- Aline Gubrium, Public Health
Family Planning, Deconstructed
By putting digital cameras in women’s hands, Aline
Gubrium, newly appointed to
the School of Public Health, is tapping into a source of information about how
the pharmaceuticals industry influences their most personal choices. Gubrium
is a women’s health researcher and an activist investigating long-term contraceptives
like Depo-Provera, an injected drug that prevents pregnancy for three months
or longer. This contraceptive, which has side effects that include bone loss,
weight gain, and depression, is often prescribed to low-income women, especially
women of color. Gubrium is investigating how these women and others respond to
the promotional efforts of drug companies and family-planning agencies. The stories
these women tell Gubrium will become part of a larger database to be disseminated
via blogs and other contemporary means to health care professionals and policy
makers. In her work with students, Gubrium is also training the next generation
of researchers to work in the field of public health using an array of the latest
tools and methods.
Wondrous Worms
- Dan Chase, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (photo by Nafis Azad)
Scientists are getting closer to unlocking some neurological disorders
like schizophrenia, attention-deficit disorder, and Parkinson’s
disease by studying the process of dopamine signaling.
Neurotransmitters such as dopamine bind to receptors on the surface
of neurons to influence cell function. But after that, exactly how
is cell activity modified? “Despite decades of work, this is still
unclear,” said Dan Chase, a new addition to the Department
of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He hopes that the one-millimeter-long worm called
C. elegans will help him unlock that mystery.
The worm offers a number of experimental advantages. “It uses the same
neurotransmitters that we use,” said Chase, “yet has only 302 neurons,
compared to the hundreds of billions of cells in the human brain.”
In addition, the worms are transparent, so their inner workings can
be examined using microscopes, as well as through behavioral and genetic
analyses.
Chase seeks to identify the molecular mechanisms activated when dopamine binds to its receptor in worms and then test whether these same mechanisms are used in the human brain. Pharmacologists could then use that information to develop drugs to target those molecules.
