2007 Winning Essays

Congratulations to the winners of the 2007 Essay Contest! We know our winners will have an interesting and educational experience in the research laboratory this summer and we encourage them to  write another short essay on how they felt about their internship and will post them here later this summer.

Julia, Canyon del Oro High School, Oro Valley, AZ
Arya, Horizon High School, Scottsdale, AZ
Jordan, Desert Mountain High School, Scottsdale, AZ
Carli, Canyon del Oro High School, Oro Valley, AZ

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Biomedical Breakthroughs Lengthen Lives
by Julia, Canyon del Oro High School, Oro Valley, AZ

Eight years ago, a woman named Joyce Muhlestein was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma is described as, "Any of a large group of cancers of the immune system…There are many different types of NHL, which can be divided into aggressive (fast-growing) and indolent (slow-growing) types." The cancer that Joyce had was the fast growing type, and it was non-operable, so the best treatment at the time was to use Chemotherapy. What this does is it attacks all of the fast growing cells in the body. This not only includes the cancer, but also hair follicles, stomach lining, skin, and a host of other cells. Because of this Joyce had to suffer with cachexia and alopecia totalis. Cachexia is a clinical wasting syndrome, while alopecia totalis is the complete loss of all hair. She also received sores in her mouth and throat, and she lost feeling in her fingers and toes. However, after all of that trauma, the chemotherapy won, and the cancer finally went into remission.

That woman, Joyce Muhlestein, is my grandma. I love her very much, and I was delighted when the first episode of cancer was defeated. Because of the chemotherapy, my family and I had the opportunity to spend three more years with her. In the time that the chemotherapy bought her, we spent many hours together, even two Christmas’s. Without the chemotherapy, should would have not been able to go on a cruise with many of her family, and we would not have been able to make the memories that will stay with us forever. However, the remission of the cancer did not last long. Three years after the first diagnosis, the cancer returned.

During those three years, through biomedical research, a new type of cancer fighting treatment, called Rituxan, was discovered. According to www.lymphomation.org, what Rituxan does is it "…circulates in the lymphatic system and tissue. It binds specifically to the CD20 antigen, a molecule present on the surface of the normal and malignant pre-B and mature B cells… Once bound to B-cells, Rituxan induces lysis (destruction of the cell)." If the cancer victim’s immune system is up to par, then this treatment will work. However, because the chemotherapy had torn her immune system down, the Rituxan was unable to function correctly, and my grandmother passed away in 2003. If the Rituxan had been discovered sooner, my grandma could have been with us longer and lived a better lifestyle, rather than suffering through years of pain.

Rituxan was made possible by animal research. Lymphomation.org explained that, "Rituxan is genetically engineered from portions of mouse and human antibodies and is produced through recombinant DNA technology." Rituxan is a monoclonal antibody. According to Wikipedia, monoclonal antibodies are, "Antibodies that are identical because they were produced by one type of immune cell and are clones of a single parent cells. Given (almost) any substance, it is possible to create monoclonal antibodies that specifically bind to that substance; they can then serve to detect or purify that substance." Rituxan is made by taking a sample of cancer cells, and then inserting them into a rat. The rat’s immune system creates antibodies that are made specifically for destroying that type of cancer. Those antibodies are then taken from the rat’s spleen or lymph nodes and fused with myeloma tumor cells. These combined cells create more antibodies, and these antibodies are then given to the original cancer patient. Without animal research, this way of fighting cancer would not be possible.

By providing three more years of time with my grandma, biomedical research has permanently made a positive impact on the lives of me and my family. However, because biomedical research had not progressed sooner, my grandma was unable to spend more time with us. Thanks to the animal research, though, thousands of people are still being saved.

Julia, Interned at the University of Arizona Environmental Research Lab

During my summer internship at the ERL, I learned what it's like to work hard in a new environment. I learned how to feed fish, move them from tank to tank, collect fry, clean up after the fish by cleaning the tanks, cleaning out the filters, and how to distinguish between male and female tilapia.

I learned about how to handle shrimp and how to clean up after them. I got experience in weighing out supplements of food and in weighing fish.  I also worked with an aquaponics system; I fed the fish, filled water tanks, and eventually harvested and weighed the lettuce that was grown.

At the ERL, I learned the basics of website making and I helped update the website. I also made a flyer for the ISTA 8 convention. This summer was definitely a learning experience.

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Imagine you live in Connecticut. Every day, you go to work, take care of your kids, walk your dogs, and lead a generally active life. One day, you look outside and see a deer wandering in your yard. You think, "Oh look, a deer!," then think no more of it. The last thought running through your head? "Lyme disease! Run!" Life has a habit of catching us by surprise, even if it’s after we forget about Bambi, our dear little vector of disease.

"They’re tons of little rashes, and they look like little bulls-eyes," explained my exasperated cousin Bita. After her first docuter told her she had contracted chicken pox, ignoring the fact that she had chicken pox as a child, Bita contacted other doctors, asking for second opinions. "I’m so tired," was the phrase she uttered most. That was a total understatement. This once bubbly social butterfly was now confined to her home, debilitated by pounding headaches, memory loss, and crippling fatigue. She was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis, among other diseases. Her chronic joint pain was written off as arthritis. As her condition worsened, she had body aches and heart palpitations. Again and again she was misdiagnosed with everything imaginable except Lyme disease. After carefully listening to her story, one of her doctors finally ordered a host of more specific tests. He recognized the "bulls-eye" rash as a typical Lyme symptom. Her ELISA test came back negative, but her Western blot test clearly detected antibodies associated with Lyme disease (the Western blot test having been identified as an effective clinical diagnosing tool in 1992 , and confirmed through guinea pig testing in 1993 . She now had a concrete diagnosis of Lyme Disease.

Normally, when Lyme disease is identified, a course of doxycycline is administered to clear the spirochetal bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi . However, in Bita’s advanced case, a host of different drugs were administered. Why? The original infectious agent, Borrelia, weakened her immune cells by attacking B- and T- cells . This allowed other normally treatable microorganisms (transferred during the tick bite) to manifest as opportunistic infection. For example, Bita was given the anti-malarial, anti-arthritic drug Plaquenil, to deal with her co-infection of the protozoan Babesia microti. Because her (bacterial) Lyme disease itself was so advanced, Bita was given the antibiotics cefuroxime, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, rofecoxib, and doxycycline. The progenitor to most antibiotics, penicillin, was initially tested on rats by Ernst Chain and Howard Florey in Oxford . Even now, almost all antibiotics are tested on animals (looking even harder, almost every medical device, tool, or drug was tested on animals, but who’s counting?).

After prolonged course of powerful medication, Bita slowly regained her memory and her energy was slowly restored. She now takes acetaminophen and aspirin, two drugs that were tested on animals during development, to deal with her lingering chronic headaches and joint pain. These medications are one minor way that animal testing has improved Bita’s quality of life.

Products of animal testing took care of Bita’s infection, and helped with lingering symptoms. The high point of animal testing, the animal model, is where the benefit pours in. While it is possible to identify the agent of disease and to theorize treatments without animals, a live infection in a host animal is often required. In animal models, a disease is recreated in an animal (that is as closely related to humans as possible) which is then studied to determine effects and treatments of infection. In the case of a study in 1995, Lyme-positive ticks were used to infect Rhesus monkeys. This model showed that Lyme disease can cause "articular cartilage necrosis [and] degenerative arthropathy" (causing symptoms of arthritis), as well as "focal demyelinization of the spinal cord [and] peripheral neuropathy" (causing symptoms of multiple sclerosis). Based on these discoveries, further research into human patients indicated that occasionally, Lyme disease and multiple sclerosis may be misdiagnosed as the other, and that advanced Lyme disease may in fact mimic multiple sclerosis . Thanks to this animal model, patients can receive proper diagnoses before reaching the advanced stage of Lyme from which Bita suffered.

People constantly talk about extending life expectancy. What’s the point if the quality of life is so horrible that it cannot be enjoyed? This particular kind of animal research allows the quality, not quantity, of life to be improved, and in Bita’s case, has certainly been a godsend. From a bedridden shell to a restored bright young woman, Bita is slowly regaining her life, thanks to biomedical research using animals.

Arya, Interned at Barrow Neurological Institute, Behavioral Neurogenetics Lab 

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The Power of Sound
by Jordan, Desert Mountain High, Scottsdale, AZ

"Awww she’s so cute!" That was the remark everybody would say the first time they saw my cousin. As a baby, Katherine had eyes of an angel, a lovable personality, but she had one little quirk: she would never exhibit a response to sound, but only to vibrations and touch. I still remember my aunt with tears on her cheek when audiologists confirmed that Katherine was deaf, which explained her abnormality. Luckily though, Katherine has become one of approximately 100,000 people globally to undergo surgery for a Cochlear implant. My entire family was apprehensive about 2-year-old Katherine receiving an irreversible surgery. However, we have become very grateful for this life-changing device. The cochlear implant allows her to experience a significant improvement of life. But without the help of animals, Cochlear implants would’ve never existed and Katherine would’ve never enjoyed the power of sound.

Cochlear implant is a device that is surgically implanted to provide partial hearing. It consists of four parts: a microphone, speech processor, transmitter, and an electrode array. After the electrode array is surgically implanted into the cochlear to bypass the damaged part of the ear, the transmitter sends electrical impulses to the electrode array stimulating the auditory nerve to operate. Unlike a hearing aid, the Cochlear implant sends signals to the brain as a representation of sound whereas a hearing aid simply amplifies the sound from the environment.

In the 1700’s, Count Volta proved, through experimentation with frog legs, that animal tissues were an unnecessary component in the production of electricity, which was shown through his creation of the battery. Count Volta later attached these batteries to metal rods and placed them in his ear. He felt a jolt in his head and heard a "boiling sound," which, in actuality, was an electrical stimulation in the auditory nerve. Through animal experimentation around the 1940’s, Hallowell Davis and Robert Galambos discovered that the auditory nerve and the Corti organ organized sounds from the outside into 24 different channels. Due to this key finding, researchers began to place electrodes into the cochlea to allow deaf patients to determine the pitch of a sound.

As a result, Graeme Clark utilized research done by Davis and Galambos to create the first Cochlear implant. Throughout the entire process, Clark was adamant about using animals as a source of experimentation instead of risking the lives of humans, despite the fact that his exploitation of animals upset many people. However, after Clark’s invention, many studies have employed animals as a measure of precaution and extensive study for the device. For example, studies on animals such as Macaque monkeys have established that Cochlear implants in humans, especially young children, would have no detrimental effect on the growth rate of the cranium. In a recent study from John Hopkins University, scientists chose cats as the tested animals because of their similar nerve fibers to humans. In the study, half of the cats were implanted with devices similar to Cochlear implants while the other deaf cats received no treatment. Cats with implants exhibited synaptic vesicles, which contain chemicals needed to transmit signals between the nerve fibers, while the cats untreated lacked synaptic vesicles. Scientists believe that synaptic vesicles developed easily with the aid of the device because the cats had not reached adulthood.

They have concluded that implantations are more effective for humans who have not hit puberty. Katherine is living proof that early implantation along with post-implant speech therapy is successful. In fact, her nasal "twang" tone, common amongst the deaf population, is inconspicuous. Furthermore, she has impressed many musically with her ability to become skilled on the violin, an instrument that requires immaculate listening and intonation skills.

While other parents find it stressful to deal with a pre-teenage daughter, our family is grateful to watch her argue extensively with her brother, bravely sing karaoke, dance to hip-hop music, and chat profusely on the phone.

Even more amazing are current studies that transplant embryonic stem cells in deafened guinea pigs to replace damaged neurons of the cochlear thereby improving the efficacy of cochlear implants.

Animal welfare groups may demonstrate against such research; however, thanks to regulations and institutions complying with Animal Welfare Act, fantastic studies are ongoing allowing Katherine to continue to enhance her experience the many facets of life. However, I hope, one day, she will appreciate that the lives of many animals have been sacrificed for her safety, for her happiness, and for HER to experience the power of sound.

Jordan, interned at Barrow Neurological Institute Neuroimmunology Lab

As I looked back on this summer, I realize the great experience I had working in the Neuroimmunology Laboratory at Barrow Neurological Institute.  Specifically, the Neuroimmunology Laboratory focuses on research regarding Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and its animal version Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE).  Multiple Sclerosis is a demylenating disease that affects the Central Nervous System through the neurons in the brain and spinal chord.  MS gradually destroys the myelin surrounding the neurons, which causes the neurons to become impaired and uneffective.

Working under my mentor, Mrs. Rhodes, I began to learn laboratory techniques, including proper instrument-usage, and other various methods that are utilized in the laboratory daily.  As I became more familiar, I began to work with both Mrs.  Rhodes and Dr. Kala.  Dr. Kala gave me many articles concerning how different cell groups could affect the intensity of MS and EAE.  Eventually, I began to observe the reactions of these cell groups in a process called “Mice Scoring.”  After a group of mice were injected with EAE, Dr. Kala injected immunities from certain cell groups into their system.  I observed how certain cell groups affected the mice based on the intensity of their symptoms, including paralyzed hind legs and tail, over a period of time. 

I am excited to continue working in the Neuroimmunology Laboratory in the fall.  This internship has given me a different perspective on science I never realized, enhancing my interest in the field of science and medicine.  I want to thank SWAEBR for providing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.  It is an experience I will never forget.

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The Hope for a Cure
by Carli, Canyon del Oro High School, Oro Valley, AZ

In 1906, Alois Alzheimer first discovered what is now a relatively common disease. As a psychiatrist and neuropathologist, he saw many patients with disorders involving the brain. As a worker at an asylum in Frankfurt, Germany, he first encountered Mrs. Auguste D. She was recorded to display signs of an "unusual disease of the cerebral cortex" which was characterized by memory loss, disorientation, and hallucinations. At the time this was not uncommon among people of advanced age, but Mrs. Auguste D. was unusual in that she was only in her early fifties. She died from the disease at age fifty-five. By examining her brain after her death, Alzheimer was able to identify several abnormalities. Her cerebral cortex was thinner than usual and a build up of plaque was found among neuro-fibrillary tangles. She was identified as the first Alzheimer’s patient. Alzheimer’s disease is now a well known affliction that affects millions of people and their families.

When my great-grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, it was a devastating blow to our family. Because of the deterioration of the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient is very gradual, it was not apparent at first that this was her affliction. About ten years ago we first began to see signs of her dementia. She wouldn’t remember that she had left the stove on or would forget minor details. At first we thought this was just a side effect of old age. When it started to get to the point that she didn’t remember that she had talked to my grandfather on the phone earlier in the day, we realized it was more than forgetfulness. At that point it was obvious that she couldn’t continue to live along. My paternal grandparents then decided it was best for her to move into a nursing home. She was very against this decision because it would take away all of her personal freedom. When she first got there it was only her short term memory that was gone. She would always ask to go home at the end of the day and could still recognize my grandparents and great-uncle. If you showed her an old family picture she would still be able to recognize their faces. About two years ago, it became very apparent that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s, not just dementia. I have not seen my grandmother in over four years, but about a year ago she still would have recognized me. If we went to visit her now she wouldn’t even know who we are. This is very saddening to my whole family and a cure would be a huge blessing.

Luckily, studies are being done on animals to try and find a cure for this devastating disease. An experiment that was recently conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School on Caribbean vervet monkeys has had promising results. A vaccine has been developed that helps clear away some of the amyloid beta protein which, when it builds up excessive amounts, is the primary cause of Alzheimer’s. This study was previously done on mice but is more significant now because monkeys produce the same amyloid beta proteins in the brain as humans. After the vaccine worked very well to clear away large amounts of the plaque from the monkey’s brains, it was then tested on humans. Unfortunately, the experiments had to be stopped midway because of brain inflammation. Even though there were no signs of inflammation in the brains of the monkeys, the researchers are now developing a safer vaccine that will hopefully work on humans. Another study of the same nature is being conducted by investigators at New York University School of Medicine. They are also working on a safer vaccine that is being tested on mice. This works in relatively the same way as the vaccine that was tested on the monkeys in that is helps to clear away the amyloid beta proteins.

There are very promising developments to someone who is directly affected by Alzheimer’s. I don’t believe that a safe vaccine will be developed in time to help my great-grandmother, but because Alzheimer’s is known to be genetic, hopefully it can help the rest of my family. There is a chance that I could develop the disease in the future and if I do, I want my family to have the peace of mind that there is treatment. If a safe vaccine is developed, it will affect over 4.5 million people who have this disease and the people who love them.

Due to a very busy summer schedule Carly opted to take the cash option