Speakers: Glenn Bingle and Ruth Schmidt --- Glenn Bingle received a BA from the University of Massachusetts and his MD and PhD from IU. He was the medical director of Genetic Service and Counseling for Community Health Network and a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Medical Molecular Genetics at the IU School of Medicine. He has been a member of Scientech since 2018. Ruth Schmidt received a degree in chemical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, a PhD in chemical engineering and an MBA from Cleveland State Univerity. She has been a member since 2023. (Sponsored By: Rick Whitener)(ID: 1897)
Ruth Schmidt will cover the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The prize was awarded to Claudia Goldin “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes”. Glenn Bingle will cover the Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”.
For a video of today's talk, use the link below:
Today's Program 091624
The lecture on economics was presented by Ruth Schmidt. It was taken from studies by Claudia Goldin who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in October of 2023 (the Sveriges Ricksback Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel). See link for more info. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/popular-information/
The goal of her work was to advance our understanding of women’s labor markets. She studied Cliometrics, i.e., economic theory and quantitative techniques to describe and explain economic events.
There were changing events in the labor market as we evolved from agriculture to industrial to service markets. Attempts were made to promote gender equity: the Fair Pay Act of 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the court case of Ledbetter versus Goodyear in 2007, which Goodyear won due to the statute of limitations. But eventually in 2009, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act came about stating that each paycheck was a violation in the previous court case.
What hurts a woman financially is the fact that she is most often the caregiver of her children and statistically she makes less, a caregiver penalty. The availability of contraception was a positive impact on this, as it gave women more flexibility. Other things that can influence women’s pay would be choosing lower paid work settings and professions to have more time to be with family. This would be denoted as non-greedy work as opposed to the higher-paying greedy work, which has much less flexibility but higher pay. The less greedy work has lower risk and better flexibility on hours, but the downside is lower pay. The gender pay gap is a caregiver penalty and differs by occupation.
―――
The next talk was by Dr. Glenn Bingle, a medical and cancer geneticist, who spoke on the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2023. He discussed the works of Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Katalin Karikó on mRNA science. This is important and has ushered in a new era of medicine for Infectious diseases and cancer, and up till now it has saved 19.5 million lives. It is the science behind the COVID mRNA vaccines. See link for more info. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/
The research work and mRNA progress were hampered by poor funding driven by prior and current research authorities not believing in RNA as a potentially therapeutic agent.
Dr. Karikó has a book called “Breaking Through: My Life in Science.” She grew up in post war communist Hungary in poverty. Her dad was a butcher. They had no running water, an adobe dwelling, and her dad lost his job because he was not a member of the Communist Party and,
therefore, was not hirable. In 1985 she escaped to the US. She had degrees in science, a BS in biology and a PhD in biochemistry with post doctorial work at the Institute of Biochemistry and
Biologic Research in Hungary. When she came to the US, she was mistakenly branded a secret agent of the Communist Party, and this held her back.
Dr. Weissman was born in Massachusetts at the other end of the economic spectrum and had BA, MA, MD and a PhD with post doctorial work at the National Institute of Health.
Dr. Karikó had a vision that messenger RNA could change the world of medicine and prior to her Nobel Prize was demoted, her pay was cut, and she was described as not faculty quality, and not granted tenure. Their work has proven the importance of mRNA.
Culprits in disease are proteins, i.e., too many, not enough or the wrong configuration or malformed proteins. DNA is translated and edited by mRNA by splicing on introns. The mRNA carries the edited gene to a ribosome which makes the protein. When they found that substituting pseudo uridine made for a sturdier mRNA molecule, the work progressed.
In vaccines, lipid nanoparticles are used to encapsulate the mRNA, protects them and helps deliver them to the cells by merging with the cell membrane. The mRNA is released into the cytoplasm and the cells use the mRNA to produce the protein encoded by the mRNA, which is not harmful but prompts the immune system to recognize it as a foreign substance and mount an immune response. Antibodies are produced with the spike protein on the COVID viral particle being the target.
There is also work in cancer with mRNA therapies, in particular melanoma and lung CA. There was also discussion on artificial intelligence and its importance, particularly medical diagnosis and drug development.
Dr. Bingle also encouraged everyone to get up to date on their COVID injections as the virus continually mutates, and the newer vaccines help keep us caught up with these changes. He mentioned in particular that, besides the possibility of a serious or fatal illness with the acute infection, the disability of long term COVID can be minimized by keeping vaccinated.
Ruth Schmidt (Photo: Carl Holl)
Glenn Bingle
