November 26-28, 2010 will be the very first TAM! Australia in Sydney. In the first round of guest announcements made last night at the Brisbane annual convention, are international sceptical singer George Hrab, The team from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, The Amazing Randi, Brian Dunning from Skeptoid, and local acts Dr Krissy Wilson and Dr Karl.

The venue is the Sydney Masonic Centre right in the heart of Sydney.

The latest line-up and ticketing details are now on the Australian Skeptics website and will updated as news comes to hand.

ARGHHHH! Run for the hills, it's a Helminth!

We had talks about scabies in the Aboriginal population, the mites that spread the disease, and I interviewed Dr Alex Loukas, parasitologist from the Queensland Institute for Medical Research. Dr Loukas has an interest in a member of the Helminth family the hookworm, and is currently working on developing a vaccine against the infection.

Hookworms are no longer a big problem for humans in Australia, but remain a health risk in the developing world. The manifestation of a serious hookworm infection is anaemia from a loss of blood, corresponding with low levels of iron.

Like the malaria parasite I wrote about in my previous post, hookworms consume the haemoglobin component of blood and they do this by latching onto the walls of the intestine and leeching blood into their gut. They then excrete the left overs out through their anus.

Which brings me to the pornography part of Alex’s talk yesterday. He has a video taken during a routine colonoscopy (which failed to work during the presentation and I can’t say that I am really sorry) showing a dog hookworm attached to the inside of a human patient’s intestine. According to Alex, it precisely demonstrates this process.

He refers to it as “pornography for parasitologists”. And people say scientists are weird.

But seriously, the main focus of Alex’s work is to develop a vaccine for hookworm. This might sound a bit strange to you at first, since many of us would know that there is already one available for dogs. Alex told me however that this vaccine, whilst a viable technology to adapt for human use, is far too expensive to use in the developing world. This is because it is an “attenuated vaccine”, meaning the hookworm larvae are irradiated to a senescent or no longer active state, then when the immune system is exposed to them, antibodies are created and immunity developed. This is a very expensive process however, requiring the culturing of hundreds of thousands of hookworm larvae for vaccine manufacture. Cost is a critical factor for the availability and distribution of medical care in the developing world.

Parasitology - it's fun.

To overcome these issues, Alex’s approach is to create an antibody against a protein in the feed cycle of the hookworm. This enzyme is critical for the final stages of the digestion of the haemaoglobin component of the blood. If the enzyme doesn’t work, the hookworm cannot extract nutrients and it effectively starves to death.

The method of delivery of the antibody to the gut of the worm is particularly fascinating. The host, being the human, is exposed to the hookworm gut protein, thereby making antibodies against it, which will enter their blood stream. The hookworm then feeds on the blood, ingests the antibodies which enter its gut and stop the digestive enzymes from working. Alex refers to this as the “Poison Chalice” of vaccines. Elegant and ingenious.

To hear the full interview with Alex Loukas, tune into the Skeptic Zone , episode 56, on November 13, 2009. Find us on iTunes.

See an alternative image of a hookworm eating its prey here.

To be more precise, the 6th General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society held at the Marriot Hotel in Surfers Paradise. As one can expect in Queensland at this time of year, the weather is warm and very humid (read: lovely). We arrived at the end of a weekend of street car racing, so much of the centre of town is still cordoned off with barriers, fences and large signs for beer companies. Evidence of a recent bogan invasion is rife.

Poolside at the Marriot Hotel, Surfers Paradise. The famous natural reef complete with tropical fish.

Many of the conference delegates are clearly excited to be in such a location, one even stating that it is proof that “proteolysis takes you to paradise!” Suffice to say, there is a definite tropical/resort atmosphere and attitude permeating proceedings.

Science is hard (*does a little jig*)

However, we must not forget this is about the science, and in particular, proteases.

What are proteases?

Essentially they are enzymes, (like the ones you may have heard about on television commercials for washing powder), which are responsible for chewing up and recycling proteins.

If you remember back to high school genetics, you would recall that DNA, which is made up of hundreds of thousands of genes, (about twenty three thousand in the case of the human genome) holds the code for all our proteins. Enzymes are a class of these proteins, assigned many and varied tasks, such as protecting our cells from stress, helping to protect our DNA from damage and recycling damaged proteins.

The proteases (which are also enzymes) have varied roles including turning other proteins on and off and helping our cells to reproduce. But, like many functions in the human body such as the immune system, sometimes things can go wrong and instead of being useful, become toxic and cause harm.

Although we need proteases to survive, they can also contribute to illnesses such as cancer. One particular type of protease known as “cathepsin S” on one hand, helps our immune system fight invading pathogens, but on the other, has been shown to assist in the spread of cancer.

And humans are not the only ones who need proteases to survive. Parasites such a malaria and hookworm (a member of the Helmith family) need them to extract energy from their food. And in the case of these critters, human blood is what they love!

What about Malaria?

Malaria remains a huge global health crisis; 1 child dies every 5 seconds, there are 5 million cases every year of which 2 million die and a further 3 billion people are at risk of infection. The majority of these people are in the developing world and many are children less than 5 years old.

Dr McGowan at work.

Dr Sheena McGowan is a structural biologist from Monash University in Melbourne who has been studying the proteases of the malarial parasite in a search for new drugs. Her approach focuses on the feeding cycle of the malarial parasite which involves invading red blood cells and feeding on the haemoglobin by breaking it down into single elements. This “breaking down” process requires a protease, and Sheena has figured out if she can block the function of the protease, she could effectively starve the parasite.

In collaboration with a large group of scientists from all across the world, Dr McGowan has been able to determine the precise structure of the malarial protease, using an approach known as X-ray crystallography (see below). This is a very complex and difficult process, but in principle, by obtaining crystals of the protease and firing X-ray beams at it, scientists can work out the shape and precise structure. This information then allows Sheena and her team to design compounds that will block it from working. A bit like putting a key in to a lock, but coating it with superglue first, so that it sticks really tight and never comes out.

The crystal structure of the malarial digestion enzyme. The drug that may be able to inhibit it ("the key") is shown in magenta.

Dr McGowan’s work will help address the burgeoning problem of malarial infection in the developing world, especially in places where severity of the infection is exacerbated by co-infection with other infectious diseases such as HIV or tuberculosis.

In the meantime there is some good news on the malaria front, with a scheduled roll out of a vaccine across Africa in 2010. But, Dr McGowan is cautious to remind us that this will not be the end of the malaria scourge.

Unfortunately, parasites are clever little buggers, rapidly evolving ways to get around our drugs. This is why work like that of Dr McGowan and her team is so important in tackling new and innovative methods to design new drugs against infectious diseases.

Sorry for my lack of blogging of late. I am away from home, flitting about the East Coast of the USA for a series of talks and conferences, covering science communication, scepticism, and science. I have already done Dragon*Con which was amazing, Vanderbilt Uni at Nashville, NECSS in NYC and am currently on a bus (with wifi) to Boston to do SiTP and a talk at Harvard Medical School. We are currently speeding through New England on the Interstate 90, on the outskirts NYC (see the pic left) on the awesome BoltBus!*

I was thrilled to be a speaker at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS) in NYC on Saturday September 12. A joint effort of New York City Skeptics (NYCS) and The New England Skeptical Society (NESS), NECSS was a huge success. The one day conference was a sell out with over 400 people attending and many people turned away at the door. It’s hard to believe that in a town of over 9 million people, the NYCS are only 2 years old. But, based on the success of Saturday’s conference, a skeptical group in NYC is certainly something that the city wants. The line-up was stellar and featured Professor Paul Ofitt, Richard Wiseman, George Hrab, the SGU team doing a live podcast, Carl Zimmer, John Rennie, John Snyder and many others all overseen and slickly mc’eed by Jamy Ian Swiss.

SGU are joined live on stage for Q&A by Paul Offit and Jamy Ian Swiss

The day kicked off with a talk from Paul Offit, the director of the education centre at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, author of “Autism’s False Prophets“, “Vaccinated” and the co-inventor of the vaccine for rotavirus. Paul talked about the public perception of vaccines as a result of the campaign by the anti-vaxers including Jenny McCarthy, in the USA. (See what they have to say about him here at pauloffit.com).

I was on a panel discussing Skepticism and Media with John Snyder, pediatrician and contributor to the Science Based Medicine blog, and Howard Schneider, journalist and academic at Stony Brook College. Our esteemed moderator was John Rennie recently retired editor-in-chief for Scientific American magazine and a recipient of the Carl Sagan award for the public understanding of science. Rennie also penned one of the most downloaded articles for Scientific American called “15 answers to creationist nonsense” in 2002 (I interviewed John for the Zone – listen to upcoming episodes for full details John’s work). We were invited to give a brief overview of our involvement with the media with an emphasis on conveying skeptical information, then John Rennie opened up the panel for discussion. John Snyder spoke about the damage of “false balance” in journalism and whilst balance is important in most stories, when it comes to giving a platform to anti-vaxers, it can do more harm than good.

L-R: Me, John Snyder and Howard Schneider. We were later joined by Carl Zimmer.

Naturally Howard came to the defence of journalists, by asserting that it is not their responsibility to educate the public, rather the public should research the information presented to them to determine where the truth lies. This was where things began to get feisty and interesting!

According to audience members, it was during Howard’s presentation that I was apparently shaking my head and indicating to John Rennie that I has something to say. On the topic of false balance, I suggested to Howard that if he was to do a piece on the Holocaust deniers, he would not get an opinion from a holocaust denier, not would a journo consider a flat-earther a legitimate part of a science based story.

This discussion was in response to John Snyder’s presentation about the NBC Dateline piece on Andrew Wakefield, “A Dose of Controversy” that had recently aired in the USA. This credulous piece by Matt Lauer and co., gave substantial air time to the discredited scientist and his quackery for autism, including invasive techniques such as colonoscopies on children for which there is no evidence of a benefit. John and I asserted to Howard that when it comes to important health issues such as vaccination, any hint of false claims such as they cause SIDS autism, cancer, contain aborted feotuses, toxic levels of heavy metals plants a seed with parents, scares them and as Paul had also stated, people are very hard to “unscare”.

A packed house. Photo by Tim Farley.

This opinion was echoed very succinctly (more so than I did) by an audience member once questions were opened up to the panel. Questions ranged from why are parents who do not vaccinate not held responsible for the death of those who die as a result of a loss of herd immunity to why are the authorities not doing anything about the anti-vax lobby?

It was a lively and interesting panel which I thoroughly enjoyed and it didn’t finish after we left the stage. The four of us continued our discussions in the green room, to the bemusement of several other participants who were milling around. John made a very good point about the social aspects of vaccine deniers and asked why the social and psychological issues of this area are not addressed. We all agreed that this is a story that has not been covered and would certainly be a worthwhile endeavour.

Howard then asked me how much time anti-vaxers should be given by the medias and my emphatic answer was none. I suggested to Howard that unless journos “went in deep” (John’s phrase) and challenged everything they said, instead of letting them state their piece largely unopposed as was my experience, then they deserved no platform at all. Eventually it was agreed that the anti-vax lobby need be treated as different beasts when it comes to balance in journalism. Because they don’t deserve a platform for their lies and misinformation. Even Howard seemed to agree (mostly).

I interview Travis Roy (aka Scooter) on stage after the conference. Photo Tim Farley.

I am very pleased that the feedback since the conference has been overwhelmingly positive for our media panel. Let’s hope we can do more like these, especially given the (perceived?) gap between what scientists really get up to and how it is reported in the media (this was also an underlying topic discussed throughout the weekend).

NECSS was a huge success and plans are already underway for a bigger and better event in 2010. Thanks to NESS and NYCS for putting on a well organised and top notch event. I hope to be a part of the con again one day!

*BTW, I thoroughly recommend the BoltBus from NYC: $14 on a very comfy bus with free wifi and power points, plenty of leg room and space – thanks to Rebecca and Scooter for the tip off).