PhD in burger flipping!! No, seriously...

As reported last night in A Brave New World with Stephen Hawkings and in Sky news today, science is taking a turn towards the culinary, with scientists looking to create the world's first lab-created burger! In answer to growing world hunger and to reduce the ecological impact of farming meat-yielding animals worldwide, Mark Post at the University of Maastricht is aiming to grow cultures of meat cells dervived from meat leftovers from slaughterhouses.  These cells at a certain point will then be seeded onto collagen fibres where they will grow to form strips of meat.  The muscle strands, like in nature, will be exercised by being stretched with the aid of velco strips to create bulk.  All the while the cells are nurtured and grown in growth medium rich with carbohydrates, amino acids and fatty acids.  When mature, the strips can be harvested and then, I guess, grilled! To make a fabulous burger! Hmm-mmm!

If an edible product can be produced from this technique, the implications are huge and can change the way we view meat and food forever.  For example, we can stop feeling guilty  that animals are being slaughtered en masse for our consumption and we will all be obsessed with which university our meat was produced from (Those with a 5-star RAE rating will of course feature in Michelin star restaurants).  However, Post warns that the resulting produce will not be cheap.  He reckons that the resulting burger will cost a whopper £200,000! This cost is justified, what with the great technical skill, the time and labour undertaken to grow and maintain the meat cells.

 One beef burger and one lamb burger in the making...

'Hell yeah!' every cell culture scientist will shout!  For behind the glitzy, dizzying thoughts of solving world hunger and saving all those cute fluffy farm animals (not to mention having a permanent work contract) are the tears and the pure frustration that every cell culture scientist will have experienced in just growing and maintaining those damn cells, nevermind processing them for human consumption!  Mammalian cell culture is a notoriously delicate process: everything from the nutrients in the media to the temperature of the incubator and the level of carbon dioxide present has to be perfect; otherwise, when you look down the microscope all you will see are dead cells floating on by.  There is also the problem of infection, as the cells have no immunity and cannot be made immune: infections from mycoplasma and yeasts, all present in the air or carried on in by the researcher on their skin or clothes, can cause massive cell death of every sample present in that lab.  The infective agent can be difficult to trace and eradicate, and I have seen some researcher friends sigh and shake their heads as their work is being delayed for months as they try to solve this problem.  So sorry sir, but dinner is delayed.  Would you like some lab grown fries while you wait...?

Oh, us poor plebby scientists are donkeys enough - what with be underpaid, unappreciated and unrecognised.  To end up being burger growers and flipper PhD is the ultimate low - and even then the job doesn't get easier!  

An 8oz myco-burger with fries, coming up!  

Source: A Brave New World with Stephen Hawkings

      

So it is true, you CAN die of a broken heart!

A phrase normally associated with romantics, poetry and the arts, it can now be revealed that one can actually be heavily - and fatally - affected by one's feelings.  The "nocebo" effect or reaction (Latin meaning "I will harm"), is a medical term used to describe harmful, unpleasant and unwanted effects manifesting in a patient upon receiving a dummy drug.  As discussed by Penny Sarchet in her award winning essay for the Wellcome Trust science writing prize, this is the opposite to the "placebo" effect, whereby upon receiving the fake sugar pill, the patient actually feels better.  According to Sarchet's research these were evident during pharmaceutical trials in the eighties, where heart patients were more likely to suffer side effects from blood-thinning medicines if they had been told of any potential side effects the drugs may have.  The nocebo effect is also contagious; psychological-bourne illnesses have been reported worldwide effecting en-masse, "usually affecting close communities and spreading most rapidly to female individuals who have seen someone else suffering from the condition."

Very little is known about how the nocebo effect works.  A study carried out earlier this year by a group led by Professor Irene Tracey (Oxford) found that when volunteers were subjected to noecbo pain, brain activity corresponding to actual, neurological pain registered on an MRI scanner.  One of the neurochemicals responsible for converting this expectation of pain into a real sensation has been identified by Fabrizio Benedetti (Turin) and colleagues as cholecystokinin, a neuropeptide that acts on CCK receptors that are found throughout the human nervous system.  Cholecystokinin acts on the gastrointestinal system is responsible for bringing about the digestion of fat and protein.  However, it is also causes anxiety and nausea and is administered to test subjects in order to cause artifical panic attacks for research and the development of anti-anxiety drugs.

From these findings Parchet highlights the importance of the doctor-patient relationship.  Since the life and wellbeing of the patient is in the hands of the doctor, trust and confidence in his or her methods are vital.  In light of these findings, if the doctor lacks empathy and social skill or fails to project self confidence, then there is the danger that the patient, fearing the worst, will not respond well to any treatment given to them, as actually verified by Irene Tracey's team.

I would like to expand on that a little.  While not being a researcher in this subject, it is clear that anxiety is rife this modern age and doesn't just exist in medical terms.  It is there as soon as we open our eyes in the morning; it is there as we make our way to work and school; it is there during our entire day and it is there waiting for us when we get home.  From these findings I would say we need to examine our relationships with everyone - if we were all kinder, more tactful and showed greater empathy for eachother, physically, mentally and emtionally we might all be better off. 

Less stress, less anxiety and less heartache.