientists are people and give them context to the opportunities that exist in science.
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ynapse: Why did you get involved with Letters to a Pre-Scientist and why would you recommend this to others? I had another PhD student recommend the program to me, and it's a nice way to get kids excited about science. I think a lot of kids who aren't exposed to science early on think that it's just what's in textbooks—memorizing facts and learning about what's already known. I hope that by reaching out we're able to show potential future scientists that it's really about discovering the unknown. And, just as importantly, it helps put a human face to “scientists.” We're real people and not mythical white-coated unicorns.
Lauren Shields is a third-year Biomedical Sciences graduate student.
My pen pals have been so sweet and fun to correspond with. One even sent me drawings. It's a really small time commitment (the
Synapse: What does the role entail? Basically, you are paired with a young student (mine have both been elementary school kids) and you write back and forth. You’re given some prompts or suggestions for letter topics and things to send. (I sent a postcard of the Golden Gate with one of my letters.) The kids who are in Letters to a Pre-Scientist are not pre-selected for those already interested in science. Entire classes participate in the program across grades from low-income areas. Synapse: How would someone else get involved if interested? Sign up in the fall at www.prescientist.org.
Playground: Nightlife at The Cal Academy By T. Booth Haley Staff Writer
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here can you go dancing to a funk-soul DJ under a giant glass aquarium of a Philippine coral reef? Where can you stroll through a jungle and travel through the cosmos in the same night, all while sipping a cool cocktail? Where can you have the greatest adventure on a midweek night in the Inner Sunset? The answer: Nightlife at The California Academy of Science, every Thursday.
CAL ACADEMY NIGHTLIFE » PAGE 5