Science Art Work of the Month: December

Following Luke Jerram's HIV (series 2) and Rob Kesseler's Sphagnum moss, we are so pleased to have yet another wonderful and inspiring artist, Jennifer Wen Ma, accept to be a part of our kNow-Science Artwork of the Month series.

Below, Inked Garden by Jennifer Wen Ma, currently on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Inked Chandelier
courtesy of Jennifer Wen Ma's studio

Inked Chandelier (2014), a large-scale installation composed of more than 700 live plants, mostly native to Canada’s West Coast, is painted completely black with Chinese ink. Suspended from the oculus of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s rotunda, the plants continue to grow as green buds sprout from the blackness. The site-specific work is a dialogue between the past and present, in which Ma pays homage to the legacy of ink painting by emphasizing time as an element of the composition: viewers observe the live installation transform over the duration of the exhibition.

For further information on the work of Jennifer Wen Man please visit littlemeat.net

Girl's own immune system engineered to fight leukemia

Cancer free thanks to a new Immunotherapy for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Emily's story.

9-year-old Emily Whitehead is the first girl to be cured, as of 2012, of a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) via a novel form of immunotherapy against leukemias. The girl did not respond successfully to chemotherapy before she entered as the first patient of a new trial by study leader Stephan A. Grupp, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric oncologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. What the team did was to bioengineer T cells to work not against pathogens, viruses, bacteria etc. but to recognize and kill the leukemia cells that normally evade regular T cell surveillance. 

What is a T cell?
T-cells are a type of white blood cell that circulate around our bodies, scanning for cellular abnormalities and infections.

Adding a receptor on T-cells allow them to recognize the
target cell - in this case the cancer cell - and kill it.
Our immune system often struggles to recognize cancer cells
as foreign, because the cancer cell is actually very similar to
many other cells in our body. 

Researchers first extracted the patient's own T cells and added a receptor to them that specifically recognize an antigen, an antenna that specifically marked these cancer cells. Once the T cell receptor binds to the cancer cell antigen, the T cell is able to kill the cancer cell as effectively as our immune system kills many viruses and bacteria. This is a powerful method to utilize patient's own arsenal in their immune system against cancer. 

 This past July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated the so called CTL019 approach as a Breakthrough Therapy, helping to expedite its progress into broader clinical trials. While it's very early days, the future looks promising for such therapies. Source of the news can be found here.

Giving Tuesday 2014

Dear kNOW-SCIENCE Supporters,

Did you know that giving money to a worthwhile cause can make you happier?

Make kNow-Science your worthwhile cause this year.

As 2014 draws to a close, we can look back on a successful year of kNow-Science growth. A great series of talks at Genspace, The birth of kNow-Science Kids and an active Mythbusters Blog dispelling, or confirming, those old wives tales. To all who have attended talks and events have helped keep us going with your enthusiasm, support and smiles, we thank you and look forward to seeing you again in the future.

We rely on volunteers and also your generosity to keep growing and developing on the path we have thus far travelled.

So why not take the opportunity and show your support of kNow-Science with a donation, and help us continue to bring you the knowledge you didn't know you needed.