On Wednesday, Brian Kobilka, MD, professor and chair of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and his mentor Robert Lefkowitz, MD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Duke University, were awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Kobilka and Lefkowitz won the award for their work on G-protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs.

This image was captured during an afternoon celebration for Kobilka held in the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine on the Stanford campus. A crowd of colleagues, post-docs and students filled the foyer to congratulate him. In the photo, William Weis, PhD, who has collaborated with Kobilka since the mid-1990s, toasts him on his accomplishment. Weis shared the following comments in a recent medical school release:

Brian Kobilka is great. He’s always thinking about every possible approach to try to crack the problem. He’s really creative and really focused but an incredibly nice person; incredibly low-key and humble. It’s an absolute pleasure to work with him.

Photo by Linda Cicero/Stanford News Service

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

Stanford’s Brian Kobilka wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: This week, Brian Kobilka, MD, professor and chair of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Robert Lefkowitz, MD, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Duke University, were named winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Nobel Prize-netting iPS-cell discovery was initially a tough sell (for me, anyway): Scope contributor Bruce Goldman recalls the first time he learned about the groundbreaking research of Shinya Yamanaka, PhD, MD. On Monday, Yamanaka was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, alongside John Gurdon, D.Phil, for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

Combining online learning and the Socratic method to reinvent medical school courses: A piece published in the latest issue of Inside Stanford Medicine takes a closer look at the efforts of a core group of Stanford professors, education technology specialists and collaborators from the Khan Academy to develop a new online learning initiative to reinvent medical school courses.

Using the “flipped classroom” model to re-imagine medical education: In this video, Stanford’s Charles Prober, MD, senior associate dean for medical education, and medical school colleagues discuss replacing the traditional lecture format with the “flipped classroom” model to make better use of the fixed amount of educational time available to train doctors.

Stanford psychologist partners with ‘30 Rock’ actor on the ‘The Lutz Experiment’: Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki, PhD, is collaborating with comedian John Lutz, who plays a sketch writer on the popular TV series “30 Rock,” on a new book project tentatively titled “The Lutz Experiment.”

Half of the world’s population, some 3.3 billion people, are at risk for malaria. In an effort to reduce the spread of malaria, an international team of researchers is using cell phone data to determine how human travel affects the transmission of the disease and identify regions where imported infections originate.

For the study, researchers combined a year’s worth of cell phone GPS data for Kenya’s nearly 15 million subscribers with maps showing malaria prevalence and estimates of infection risk. In doing so, they were able to create highly-detailed maps depicting population travel patterns to and from malaria hotspots that could be useful in shaping public health efforts to reduce infection rates. As reported in a recent Scientific American story:

The researchers found that many of the journeys, as mapped via cell phone data, involved travel to or through the capital city, Nairobi, where previous malaria eradication efforts and urbanization have pushed the illness to low levels and reduced the number of potential carrier mosquitoes. Thus, even the many visitors to the city who might be infected and city residents who have become infected while traveling to other regions are unlikely to cause a large spike in subsequent transmission of the disease there.

Many other areas of the country, however, are at higher risk from imported cases of malaria, according to the travel maps. Some of the most vulnerable places are those in the central and Lake Victoria region, which offer more potential vectors and less robust eradication progress. Those people moving within these regions, between areas where malaria has high and low prevalence, might actually be one of the biggest forces of spreading the illness.

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With this information, governments could focus efforts on areas that were likely to both contribute and receive the highest number of infections. New control efforts could include boosting surveillance in these places, improving communication about risk of travel to these areas, and perhaps even sending text messages to travelers if they are visiting a high-risk region.

Previously: Using crowdsourcing to diagnose malaria and Tracking infectious disease outbreaks with satellite images of the nighttime sky
Photo by Erik (HASH) Hersman

I’m a little late to this because of yesterday’s Nobel announcement, but a new Stanford study shows that brain scans can distinguish the neural differences between children with strong reading skill and those who struggle. The findings, say researchers, could help shape reading lessons for pre-elementary children by tailoring them to youngsters’ needs.

In the study (subscription required), neuroscientists examined the cognitive, language and reading skills of children aged 7 to 15 over a three-year period. They also conducted MRI scans of participants’ brains annually during that period. According to a Stanford release, results showed:

In each case, the rate of development (measured by fractional anisotropy, or FA) in the white matter regions of the brain, which are associated with reading, accurately predicted their test scores.

Specifically, children with above-average reading skills exhibit an FA value in two types of nerve bundles – the left hemisphere arcuate fasciculus and the left hemisphere inferior longitudinal fasciculus – that is initially low, but increases over time. Children with lower reading skills initially have a high FA, but it declines over time.

Further down Jason D. Yeatman, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Stanford and lead study author, comments on how the findings could be used in developing early screening methods:

Once we have an accurate model relating the maturation of the brain’s reading circuitry to children’s acquisition of reading skills, and once we understand which factors are beneficial, I really think it will be possible to develop early intervention protocols for children who are poor readers, and tailor individualized lesson plans to emphasize good development … Over the next five to 10 years, that’s what we’re really hoping to do.

Previously: Imaging study shows little difference between poor readers with low IQ and poor readers with high IQ, Stanford study furthers understanding of reading disorders and Researchers use brain imaging to predict which dyslexics will learn to read
Photo by United Way of Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley

Comedian John Lutz, who plays a sketch writer on the popular TV series “30 Rock,” is often the fall guy for others’ mischief and the target of practical jokes on the show. So when I read in a recent Arts Beat blog entry about a new endeavor called “The Lutz Experiment,” I naturally assumed he’d be the lead role in some sort of new reality TV show where he would eat strange and unusual foods, perform death-defying acts and, in general, test his emotional and physical limits.

But, as the article explains, there’s more depth to the actor and his latest project, which he is working on with Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki, PhD. Zaki’s work focuses on the cognitive and neural bases of social behavior, and:

The men are now collaborators on a new book tentatively titled “The Lutz Experiment,” which was recently acquired by the Free Press imprint of Simon & Schuster. It’s a project they hope will make social psychology more accessible while it runs Mr. Lutz through a battery of experiments, teaches him a few lessons about himself and perhaps helps him conquer some long-held fears.

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For their book, Dr. Zaki said it was still to be determined what experiments he would run on Mr. Lutz, and even then he could probably not tell his partner exactly what he would be getting into.

“So many of our studies depend on people not knowing the hypotheses ahead of time,” Dr. Zaki said. “I get to deploy him to these different, weird parts of the country. ‘Meet this person, and they’ll bring you into a basement testing room.”

Photo by Jason Anfinsen

During a press conference on the Stanford campus this morning (captured in the video above), Nobel Laureate Brian Kobilka, MD, discussed his work, shared memorable discoveries in his career, and talked about adversity. On the topic of “eureka” moments, he said:

There have probably been a couple of eureka moments in my career. But the one that stands out above all others is seeing for the first time a G-protein-coupled receptor in the active actually signally. This was a crystal structure that was reported last year. When we actually saw [that interaction] it was just amazing, and so exciting.

Later on, he discussed staying motivated in the face of tough challenges:

A colleague, who is now a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, describes it as irrational optimism. Even though something fails… you’ll think of an idea and it’s, ‘Oh, this one is going to work!’ So you just keep thinking that something’s going to work.

Previously: A busy morning for Nobel Laureate Brian Kobilka and Stanford’s Brian Kobilka wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

A piece published yesterday in Inside Stanford Medicine takes a closer look at the efforts of a core group of Stanford professors, education technology specialists and collaborators from the Khan Academy to develop a new online learning initiative to reinvent medical school courses. We also reported on the work on Scope last week.

The first step in the Stanford Medicine Interactive Learning Initiatives (SMILI) is to reverse the traditional teaching method of class time being reserved for lectures and problem-solving exercises being completed outside of school as “homework.” Under the new model, online learning is combined with the Socratic method to ensure that medical students are fully comprehending new information in a meaningful way. The model was first proposed by Charles Prober, MD, senior associate dean for medical education at Stanford, and Chip Heath, PhD, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business an article (subscription required) in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The story offers more details on how the initiative may be expanded beyond campus:

Part of Prober’s vision is that video instruction could be shared by the country’s leading medical schools — they all teach essentially the same material to first- and second-year students. Representatives of those schools are discussing shared curriculum, he said, and they are all reconsidering how they deliver knowledge.

Griff Harsh, MD, a professor of neurosurgery and associate dean of postgraduate medical education, said at a recent SMILI meeting that as many as nine online pilots will be produced this year for practitioners enrolled in continuing medical education. They include units on critical care ultrasound, clinical trials, antibiotics, sepsis, dermatitis and cardiac crisis management.

The benefits of online learning also could extend far beyond the School of Medicine; the videos for Patterson’s course on cardiovascular physiology will be watched by students in Rwanda, a project made possible thanks to Patterson’s longtime collaboration with medical professionals in that battered country who have, nearly miraculously, established a medical school.

The videos for the cardiovascular physiology unit will be made by the professors with the assistance of Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that since 2006 has been producing free videos about a variety of academic (and medical) topics. Khan Academy is involved with Stanford in other areas as well — for example, problem sets on Stanford’s open-source course-hosting platform, Class2Go, use the Khan exercise framework — but it has been particularly active with the School of Medicine.

Previously: Using the “flipped classroom” model to re-imagine medical education, Rethinking the “sage on stage” model in medical education and Stanford professors propose re-imagining medical education with “lecture-less” classes
Photo by Brian Tobin

There’s an interesting perspective piece on the Wellcome Collection blog today about a robotic system called Rex that allows wheelchair-users to stand, walk and climb stairs. Rather than focusing on the technology and design behind the mobility-assist device, the post examines how scientific advances, such as the Rex, can mediate our relationship with the material world.

In the entry, Wellcome Trust graduate trainee Ed Thornton describes a demonstration of the Rex by paraplegic Sophia Morgan. He writes:

Watching the demonstration and talking with Sophie reminded me of just how positive and life-affirming this change of perspective can be. It is easy to think of technological developments as an alienating and inhuman force in our lives and to speculate that further innovation will make us feel more and more removed from the ‘real world’, but watching Sophie stand up from her chair I was reminded that machinery can also be emotionally charged. Like all scientific discovery, the development of human enhancements is part of a process that is inherently personal. Watching Sophie walk around the gallery I was witnessing both an example of scientific progress and an important experience in her life. Looking at herself standing in a full-length mirror, Sophie commented, “I had forgotten how tall I am.” Her perspective on the world and the image she had of herself had changed, for the better, as a result of this robotic device.

Previously: Arizona researchers develop robotic legs that mimic the human gait and Software that models human movement debuts at tech museum

A piece today in the New York Times spotlights the work of Stanford microbiologist Christopher Contag, PhD. Contag and colleagues are developing new imaging technologies and a specialized technique to enable pathologists to detect the early stages of cancer without a biopsy.

John Markoff writes:

Frustrated by the time between when a tissue sample is taken and when a pathology laboratory can examine it, Dr. Contag, who oversees a molecular imaging laboratory at Stanford, is experimenting with a variety of next-generation endoscopes. The new devices not only portray the surface of the skin, but also use a variety of optical and acoustical techniques to virtually “punch holes” in hundreds of cells deep within the human body, while using contrast agents to identify abnormalities.

He describes the approach as “point-of-care pathology,” part of a convergence of medical technologies that make it increasingly possible for surgeons and medical technicians to make informed, on-the-spot decisions about patient care.

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Dr. Contag said he faces challenges, especially from the medical community, which still has to be convinced that computerized images can equal the precision of laboratory practices in which a pathologist conducts a range of tests to determine whether a specimen has healthy or diseased tissue. But that may change soon. Dr. Contag is pursuing a new generation of molecular biomarkers that can be injected and then attach to lesions, giving doctors a direct answer about disease on a cell-by-cell basis.

“You don’t need machine learning, you don’t need machine vision,” he said. On a computer screen he showed an image of a digital sample, with areas that were distinctively brighter. “That’s cancer; that’s normal,” he said, pointing to the dark and light sections.

Previously: Developing new a molecular imaging system and technique for early disease detection and Stanford radiology chief discusses sensing and diagnosing cancer before it becomes a disease

During sleep, even anesthesia–induced sleep, part of the brain appears to continue working to process information and cement memories. That’s according to a study (subscription required) published yesterday in Nature Neuroscience, and the findings, say researchers, could offer new insights into better understanding Alzheimer’s disease.

Health Day reports on the UC Los Angeles research:

For the study, which was performed on mice, the researchers measured the activity of single neurons from three parts of the brain involved in memory formation in order to identify which brain region was activating other areas of the brain and how this activation was spreading.

The investigators discovered that the entorhinal cortex has what is called persistent activity, which is believed to be involved in working memory when people are awake, such as remembering a phone number or following directions.

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Persistent activity in the entorhinal cortex during sleep may be a way to unclutter memories and delete information that was processed during the day but not needed, which results in important memories becoming prominent and readily accessible, [senior author, Mayank R. Mehta, PhD,] suggested.

The findings are important because people spend one-third of their lives sleeping, and a lack of sleep causes various health problems, including learning and memory problems, Mehta said. The researcher also noted that Alzheimer’s disease starts in the entorhinal cortex and these patients are known to have sleep problems.

Related to this, a previous mouse study done at Stanford showed that fragmented sleep can cause memory impairment.

Previously: Is quietly resting as helpful to your brain as sleeping?, Experts discuss possible link between sleep disorder and dementia and In mice, at least, uninterrupted sleep is critical for memory
Photo by planetchopstick