December 2007

Out of Mind When I was a medical student in the mid-1990s, many of the newer generation antipsychotics used to treat schizophrenia, such as risperidone and olanzapine, were just coming on the market. My psychiatry rotation was at the famed Bellevue Hospital in New York, and half of the unit to which I was assigned was filled with patients in clinical trials of many of those drugs. In many cases, these were double-blinded, placebo controlled trials, but that was a bit of a f

The Disease ARTICLE EXTRAS Living with Schizophrenia Robin Cunningham Marianne Emanuel A Very Expensive Disease Schizophrenia in Childhood This year, some 600,000 people will be diagnosed with schizophrenia. That's 600,000 lives - and many times that when you consider their families - thrown into what some have described as a living hell. People with the disease are far more likely to be jobless, ill with other diseases, and commit suicide. So it is approp

Living with Schizophrenia By Anne Harding Hallucinations are just the beginning: Negative symptoms and lowered expectations make for a tough day-to-day struggle. ARTICLE EXTRAS The Disease Robin Cunningham Marianne Emanuel A Very Expensive Disease Schizophrenia in Childhood Lina Sorenson, 49, knows when it's time for her to start taking her Stelazine for her schizophrenia. It begins with thinking she can control other people's thoughts a

A Very Expensive DiseaseBy Anne HardingFlaws in the system add to the tens of billions spent on schizophrenia every year, but advocates say there's little will to invest in fixing it. ARTICLE EXTRASThe DiseaseLiving with SchizophreniaRobin CunninghamMarianne EmanuelSchizophrenia in ChildhoodWhen Janet Edelman's brother became ill with schizophrenia, she and her parents went through a period of mourning for what they - and the rest of the world - had lost. "My brother should have been a profess

var FO = { movie:"http://images.the-scientist.com/supplementary/flash/53924/53924.swf", width:"520", height:"410", majorversion:"8", build:"0", xi:"true"}; UFO.create(FO, "ufoDemo"); Passive immunization and West Nile Virus By Edyta Zielinska In 1999, officials reported the first cases of West Nile Virus (WNV) in North America in eight New York City patients. Baxter Healthcare scientist Thomas Kreil realized that sera from infected patients might prote

1 This diagnosis is often difficult to confirm, because it is quite common for children to have magical thinking or beliefs, and they often report auditory hallucinations that occur upon waking or sleeping (hypnagogia or hypnopompia, respectively). In addition, children may not be able to articulate their psychotic symptoms as clearly as adolescents or adults, thus making the diagnosis less clear-cut. So, too, can other symptoms mistakenly resemble psychosis, including idiosyncratic thi

The EtiologyARTICLE EXTRASMolecular MysteriesGazing DownstreamSeeing SchizophreniaNeurotrailblazerPregnancy, Chromosomes, and ReceptorsAlthough science has made significant strides in the understanding of schizophrenia, in many ways its causes remain as mysterious today as they were when Eugen Bleuler coined the term in 1905. As Melinda Wenner describes in this section, the dopamine hypothesis that gave rise to a generation of antipsychotics has been forced to share the stage with a host of othe

1,2 "They have positive symptoms, they have negative symptoms, they have cognitive deficits that look very much like what you see in schizophrenia," says NYU's Javitt. For example, NMDA receptors are involved in the formation of memories but not in the retention of old memories; similarly, patients with schizophrenia have trouble forming, but not retaining, memories, Javitt says. NMDA receptors are also involved in pitch matching in the auditory cortex and in certain visual tasks, and schiz

What it takes to make an organ By Alison McCook Related Articles Betting on better organs Engineering an organ Two years ago, the first employees of Tengion walked into a 2,800 square meter warehouse in southeastern Pennsylvania that was full to the brim with office furniture, rising up to a 12-meter ceiling, and said: We'll take it. They cleared everything out and started to fill the empty space with rooms and equipment to automate something that had

Back pocket barcoder? By Bob Grant Related Articles Cataloging Life The Barcoding Factory Hiding in plain sight Slideshow: Barcoding the world The problem with plants It was 2003, and University of Guelph researcher Paul Hebert was taking heat from an audience of taxonomists and phylogeneticists at a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory seminar for suggesting that they barcode Earth's inhabitants using the CO1 mitochondrial gene. University of Pennsy

Cataloging Life Can a single barcode of DNA record biodiversity and keep us safe from poisons? By Bob Grant Related Articles 1 for soil nematodes, barcoding's genesis lies in a 2003 paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London2 by Paul Hebert, a Canadian researcher who some call "the father DNA barcoding," and colleagues. In that paper, Hebert's team proposed a universal animal barcode: a segment of roughly 650 base pairs of the mitochondria

var FO = { movie:"http://images.the-scientist.com/supplements/20071201/swf/infographic.swf", width:"520", height:"580", majorversion:"8", build:"0", xi:"true"}; UFO.create(FO, "ufoDemo"); 1 There are also consistent reductions in the size of the medial temporal lobe and the left neocortical superior temporal gyrus in patients with schizophrenia; those areas are responsible for declarative memory and auditory processing, respectively. Some studies have also found that the

The problem with plants By Bob Grant Related Articles Cataloging Life The Barcoding Factory Hiding in plain sight Slideshow: Barcoding the world Back pocket barcoder? Animal barcoders are on a tear. Every day they inch closer to completing a library of CO1 sequences from the planet's birds, fishes, mammals, and invertebrates. But researchers hoping to barcode Earth's plants are in a different boat. "Animal people are well on their way," sa

var FO = { movie:"http://images.the-scientist.com/supplementary/flash/53904/53904.swf", width:"530", height:"550", majorversion:"8", build:"0", xi:"true"}; UFO.create(FO, "ufoDemo"); Barcoding the world From Canada to Taiwan, barcoding is a truly global phenomenon. Researchers are conducting barcoding projects that aim to catalog Earth's trees, birds, and fish. Staff writer Bob Grant traveled to Taipei to attend the Second International Barcode of Life Conferen

Out of Mind When I was a medical student in the mid-1990s, many of the newer generation antipsychotics used to treat schizophrenia, such as risperidone and olanzapine, were just coming on the market. My psychiatry rotation was at the famed Bellevue Hospital in New York, and half of the unit to which I was assigned was filled with patients in clinical trials of many of those drugs. In many cases, these were double-blinded, placebo controlled trials, but that was a bit of a f

var FO = { movie:"http://images.the-scientist.com/supplementary/flash/53903/plainsight.swf", width:"425", height:"575", majorversion:"8", build:"0", xi:"true"}; UFO.create(FO, "ufoDemo"); Hiding in Plain Sight DNA barcoding can help uncover new species that are morphologically indistinguishable from closely related species. In some cases, these look-alikes were misidentified for decades. Here are some examples of species whose barcodes differ enough to be co

The Barcoding Factory How one facility sequences 125,000 barcodes per year By Bob Grant Related Articles Cataloging Life Hiding in plain sight Slideshow: Barcoding the world Back pocket barcoder? The problem with plants On an October afternoon, I watch as Kate Crosby uses a DNA extraction robot to purify genetic material from frog tissues that a researcher had sent to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO) to be barcoded. She loads the

Neurotrailblazer By Melinda Wenner Martha Shenton is pushing imaging boundaries in order to understand the schizophrenic brain © 2007 Jared Leeds ARTICLE EXTRAS The Etiology Molecular Mysteries Gazing Downstream Seeing Schizophrenia Pregnancy, Chromosomes, and Receptors Martha Shenton is what you might call a maverick. As the director of Brigham and Women's Hospital's Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory in Boston, s

From kinase to cancer The story of discovering PI3 kinase, and what it means for a fundamental pathway in cancer. By Lewis Cantley Related Articles 1 I suspected that this enzyme might be placing a phosphate on the 3 position of the inositol ring to produce phosphatidylinsitol-3-phosphate (PI-3-P), but I realized that this would be heretical to the field and would require rigorous chemical proof, since PI-3-P had not been previously described. So, at the Col

From kinase to cancer The story of discovering PI3 kinase, and what it means for a fundamental pathway in cancer. By Lewis Cantley In 1987 I attended a meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on phosphatidylinositol signaling that turned out to be pivotal for me. A few years earlier I'd helped show that a phosphatidylinositol (PI) kinase activity copurified with various oncoprotein tyrosine kinases, and that this association was critical for the ability of these oncoproteins to tran

Watching Wolfson In 12 years, the UK institute has produced 600 papers, 6 spin-offs, and 31 patents. Does this mean its unique approach is working? By Stephen Pincock Related Articles 1 and new details on how a nitric oxide-cGMP-dependent pathway controls mitochondrial biogenesis and the body's energy balance.2,3 The standout feature of the institute is the way it has managed to achieve genuine interaction among researchers of different disciplines,

A Troubled History Antipsychotics are effective, but carry significant side effects and cost. What's on the horizon? ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The Atypical Atypical? The next generation? The Lessons of CATIE Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Beyond Drugs Nonmedication Therapies Soon after antipsychotics entered the market in the 1950s, policymakers were so impressed with their benefits th

The Atypical Atypical? By Jonathan Scheff A new class of antipsychotics aims at NMDA receptors ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments A Troubled History First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The next generation? The Lessons of CATIE Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Beyond Drugs Nonmedication Therapies Until the 1980s, researchers didn't consider the excitatory amino acid N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) to be a receptor in mammalian brains. That began to c

First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs By Jonathan Scheff This table lists selected first-generation antipsychotic drugs. For a table of atypical agents, click here. For a table of the next generation of medications, click here. Drug Brand name(Manufacturer) Approval date Indications Mechanism Cost per 30-day supply* Contraindications/Adverse reactions Injection availability Other data Prochlorperazine October 1956 Seve

The next generation? ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments A Troubled History First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The Atypical Atypical? The Lessons of CATIE Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Beyond Drugs Nonmedication Therapies This table lists a selection of antipsychotics in the pipeline. For a story on a new class of drugs some are referring to as the "atypical atypicals," click here. For a table of first-generation drugs, click here. For a table of a

Spun out: Companies born at Wolfson The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research was established to bring together the best of industry and academia, so it isn't surprising that several spinout companies have emerged from its walls in recent years. By Stephen Pincock Related Articles Watching Wolfson Ark Therapeutics (1997) has several products in late-stage clinical development, including a gene-based therapy for glioma with orphan drug sta

The Lessons of CATIE By Jonathan Scheff The landmark study found that older antipsychotics were just as effective as newer ones. Is anyone listening? ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments A Troubled History First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The Atypical Atypical? The next generation? Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Beyond Drugs Nonmedication Therapies When the results of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) were

Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs This table lists the atypical antipsychotics. For a story on the lessons of the CATIE trial, click here. For a table of first-generation drugs, click here. For a table of drugs in the pipeline, click here. Drug Brand name(Manufacturer) Approval date Indications Mechanism Cost per 30-day supply* Contraindications/Adverse reactions Injection availability Other data Clozapine Clozaril (N

Beyond Drugs By Anne Harding People with schizophrenia need support systems, not just medications, to get well and stay healthy. ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments A Troubled History First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The Atypical Atypical? The next generation? The Lessons of CATIE Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Nonmedication Therapies Recovery from schizophrenia is much like being rescued from an island years after being shi

Nonmedication Therapies By Anne Harding Cognitive behavioral therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation may play a role in treatment ARTICLE EXTRAS The Treatments A Troubled History First-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs The Atypical Atypical? The next generation? The Lessons of CATIE Second-Generation Antipsychotic Drugs Beyond Drugs Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is increasingly being recognized as a helpful approach for people with schizophren

Related Articles Chasing Rainbows How to Maximize Immunofluorescence Multiplexing Cutting crossover Unsticking Staying bright User: Pok Man Mendy Chan, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York The project: Studying expression of G-protein coupled receptors in striatal neurons and their involvement Parkinson's disease. The problem: Metabolically active tissue from postmortem brains in Chan's studies shows high levels of background fluorescence. The s

How to make the most of multicolor immunofluorescence

Related Articles Chasing Rainbows How to Maximize Immunofluorescence Multiplexing Background glow Cutting crossover Staying bright User: Xiaohu Gao, University of Washington, Seattle The project: Characterizing tumor tissue by analyzing as many as five coexpressed proteins in clinical tissue biopsies. The problem: Gao wanted to use quantum dots (Invitrogen) because they allow easier multiplexing, but dots pose two serious aggregation problems. First, each qu

A mesenchymal cell labeled with three dye-conjugated antibodies and a nuclear stain. The top left image is a composite of the four markers. Credit: Courtesy of Matthias Schieker, University of Münich" />A mesenchymal cell labeled with three dye-conjugated antibodies and a nuclear stain. The top left image is a composite of the four markers. Credit: Courtesy of Matthias Schieker, University of Münich User: Matthias Schieker, University of Munich, Germany The p

Related Articles Chasing Rainbows Background glow Cutting crossover Unsticking Staying bright Combine dots and dyes to label the most proteins simultaneously. By doing this, Mario Roederer's group at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., can image 17 colors in its flow cytometry experiments. Stuart Sealfon of Mount Sinai School of Medicine recommends saving quantum dots for the proteins that are the most difficult to pick up, while using org

A confocal section of a cell labeled with three quantum dot-conjugated antibodies. Credit: Courtesy of Diane Lidke, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque" />A confocal section of a cell labeled with three quantum dot-conjugated antibodies. Credit: Courtesy of Diane Lidke, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque User: Diane Lidke, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque The project: Labeling as many as six proteins si