Science Day 2013

Science Day 2013
for middle and high school children held on

Friday, December 27, 2013
Govinda Bhisetti, Ph. D.
govindab@gmail.com

9:30 – 10:00 AM
10:00 – 10:15 AM
10:15 – 11:45 AM
12:00 – 12:30 PM
12:30 – 1:30 PM
1:30 – 2:00 PM
2:00 – 3:30 PM
3:30 – 4:30 PM
12/27/2013

Arrival
Introductions
2013 Nobel Prizes
Breakthroughs in Science 2013
Lunch
Year of Statistics 2013
Tribute to Thomas Bayes and C. R. Rao
Group Discussion on Big Data
Science Day Govinda Bhisetti

1

Nobel Prize

"…The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: The
capital (more than SEK 31 million, worth approximately SEK 1,702 million today ) shall
be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which
shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall
have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind ... ; one part to the person who shall have
made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; ... The prizes
for ... shall be awarded by ... that for physiology or medicine by the Carolinska Institute in
Stockholm; ... "
Alfred Nobel's will, signed in Paris on 27 November 1895. The statutes of the Nobel
Foundation, which were officially approved by the Swedish Government on 29 June 1900.

This year's monetary award will be 8 million Swedish kronor (SEK) - about $1.2
million (same as in 2012). This represents a drop of 20%, compared with 2011
prize of 10 million SEK.
12/27/2013


2

561 Nobel Prizes!
From 1901 - 2013
Subject

Prizes

Laureates One

Two

Three

Physics
Chemistry
Medicine
Literature
Peace
Economics
Total:

107
105
104
106
94
45
561

196
166
204
110

30
22
31
4
28
16
131

29
19
34
2
6
90

47
63
38
101
101+25 63
74
22
876 334

The average age of all Nobel Laureates in all prize categories between 1901 and 2013 is 59 years

http://www.nobelprize.org/
12/27/2013


3

Prize Announcement Schedule
•  Monday, October 7, 2013

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE

•  Tuesday, October 8, 2013

PHYSICS

•  Wednesday, October 9, 2013

•  Thursday, October 10, 2013

•  Friday, October 11, 2013

CHEMISTRY

•  Monday, October 14, 2013

ECONOMICS

LITERATURE
PEACE

December 10, 2013: Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and the Nobel Banquet

12/27/2013


4

2013 Nobel Prize winners

12/27/2013


5

Literature
Alice Munro
“master of the contemporary short story”
Munro is acclaimed for her finely
tuned storytelling. Her stories are
often set in small town environments,
where the struggle for a socially
acceptable existence often results in
strained relationships and moral
conflicts – problems that stem from
generational differences and colliding
life ambitions. Her texts often feature
depictions of everyday but decisive
events, epiphanies of a kind, that
illuminate the surrounding story and
let existential questions appear in a
flash of lightning.
12/27/2013


6

Peace
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)

"for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”

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7

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in

Economic Sciences
Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller
”for their empirical analysis of asset prices”

Fama and Shiller, leading proponents of opposing views about the rationality of financial markets
— a dispute with important implications for investment strategy, financial regulation and economic policy
— were joined in unlikely union as winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec13/economist_12-11.html
12/27/2013


8

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE
James E. Rothman, Randy W.Schekman and Thomas C. Sudhof
“for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major
transport system in our cells”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PORJ086kT4s

12/27/2013


9

Vesicle Transport

ER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faE3STnfIGs
Golgi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOSDP6DWwL4
Receptor mediated endocytosis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PifagmJRLZ0
12/27/2013


10

Vesicle formation

Nobel Physics interview:Vesicle Dance: Vesic V
Vesicular Dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdKbRgT4hn8
Clathrin’s role: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFnO5RY1cU
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11

Ivacaftor: a recent drug targeting
defective CFTR – a Cl ion transporter

Golgi

ER

CFTR animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j99-xgOIaw
Kalydeco: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJ5ZroGhKk

12/27/2013


12

CHEMISTRY
Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Ariel Warshel
"for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical
systems"

Nobelprizes: http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1957

12/27/2013


13

Multi Scale Simulations: MM + QM
“…everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jigglings and wigglings of atoms.”
- The Feynmann Lectures (1963)

Molecular Dynamics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLFEqKl3sm4
Simulation of chemical Reactions :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqQfmmz8vjM

12/27/2013


14

Application of Computer Simulations in
Drug Discovery

HIV Protease – amprenavir

12/27/2013

HCV Protease - telaprevir


15

PHYSICS 
 

Francois Englert and Peter Higgs 

"for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our
understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIg1Vh7uPyw (July 7, 2011)
http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000002094542/higgs-boson-a-cern-collision-course.html
(July 4, 2012)
12/27/2013


16

Particle Physics - Key Discoveries
1802: John Dalton lays the groundwork for modern atomic theory.
1897: The electron is discovered by Joseph Thomson.
1899-1919: Ernest Rutherford identifies the atomic nucleus, the proton, and alpha and beta particles.
1932: The neutron is discovered by James Chadwick of Britain.
The first antiparticle, the positron (the mirror particle to the electron), is discovered by Carl Anderson.
1934: Enrico Fermi postulates the existence of the neutrino, a neutral-charge partner to the electron.
The theory is confirmed in 1959.
1964: Within months of each other, six physicists publish the theory of a subatomic particle providing
mass to matter: First to publish were Francois Englert and Robert Brout, followed by Peter Higgs, and
then the team of Dick Hagen, Gerald Guralnik and Tom Kibble. Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig
proposed that protons and neutrons are comprised of quarks.
1974: The Standard Model of physics is devised: a theory that everything in the Universe is made up of 12
building-block particles governed by four fundamental forces. The theory cannot work without the Higgs
boson conferring mass on matter, as the fundamental particles by their very nature do not have mass of
their own.
Standard Model of Particle Physics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0KjXsGRvoA
1977-2000: A flurry of discoveries strengthens the Standard Model hypothesis, including the existence of
several quarks and leptons (the two types of fundamental particles), the tau neutrino and W and Z bosons
that help carry the "weak" force.
2008: The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) starts up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the
world's biggest particle smasher.
2012 (July 4): CERN announces it has discovered a particle that resembles the Higgs. New data analysed
since then has given rise to increasing scientific certainty that the discovery is indeed the elusive "God
particle", as the boson is also known.
2012 Breakthrough: http://video.sciencemag.org/SciOriginals/2047901580001/1/@btoy2012
2013: Higgs and Englert are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their conception of the particle.

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17

Higgs Boson Detected
Announced on July 4, 2012

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18

TED talk before the next section
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_doolittle_how_your_working_memory_makes_sense_of_the_world.html

Students to remember 3 or 4 of the 10 Science Breakthroughs after the next section

12/27/2013


19

Breakthrough of the Year 2013
1. Cancer Immunotherapy
2. CRISPR
3. CLARITY
4. Human Stem Cells from Cloning
5. Mini-Organs
6. Cosmic Particle Accelerators
7. Perovskites Solar Cells
8. Why We Sleep
9. Our Microbes, Our Health
10. In Vaccine Design, Looks Do Matter

23 December 2011
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20

10. In Vaccine Design, Looks Do Matter
Structure Biology to design a “better” vaccine against RSV
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalizes
millions of infants each year with pneumonia and
other lung diseases, and it has defied many a
vaccine developer.
RSV kills 160,000 kids each year.
RSV has a protein on its surface, known as F, that
orchestrates its fusion with cells during the infection
process. The flexible F protein has two distinct
shapes, coiled up before it fuses and “sprung”
afterwards.
This spring, it is reported in Science (31 May, p.
1113) the crystal structure of a potent antibody
bound to the prefusion F structure, spotlighting a
site on the virus that was especially vulnerable to
neutralization.

The RSV F protein displays the
red area needed to trigger
potent antibodies in its coiled
state (left).

In November, the same group described the next
step: used their structure to design an RSV F
protein that could serve as an immunogen (the
main ingredient of a vaccine).
12/27/2013


Hot spot. An antibody (black) can cripple
RSV by binding to a vulnerable site
(white) on its F protein in its coiled state.

21

9. Our microbes, Our Health
Role of Bacteria living inside human body

In 2008, nearly 300,000 infants in China got kidney stones
from milk formula tainted with melamine, a plastics additive
that was used illegally to bulk up the formula's apparent
protein content. This year, scientists found that a bacterium
(Klebsiella) may be to blame.
In Malawi, researchers studied unusual cases in which one
twin developed a malnutrition syndrome called Kwashiorkor
but the other did not. They discovered that the malnourished
children's microbial portfolio had not matured properly.
This year, researchers traced several links between gut
microbes and cancer. Three anticancer therapies proved to
need gut bacteria to be effective; the bacteria help prime the
immune system to respond to drug treatment. A gut bacterium
called Fusobacterium plays a role in stimulating colorectal
tumors.

12/27/2013


22

8. Why We Sleep
…Sleep helps to restore and repair the brain
Most researchers agree that sleep
serves many purposes, such as
bolstering the immune system and
consolidating memories, but they
have long sought a "core" function
common to species that sleep.
By tracking colored dye through the
brains of sleeping mice, scientists got
what they think is a direct view of
sleep's basic purpose: cleaning the
brain. When mice slumber, they
found, a network of transport
channels through the brain expands
by 60%, increasing the flow of
cerebral spinal fluid. The surge of fluid
clears away metabolic waste products
such as β amyloid proteins.
Brainwashing. Fluid-filled channels (pale blue) between
neurons expand and flush out waste while mice sleep.
12/27/2013


23

7. Perovskite Solar Cells
…New solar cell materials made rapid progress
Cheap, easy-to-make crystals called
perovskites proved capable of converting
more than 15% of the energy in sunlight to
electricity. That's up from 3.8% just 4 years
ago.
Silicon solar cells (20% efficiency) rely on
semiconductors that must be grown at high
temperatures in expensive fabrication
facilities. Perovskites are made simply by
mixing inexpensive precursor compounds in
solution and then drying them on a surface.
Perovskites excel at snagging the higher
energy photons in sunlight—the blues and
greens—while silicon does better at grabbing
the lower energy red and infrared photons.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6160/794/suppl/DC1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmH79bB1V7E
12/27/2013

Challenges: Solar cell perovskites are fragile
and readily break down when exposed to
water or air. Also, the current varieties contain
lead.


24

6. Cosmic Particle Accelerators
Birthplaces of cosmic rays traced to remnants of supernovae

Boom! Supernova remnants such as the Jellyfish Nebula can boost
particles to enormous energies

12/27/2013

NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray
Space Telescope produced the first direct
evidence of high energy particles revving
up in cloudlike supernova remnants within
our galaxy.
When a star explodes, material ejected
from it crashes into a tenuous sea of gas
between the stars. That interstellar
medium is so thin that few particles collide
directly. However, particles from the
supernova can rebound off magnetic fields
in space, and slingshot other particles to
higher energies.
As particles circulate repeatedly
through such a shock, they may accelerate
to colossal energies—hundreds of times
higher than particle accelerators have
reached.
However, the highest energy cosmic
rays originate from other sources outside
our galaxy.


25

5. Dishing Up Mini-Organs
Pluripotent stem cells are coaxed to grow into tiny “organoids”

Self-organized. A cross section of a lab-grown mini-brain
shows neural stem cells (red) and neurons (green)

12/27/2013

Left alone in a lab dish, pluripotent stem
cells run riot. They differentiate into a
disorganized mass of tissues: beating heart
cells, neurons, even hair and teeth.
This year, researchers succeeded in
coaxing stems cells to grow into a variety of
specific "organoids" in the lab: liver buds,
mini-kidneys, and, most remarkably,
rudimentary human brains.
The brains, grown by Austrian
researchers, differ in important ways from the
real thing. Because they have no blood
supply, they stop growing once they reach the
size of an apple seed. Cells at the core,
starved of oxygen and other nutrients, die off.
But the organoids mimic developing human
brains to a surprising degree, under the
microscope, resemble those in the brain of an
early human fetus.
The mini-brains have already yielded
insights into microcephaly, a condition in
which the brain doesn't grow to its full size.


26

4. Human Stem Cells from Cloning
Stem cells are derived from closed human embryos
This year, researchers cloned human
embryos and used them as a source of
embryonic stem (ES) cells.
The cloning technique, called somatic cell nuclear
transfer (SCNT), is the same one used to clone
Dolly the sheep 17 years ago. Scientists remove
the nucleus from an egg cell and then fuse the
remaining cell material with a cell from the
individual to be cloned.

Patient-specific stem cells can be made by
"reprogramming" adult cells into induced
pluripotent stem (iPS) cells… a less
controversial and less expensive
approach.

Long-sought. Cloned human embryos, which can be used
to make patient-specific stem cell lines

12/27/2013

Now, investigators will be able to compare
the two types of human stem cells side by
side.


27

3. CLARITY Makes It Perfectly Clear
An imaging technique turns brain tissue transparent
CLARITY turns brain tissue as
transparent as glass by removing the
fatty, light-scattering lipid molecules that
form cellular membranes. It replaces the
lipids with molecules of a clear gel but
leaves all neurons, other brain cells,
and their organelles intact, putting the
intricacies of the brain on display.
The advance could speed up by 100fold tasks such as counting all the
neurons in a given brain region.

Crystal clear. A new method of making tissue
transparent will help neuroscientists explore the
postmortem brain in 3D.

12/27/2013

At present, however, the technique is
limited to small amounts of tissue: Just
clarifying a 4-mm-diameter mouse brain
takes about 9 days.


28

2. CRISPR
Genetic microsurgery for masses
CRISPR - Clustered Regularly
Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats
A bacterial protein called Cas9, coupled
with RNA designed to home in on
specific DNA sequences, gives
researchers the equivalent of a
molecular surgery kit for routinely
disabling, activating, or changing genes.

Molecular scalpel. To home in on the right DNA, the Cas9
protein links up with guide RNA that has a target-specific
sequence. Once attached, Cas9 has two active sites that cut
the DNA in the right place.

12/27/2013

This technology has become red hot in
the past year, with more than 50
publications in 10 months. Since
January, more than a dozen teams have
manipulated specific genes in mice,
rats, bacteria, yeast, zebrafish,
nematodes, fruit flies, plants, and
human cells, paving the way for
understanding how these genes
function and possibly harnessing them
to improve health. One team even
reported using the approach to disable
HIV hiding in T cells.


29

1. Cancer Immunotherapy
Harnessing the immune system to battle tumors.
Immunotherapy marks an entirely different way of treating
cancer—by targeting the immune system, not the tumor
itself.
A new protein receptor on the surface of T cells, called
cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4, or CTLA-4 (discovered in
1987) puts the brakes on T cells, preventing them from
launching full-out immune attacks. Blocking the blocker—
the CTLA-4 molecule—would set the immune system free
to destroy cancer. An antibody against CTLA-4 erased
tumors in mice(1996). In 2011, BMS reported that patients
with metastatic melanoma lived an average of 10 months
on the antibody, compared with 6 months without it. Nearly
a quarter of participants survived at least 2 years.
Better results were obtained with anti-PD1 (another T cell
brake) antibody.
CAR (Chimeric Antigen Receptor) therapy—a personalized
treatment that involves genetically modifying a patient's T
cells to make them target tumor cells was introduced in
2010 and is showing encouraging results.

Domino effect. One such treatment, with
the antibody in pink at the top, works by
blocking a protein receptor, in purple, on a T
cell. That sets off a chain reaction that allows
Video:
T cells to target a tumor cell (bottom left).
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6165/1432.full
12/27/2013


30

Lunch Break

12/27/2013


31

Year of Statistics 2013
http://www.statistics2013.org/
Tribute to Thomas Bayes and C. R. Rao
Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for
efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.
- H. G. Wells

C. R. Rao going strong at 93!
- A giant among Indian Statisticans

Thomas Bayes 1701-1761
250 Years of Bayes Theorem

What is Statistics?
The science of learning from (or making sense out of) data
The theory and methods of extracting information from observational data
The science of uncertainty
The quintessential interdisciplinary science
The art of telling a story with [numerical] data
Applied to many areas that touch your life:
-  Medicine, Science, Agriculture, Economics, Business, Law, Weather
http://www.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/m4v/numb3rs_pilot.webm
12/27/2013


32

Tribute to Dr. C. R. Rao

2011 Royal Statistical Soceity Guy Medal in Gold è
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6b8GxjBRG4
12/27/2013


33

12/27/2013


34

Bayes’ Theorem
A theorem of probability theory by Thomas Bayes

Bayes: How one equation changed the the way I think:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za7RqnT7CM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9-G-noZrwc
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/applied-math/cryptography/random-algorithms-probability/v/bayes-theorem-visualized

12/27/2013


35

Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIbr_AksnAc
12/27/2013


36

Stats that reshape your world view: Rosling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

12/27/2013


37

Group Discussion:
Big Data and Data Scientists – growth area for STEM careers

http://drewconway.com/zia/2013/3/26/the-data-science-venn-diagram
12/27/2013


38

Science Day 2013

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