One of the numerous gifts my seven-year-old daughter Katrina received over Christmas was a science experiment kit, with seven experiments. There's the ubiquitous volcano, a weather station, a geological dig and a few others. Katrina's been pestering me to open it up, but I've been slow to get to it, so she decided to dig in herself.
Donning the included safety goggles, she pulled out and assembled the model earth and moon, explaining to me we have to paint the islands on the blue ball.
"I want to be a scientist. Can we watch the Discovery Channel?" she asked.
I have been explaining to her she can watch the Discovery or Discovery Science Channel, since SpongeBob SquarePants melts your brain. She has since told her four-year-old brother the same thing.
"I know a few real scientists," I told Katrina, to her delight.
One is a researcher in Saskatoon. I'd say her name, but due to the nature of her work, she might have to shoot me. These scientists are a secretive lot. So we'll call her "Susie."
Susie got her master's degree from the University of Saskatchewan. She has worked as a molecular biology technician for over 10 years.
The other scientist I know is Louise Wolf, PhD. Louise has been a close friend of my aunt since childhood. We used to hang out a bit when Louise was a roommate with my aunt while in Saskatoon, where she obtained her doctorate. I hadn't heard from her much since she went somewhere in the U.S. Northeast.
A little Googling discovered that this product of the little village of Arran, Saskatchewan, is now a post-doctorate research fellow with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York.
I used to think I was kinda smart, but reading the abstract of one of her most recent papers made me realize how un-smart I am. It's called Identification of Pax6-Dependent Gene Regulatory Networks in the Mouse Lens.
Since she's now in the ophthalmology department, I can only assume the lens here refers to that of an eye, not a camera.
Here are the opening lines: "Lineage-specific DNA-binding transcription factors regulate development by activating and repressing particular set of genes required for the acquisition of a specific cell type. Pax6 is a paired domain and homeodomain-containing transcription factor essential for development of central nervous, olfactory and visual systems, as well as endocrine pancreas. Haploinsufficiency of Pax6 results in perturbed lens development and homeostasis. Loss-of-function of Pax6 is incompatible with lens lineage formation and results in abnormal telencephalic development. Using DNA microarrays, we have identified 559 genes expressed differentially between 1-day old mouse Pax6 heterozygous and wild type lenses. Of these, 178 (31.8%) were similarly increased and decreased in Pax6 homozygous embryonic telencephalon. In contrast, 381 (68.2%) genes were differently regulated between the lens and embryonic telencephalon. Differential expression of nine genes implicated in lens development and homeostasis: Cspg2, Igfbp5, Mab21l2, Nrf2f, Olfm3, Spag5, Spock1, Spon1 and Tgfb2, was confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR, with five of these genes: Cspg2, Mab21l2, Olfm3, Spag5 and Tgfb2, identified as candidate direct Pax6 target genes by quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation (qChIP)."
There's more, but I didn't understand anything beyond the second sentence. Actually, I didn't understand it, or even the first sentence. As I noted before, the lead author in this study, published in 2009, came from a very humble upbringing in Arran, Saskatchewan.
We called up Susie and Katrina got to quiz her on what it's like to be a real scientist, using lasers to measure proteins and the like. After we were done, Katrina was quite impressed and continued to hammer out her plastic dinosaur bones from the plaster.
I'm hoping to keep Katrina in touch with these very smart people, real scientists, doing real research that make a difference in people's lives. Maybe if she has a few female role models in addition to her very smart mother and aunt (both registered nurses) to look up to, perhaps the monthly registered educational savings plan investment will be worth it.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net
