Cure for Colorblindness

Colorblindness is one of the most common disorders found in people around the world. Although this disease is not life threatening, it does come as an inconvenience when trying to read and or look at certain materials. Researchers have been studying this disability and may have found a cure for people who have colorblindness. These researches are from The University of Washington in Seattle and also from The University of Florida. Using Squirrel monkeys as the testers for their cure, these researches used gene therapy to cure these monkeys of colorblindness.

Researches are now looking into gene therapy as a cure for colorblindness in humans. Before anything is done, researches have to be sure that this would be a safe procedure to be done on humans. Scientists are looking at the potential for gene therapy to treat adult vision disorders involving cone cells. A cone cell is the photoreceptor cell that is located in the retina of the eye; this cell will function the best in relatively bright light. The retina of the eye is a light sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye creates an image of the visual world on the retina, and this serves much of the same function as the film in a camera.

As scientists go further into studying the cure for colorblindness, they have “added a red sensitivity to the cone cells in animals that are born with a condition of colorblindness that is exactly the same as the disability in humans” says William W. Hauswirth; a professor of ophthalmic molecular genetics at the University of Florida college of Medicine and also a member of the UF genetics Institute and the Powell Gene Therapy Center. “Although color blindness is only moderately life-altering, we’ve shown we can cure a cone disease in a primate, and that it can be done very safely. This is extremely encouraging for the development of therapies for human cone disease that are really blinding.”

This finding is very likely to intrigue the millions of people who face this disability around this world. This includes about 3.5 million people in the United States, more than 13 million in India, and more than 16 million in China. This problem mostly effects men, which leaves about 8% of Caucasian men in the United States incapable of discerning red a green hues that are very important in our everyday life; for instance recognizing traffic light colors. A professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington said “If we could find a way to do this with complete safety in the human eye, as we did with monkeys, I think there would be a lot of people who would want it. Beyond that we hope this technology will be useful in correcting lots of different vision disorders.”

This study had been going on for about 10 year; this first started after Neitz and his wife Maureen Neitz, a professor at the University of Washington and also senior author of the study began training two squirrel monkeys named Dalton and Sam. Along with teaching the animals, the Neitz research group also worked with markers of standard vision-testing technique called The Cambridge Colour test to perfect a way that the monkeys could “tell” them which colors that they were seeing. This test is a lot like the tests that school officials are required to give elementary school students at the beginning of each school year; this test allows the children to identify a specific pattern of colored dots among a field of dots that vary in size, color and intensity. To use this test on the monkey, researchers decided to devise a computer touch screen that the monkeys could use to trace the color patterns. When the animals had chosen correctly they were awarded with grape juice.

Researches wanted to produce a substance called long-wavelength opsin in the retinas of the monkeys. The form of the opsin that is found in the retina is a colorless protein that works to make pigments that are sensitive to red and green coloring. While the researches were testing this treatment they used human DNA’s so that they did not have to switch to human genes when they moved toward the clinical treatment said Hauswirth. Hauswirth is also in a clinical trial with human patients to test gene therapy for the treatment of Leber congenital amaurosis, which is a form of colorblindness that often affects children. About five weeks after the monkeys had received this treatment they began to acquire color vision, almost as if it happened overnight.

“Nothing happened during the first 20 weeks”, Neitz said. “But we knew right away when it began to work. It was as if they woke up and saw these new colors. The treated animals unquestionably responded to the colors that had been invisible to them.” It took over a year and a half to test the monkey’s ability to discern 16 hues, which is one of the main properties of color. The two monkeys that are being used for this experiment and research are named Dalton and Sam; these are not just random names given to the monkeys, there is an actual reason as to why they were given these names. Dalton is named after an English chemist named John Dalton who realized he was colorblind and published the first paper about the condition in 1798.

It has now been two years since both of these monkeys have been able to see in color. Continuing to let the monkeys play with the computer and also have their vision checked is part of their enrichment. With this discovery, researches are able to a vision disorder in primates in which all photoreceptors are intact and healthy, and also providing a hint of gene therapy’s full potential to restore vision. 1 in 30,000 Americans have a heredity form of blindness called acromatopsia which causes nearly complete colorblindness and extremely poor central vision. These will be the patients that will be targeted for almost the exact same treatment as the primates. There are still many questions being asked about safety in gene therapy treatment, but it has been done successfully on the primates and it will only be a matter of time until it will be successfully done on human beings.

Sources:

1. NewsRx Health and Science. "University of Florida; Scientists cure color blindness in monkeys." (2009): 198-98. Print.

2. Dell'Amore, Christine. "Color-Blindness cured by gene injection in monkeys." National Geographic. National Geographic News, 16 Sept. 2009. Web. .

Tom Robinson's Photography

Works Cited:

Robinson, Tom. Tom Robinson Photography. 27 Oct. 2009.
http://www.tomrobinsonphotography.com/.
Robinson, Tom. "About Tom Robinson Photography." Flickr.com. Oct. 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2009.
http://www.flickr.com/people/tomrobinsonphotography/.

Tom Robinson is an independent photographer who has spent the last year travelling to different locations around the world, documenting his different experiences with photographs. I found his work via the Firefox application, StumbleUpon, while looking for ideas of what to use for the blog presentation. When I first started looking at his photos, I was a little standoffish because of the giant dead bird displayed as his opening photograph on the home page, but as I viewed more and more of his work I grew to really like his style. The colors, focus, lighting, and subjects of the photographs are impeccable.

His techniques, as he explains, “I very rarely crop photos. I love horizontal lines in photos ie. horizon lines, buildings etc. I love composing photos with a lot of sky and a bit of ground (or vice versa). I rarely use a flash. I often under expose by 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop to preserve highlights” (Robinson). He even discusses the simplicity of editing the photos, “I don't go mad when post processing my photos, it's usually just levels, saturation, white balance and vignetting” (Robinson). After reading this, it really affected the impressiveness of his photos, because it really is revealing the true beauty of nature, rather than Photoshopping it a hundred times to make something average appear bright and beautiful.

I wasn't quite sure if I was going to present his work to the class until I saw the “Feet First” section of his website. I basically fell in love with this part of his portfolio because not only does it show every place they've been to in a magnificent shot, but it also shows their feet (and the changes they go through – like shoes and nail polish) as they experience each location. As I scrolled down through each one of the photos in the other sections, the natural beauty of the world and the different cultures became quite clear to me. However, this section seemed to speak to me even more because when you're looking at photos of different subjects, you seem to forget that the photographer was ever really there, experiencing it. I liked the Feet First section because it added that taste of the experience to the art themselves as if it tells the story of their adventure. The best part of my viewing experience was in the end, after looking at all these photographs and after wondering who that second pair of feet belonged to, there's a picture at the bottom of the page of Tom Robinson and his girlfriend taking a picture of their feet!

I would definitely consider his photographs to be art because they are not only aesthetically pleasing, but they also took a lot of thought, time, money, and experience to make them what they are. He explains in his profile on Flickr, how much time it took to decide on which camera to bring, alone. I think the context of each photograph definitely added to my aesthetic experience, as proven by the Feet First section. As for placing it in one of the quartets, I had a lot of trouble, because I could place it in all four. I think it's obviously Mimetic because the photographs imitate the actual location, Instrumental because it has the power to inspire its viewers (to travel or take-up photography), and Emotionalist because each photo seems to evoke different emotions from its viewers, and Formalist because of the actual technical alignments and subjects of the photographs.

All in all, his work really got me excited about studying abroad next year, and inspired me to start documenting all the places I visit along the way. It also made me admire the perfection of his photographs and started getting me thinking about taking Photography as an elective. Do you like his work as much as I did? Why or why not? Did it inspire you? What quartet do you think it reflects the most?

Hip Hop Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9eronBc-VE

This is a preview of a hip hop performance at the Moore Theater in Seattle, Washington. Directly correlated with the Seattle Theater Group, “Dance This” is a camp and group of high school dancers that come together to perform many different styles of dance. This program welcomes and encourages students from grades 9-12 at any level of dance experience to learn styles and techniques in dancing and performing art. This is a non-profit art program where dancers, performers, and choreographers can come together to share culture and talent through dance. It is renewed each year and new members are welcomed to join and perform new dances. While the “Dance This” camp focuses on many different styles of dance, including ballet, jazz, salsa, etc, I chose to focus on the hip hop performance titled “Orchestrate The Groove” they gave in 2007 because it is a passion of mine that I can relate well with. I found this work on YouTube, and previewed the full version of this dance as well, which is just an expanded and more complex piece to what I have chose to view in class.

When finding an aesthetically pleasing piece of art for this assignment, I knew that I wanted to find a dance clip, in particular hip hop, because I personally find it so entertaining and a beautiful example of art. This performance is so unique because it contained people of different cultures and dance backgrounds who came together to create this work of art. I am a hip hop dancer myself, and could relate well to this performance because just like them, I am taught new choreography, how to work and sync with others for a performance, and how to show and produce emotion in my dance to evoke emotion in the audience or viewers minds. I found it so fascinating that not all of these dancers were experienced and some had never danced before. Knowing this made it that much better because I could tell how much effort and work went into the preparation for the performance.

Unlike paintings or sculptures that have annotated blurbs about the content within them, a dance piece is left open to the viewers interpretations of what is happening. Dance is like ‘not having the background information before looking at a painting’ because you are required to look and see within the piece to find the meaning of it. This dance is somewhat easier in determining the meaning because there are lyrics in the song that the dancers relate moves to. Also, the expression and emotions the dancers portray give the viewer a sense of how to feel when viewing the piece and how the music makes you feel because it puts you in that particular mood. With the remix of songs in this performance, the dancers are expressing the lyrics of the songs and are telling a story through the words and their dance. The choreographers’ (Napoleon Tabitha D'umo and Daniel Cruz) technique to help the viewers understand what was being expressed was to use many different songs to incorporate variety and word usage in their dance.

In my opinion, this is clearly art because it took both the dancers and the choreographers’ skill and effort to learn and create and perform the dance. They are able to evoke emotion in the viewers (whether it is positive or negative) and make them find some sort of meaning or reasoning behind the dance. While I feel it is important to these artists that they receive an emotion from the viewers, I think the “Quartet of Tradition” that this would be categorized under would be the formalist theory. Because the dance performance itself has no real context or meaning besides the words brought to the piece, and the reasons behind each of the dancer’s intent is unimportant, it seems that the way this dance was made and how the artists formed a performance out of their moves defines this piece of art. It is valued with aesthetic properties because it informs the viewers of a story through by the visual aspects used, and the way the viewers can envision the story. But could it be considered under another one of Anderson’s theories?

I’ve noticed that both in the world around us and our classroom, in particular, we seem to judge art based on our own relation to it and whether we can define it as art or not. What I mean is that I define this performance as art because I am a dancer, and can relate what I do and what they are doing to a form of art. Other students might think otherwise because it doesn’t flat out describe what is being told and doesn’t have a purpose in mind. So my question to you all is…do you think we are more subjective to art we don’t know or can’t relate with? Do we tend to question the unfamiliar forms of art because we can’t, ourselves, see what the purpose behind it is?

Sources:

Dance This… “Orchestrate The Groove.” 2007. Online video clip. YouTube. Accessed on 19 October 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9eronBc-VE

"Young Artists at Centrum: DANCE This." Centrum: Washington's home for artists and audiences. 26 Oct. 2009 .

John Stephens Genesis II

Matt Eschbach
Aesthetic Expressions
10/26/09

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/15/1569/YFXDD00Z/genesis-ii.jpg

Genesis II is a poster depicting the creation of the Earth. Up above in the sky you can see the image of what looks like stained glas windows, symbolizing Heaven. From Heaven water is being poured onto the Earth. This water flows down a stream and off the edge into the cosmos into a vortex. To me it symbolizes the link between the divine, the earthly, and the cosmos in general. The bright colors used in this work make it very pleasing to look at.

The main thing that made me choose this work to post was my initial reaction to seeing it. I was struck by the brightness of the colors he used and by the inclusion of the mysterious cosmic hole at the bottom that the water fell into. It really is impressive how Stephens incorporated such bright colors and a sense of connection into this work and gets the viewer's eye to follow the flow of water from Heaven into the vortex.

Although Stephens' primary joy was painting, this poster was created while he was involved with commercial works, and the images in this poster are created with digital imaging.

The following info on the artist, John Stephens, was taken directly from http://www.orangecountyfineart.com/stephens.htm.
"His work has been displayed in many art galleries across the country. His work is in the permanent collection of the Flemming Museum at the University of Vermont in Burlington.
During the nineties he worked intensively for New York Publishing firms, including Simon & Schuster, St Martins Press, Ballantine, creating book covers for computer games. He has created art work for STAR TREK, TOM CLANCY, PETER BENCHELY, among other projects.
By the late nineties he was heavily involved with commercial projects, mainly resort development and architectural rendering of various kinds.
Posters, including "Genesis" and "The Lady of Shalot" have enjoyed good world-wide sales, especially in Europe.
However, painting has always been his primary passion and something he would like to devote more of his time to."

Stephens, John. Genesis II. art.com.

Improv Everywhere (111 Shirtless Men in 5th Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch)

Improv everywhere is a comedic performance art group in New York City who pulls non-threatening pranks. They do all sorts of things from having over 160 people "forget" to wear their pants while riding the subway, or having over 200 people freeze in grand central station for 5 minutes. The freeze video has been a huge youtube hit, however i saw this video and i beleive it makes more of an artistic and satirical statement than a "haha look at us" statement.

The target of improv everywhere is the ambercrombie & fitch store on 5th avenue. The apparent reason is because of the shirtless model, the photos of shirtless men, the paintings of shirtless men, and a bronze statue of a shirtless man all in the store. After a little research the leader of improv everywhere Charlie Todd found out it was not illegal to take off your shirt in public in New York, so devised this sinister plan. The plan was the brutality of the average.

All of the men were in no way models, they were average, imperfect, unlike the models, or the photos of models, or the paintings of models, or the sculptures of models in the store. The plan was simple, walk around shirtless and act as if they were shopping, fully clothed.

but what awaits is the ultimate question, is this art? I say yes, it is making a satirical statement, mocking a clothing corporations image of the ideal man. These men are expressing their opinion of what they think of abercrombie's ideal man. They do it in a comedic harmless matter.

This is more of an abstract artistic statement but it is clearly there. But Todd used shirtless men as a medium to create his piece, it may be too abstract for some to see, but this is clearly an artistic statement, and in my mind and Todd's mind, clearly art.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdeBp8J0rqs

Military Grade Spray Bandages

The Center for Military Biomaterials Research (CeMBR) which is part of the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials at Rutgers University has developed literally a spray bandage, it was and still is intended for military use, a dual syringe system that has two plymers that when they are mixed they react rapidly and form a gel "dressing" that supposedly "conforms to the geometry of the wound and adheres to intact skin but not the injured tissue" it also resists abrasian.

So in layman's terms this company called Bio Cure Inc has developed a spray that does more than traditional gauze bandages, to be used for military first aid, it was meant to be so easy that a soldier could treat themselves if they needed to. There has also been talk about civilian uses in the future. This idea has been in the works for some time now, it has just recently been approved by the Food and Drug Adminitration.

But wait there's more! Supposedly Bio Cure has been talking about medicated versions of the spray to fight off infection and to stop severe bleeding form lacerations. This is a huge leap forward in the world of medicine. This will exponentially help burn victims. And when used on the front lines it will save soldiers lives, especially because it can be administered by the wounded, so if someone was stranded and bleeding out, if they had this spray, they would be alright if the wound wasn't too severe.

There has been no talk of when this magical spray will be available to the public, nor has there been any discussion of how much it will cost, or relative availability. I could not find what these two polymers were made of. There can only be speculation about when us civilian common folk will be able to see this, it is certain that it will not be for a few years.

Joachim Kohn is a principal investigator of CeMBR and the Board of Governers Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers University, he said the collaborated work between the military, Bio Cure, and Rutgers to get it to pass the FDA approval took about three and a half years.

All we know is that when this becomes availible to the public, it will forever change medicine, it has been speculated that the gel can be used to treat diabetic ulcers, ostomies, and post-operation wounds. More or less the sky is the limit with this gel solution, it certainly will revolutionize first aid care and medicine as we know it.

Adult Stem Cell Discovery

Matt Kavanagh
Scientific Revolutions
Core 210-10
Stem Cell Discovery
LINKS
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091018141615.htm
http://stemcells.nih.gov/index.asp

Early Monday morning, on the 19th of October 2009, ScienceDaily.com reported great progress on the efficiency of stem cells from adult tissue, as opposed to that of the controversial embryonic stem cells.
A science team from The Scripps Research Institute recently developed a way of creating stem cells from human adult tissue, without the use of any embryonic cells whatsoever.
The new method they discovered uses three tiny drug-like chemicals and has proven to be 200 times more efficient and twice as fast turning human cells into stem cells.
“Both in terms of speed and efficiency, we achieved major improvements over conventional conditions. This is the first example in human cells of how reprogramming speed can be accelerated. I believe that the field will quickly adopt this method, accelerating iPS cell (induced plurpotent stem cells) research significantly,” said Scripps Research Associate Professor Sheng Ding, Ph. D., also known as the man leading the study.
The team ran into two big problems along the way, preventing progress to be made to bring forth the day when stem cells can be used. First was that two of the chemicals that are used are proven cancer-causing genes (c0Myc and Oct4) must be made completely safe to avoid genetic manipulation. The second problem was that they needed to make for a more efficient process as the current success rate was one in about 10,000 cells would turn out to be a usable stem cell, of which took approximately four weeks from start to finish. This information on the creation of human stem cells was released in December of 2007, and from there on out Ding and his team worked hard to figure out how to fix the problems.
The first problem regarding safety was solved earlier this year when the researchers found out they could use purified proteins to reduce the adult cells back to a state similar to embryonic cells, which are more capable of acting as scientist hope stem cells can be used in the future, which will be explained later.
To cure the efficiency problem, Ding and his team tested many, many drug-like molecules, looking for TGFb (transforming growth factor beta) and MEK (mitogen-activated protein kinase). When they found the most active compounds, they looked to see how this could help improve the efficiency of the stem cell creation.
The science team found that the chemicals ALK5 inhibitor SB43142 and MEK inhibitor PD0325901 used together is extremely successful in transforming the adult cells into stem cells. The use of these two chemicals boosted the process speed 100 times faster than the former genetic method.
However, Ding thought he could do better and he was right. Using a compound known as Thiazovivin with the two other chemicals, the speed improved to 200 times faster than the genetic method, and the completion time also got better, rather than it taking four weeks to create the stem cells, it only takes two.
Also worth noting is Ding’s emphasis that this new method, while fast, is also safe as the process is based on natural biological processes, and the substances used in creating the new and improved, faster and safer stem cell transformation have been tested in humans.
So what qualifies a proper stem cell that can be used for transplant?
• Ability to create significant amount of tissue
• Transform into desired cell type
• Survive in the patient after being introduced into their body
• Adapt/ integrate into surrounding tissue after transplant
• Function as expected for the recipients life time
• Doesn’t harm recipient
For those that don’t know, stem cells have the ability to transform themselves into many different types of cells such as muscle cells, red blood cells, or even brain cells. They also have the remarkable ability to divide and either remain a stem cell, or adapt into another type of cell, of which they will then work to repair the bodily damage brought on by disease or injuries.
The list of problems stem cells can fix is quite impressive to say the least, but what is really miraculous is that scientists will be able to use the stem cells to test new drugs and medicines, which could potentially lead to even more curing discoveries. What is known about stem cells is that they can transform into different cells which means they can be used to replace damaged cells in order to treat countless health problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, forms of arthritis, cancer, and even birth defects, etc. The length of which stem cells can be used is unknown.
As we’ve discussed in class, new science is built on old science/discoveries. It must be understood that stem cell research began in the early 80’s, and it’s over time that improvements have led Ding and his colleagues to develop this great achievement in adult stem cell research.
In conclusion, to discuss my feelings on why this is an important scientific finding almost feels like I wasted the last two pages explaining how this new method is far superior to the ways of the past. Clearly, it’s a huge step in the right direction as the safety and efficiency of stem cells has been improved so drastically by Ding and his team that it would take a very distant person to downplay the significance of these discoveries. Ding’s accomplishments greatly advance the study of adult stem cells.
The impact this will have on our world will be huge. When summing up what stem cells are capable of doing, that is transforming to heal the body in many ways that no other things can sometimes do, it’s impossible not to believe that the day stem cells are ready for human use, the world will change as diseases, injuries, health conditions, and body conditions suffered by people throughout the world will have the best possible chance to be cured. It’s the medicine of all medicine.
Sources Used

Scripps Research Institute. "Major Step In Making Better Stem Cells From Adult Tissue." ScienceDaily 19 October 2009. 19 October 2009 .

"What are the potential uses of human stem cells and the obstacles that must be overcome before these potential uses will be realized? [Stem Cell Information]." NIH Stem Cell Information Home Page. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. .