Clinical trials

The newspapers have been reporting about the use of a leukemia drug for treatment of Multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is a progressive disorder where the immune system starts producing autoantibodies against the central neuron system leading to demylineation of the neurons and thereby destroying the neurons. Generally, the immune system fights against invasion by foreign molecules by producing proteins known as antibodies. During development the immune system is fine tuned so that it would not destroy any of the body's proteins. However, sometimes the immune system becomes a rogue and starts destroying the body's own proteins. Such a condition is known as autoimmune disorder. This is what happens in multiple sclerosis where the immune system particularly destroys the neurons. There is no cure for the condition. Indeed there is no cure for any autoimmune disorder.

Thus, the news that a leukemia drug has potential to stem the damage caused in multiple sclerosis is a big news item.

Unfortunately, the newspapers have a tendency to hype without taking the consequences into consideration. We live on hope. Especially those of us who have life-threatening diseases. Wouldn't a miracle drug cure of us of our ailment?

The problem is that the leukemia drug has been used in clinical trials to treat multiple sclerosis. It is not available in the market. Moreover, the jury is still out on whether it is indeed a miracle cure or not. There has been some success in phase II trials. The drug has to go into phase III and then further tests before it can, if at all, be marketed as a treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis. There is a further rider on it: Only those patients suffering from early stages of multiple sclerosis.

Drugs are a funny business. Once a chemical compound is identified as having an effect on a protein such that it stops its function, the hard work starts. The next step is to prove that it would have effect on cells grown in laboratory. Then we have to find out how much of that chemical would be needed to say kill 50% of the cells. If all this is successful, then we need to show that it would indeed work on a mouse model. Further, we have to show that it has minimal (no compound exists that is not toxic at some level)side-effects. Then these tests have to be repeated in other animal models. Finally, we approach the clinical trials. There are five phases of clinical trials to pass before FDA will even consider giving approval. A rough estimate is that it can take anywhere between 20-25 years from finding a chemical molecule to getting into the market. The success rate of a chemical molecule becoming a drug is an abysmal 1%. 99% of the promising compounds fail along the way.

Students election-conditional stay

For us it is that time of the year again- elections.

This year the Supreme court has issued conditional stay on the students election. It has also issued a contempt notice.

The reason given for this act is that the elections have violated the Lyngdoh Commission.e

It is little unfair.

The students election, how much ever I might deplore the fact that the issues they fight for have nothing to do with the university, are very fair. You will not see DU type posters on the campus. All the posters are either hand-made (on chart papers with felt pen) or computer print-outs. The elections are free and fair without violence. Even if there is violence, there exists mechanisms to punish the guilty.

So for the Supreme court to make a hue and cry that the elections did not adhere to certain guidelines is little unfair when no such thing was said during the DU elections. After all if we are going to say that students have to adhere to rules, then it should be followed in all the Universities. To pick and choose is nonsense.

The guidelines that students have not followed pertain to age, mandatory attendance, and ban on one candidate contesting for more than one seat.

If mandatory attendance means compulsory attendance of classes, then Supreme Court is way off. There is no concept of mandatory attendance in the University. No one takes any attendance. And we are not going to change it.

Though, truthfully, I am not surprised that we lost out on this case. Especially if the students were defended by the University lawyer. He has the distinction of losing every one of the cases for the University. I know because I had to deal with him during one of the cases.

Teacher's strike

The Central university teachers are on two-day strike.

The pay commission panel for UGC teachers was headed by Prof Chadha, the ex-VC of JNU. The report has been slammed by the teachers from the day it was released. For one, though the panel had promised substantial pay hikes nothing of the sort was recommended in the report. In fact, whatever hike we get is quite nominal. The professors, I think, were promised parity with Joint Secretaries which did not happen. The college teachers have been demanding for a long time that there should be professor positions in colleges which too has not been fulfilled. The maximum a college teacher could reach before the pay panel was that of a reader. In the pay panel an additional cadre of senior reader has been recommended. The professor position has been split into professor, senior professor, and professor of eminence. No, don't ask me the difference. It seems to me to be all about semantics.

We, at lecturer/assistant professor position had our own share of demands. Though recruitment at lecturer position does not require a Ph.D degree (whether it is in college or University- undergraduate or postgraduate teaching), most of us in sciences not only have a PhD but minimum 4-5 years of post-doc experience. If in university, then we are required to maintain an active research career. A college teacher usually has an M.Phil, if at all, and has no research responsibilities. Yet college teachers are treated on par with University teachers and both of us have to undergo something called an orientation and refresher course. The idea is to refresh ourselves. Which is ridiculous because when one has a research career one has to learn new ideas/techniques all the time. So a section of us have been saying that this orientation/refresher nonsense should be scrapped off for teachers in Universities who have an active research career. Of course, it has not been done.

Today's strike is all about scrapping the inequalities in professor position and redressing the grievances of college teachers. Neither the FEDCUTA nor the teacher's association in my University is interested in listening to the woes of the science faculty.

So what are we doing today?

Oh, it is business as usual.

Classes are going on because we are already behind schedule. The students vanished off for Dusshera and are planning to take off for Diwali. As attendance is not mandatory it does not matter to them. For the faculty it is rush time as extra classes are scheduled in to finish the course. The exams start in the last week of November and there is just no time.

A colleague of mine put it succinctly:

We are such a small group of teachers in our University that our presence or absence makes no difference. So why not have classes as usual?

Then he warned me:

Just do not call it class. Tell the students that you are going to have a discussion.

As I said earlier, it is all about semantics.

Homosexuality

Long time back my lab mate, Pat, had written a letter to the UVa newspaper defending homosexuality. At this a lab technician, Kevin, told me that it was a brave thing that Pat had done.

I have never figured what why it is such a big deal. The sexual orientation of a person is that person's concern. It has nothing to do with the government or religion. It is just as a person breathes, eats, sees, and so does a person have sexual preference. Why should the government enter into it?

In India, of course,we have inherited the antiquated Victorian laws that essentially translates into the fact that homosexuality is a criminal offence. It is absolutely stupid but that is what you have.

Naz foundation has taken the matter to the court asking for a revision of the law. For a change Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss is supporting Naz Foundation but the Center as usual cannot see straight. So today it has submitted to the court that homosexuality is a disease.

What humbug!

Of course it is all a question of the other person being different from us. Abnormal to normal. But then how do we define normality?

Cause Celeb

This is the name of Helen Fielding's first novel. Her Bridget Jones' Diary was hilarious though the I did not like the sequel that much. Cause Celeb was a complete surprise. It too sports a heroine (Rosie) in her 30s who has come to Africa following break up with her boyfriend Oliver. Oliver is too wrapped up in himself (I think he was the prototype of how bad boyfriends behave. Helen Fielding honed him to perfection in her second novel with Daniel Cleaver) and Rosie just about had enough. So she heads to Africa to work with an agency called SUSTAIN in a mythical country called Nambula. Her description of the aid agencies that throng the third world countries is just perfect. The ship is supposed to deliver food is going to arrive in 10 days (no one knows when the 10 days are going to end) and there is a locust swarm eating away the crops. As the refugee crisis escalates, it is up to Rosie to save the situation.

It is a nice novel- not frothy as Bridget Jones but not too serious either.

I have Maeve Binchy's novel to read. I have read only one book by her- a gift from one of my mamis. It was okay. I thought it was bit like a long romance novel. This one too seems to be headed that way so let us see how it goes.

Meantime, I am tad upset today. The apartment complex (if it can be called that) has 24 hour security. Apparently some of the tenants wanted it and so the University complied. The University has outsourced security so we have Group 4 Securicor providing security. The have assigned two agents to our complex. Each one does 12 hour duty. When the duty shift changes, one of them will have to do 24 hour shift. They are expected to work 7 days a week with no holidays. If they take a break, they are dismissed from service. The agent has been on duty for more than 24 hours because his replacement is late.

How can such a thing be allowed? Of course the problem is that there are always people ready to fill up an vacancy. The agency knows it and that is why they can make their people work under such inhuman conditions.

So I am as usual raving about it. I will have to raise a stink about it.

Why don't we stop and help?

There is a news item in Times Of India about a girl falling off from the train and losing her limbs. What caught my eye was her comment that no one came to help. She
called her brother-in-law on her cell phone before fainting. And then an elderly man offered her water and informed the police.

Four years back the same thing happened to a student of mine. He was going on his motorbike and had an accident. He lay on the road but no one stopped his/her vehicle and came to his help. Finally, he pulled his mobile and called his cousin. The cousin rushed over to the spot and took him to the hospital. The time that had elapsed between the accident and the hospitalization was two hours. It was July, the sun was beating down mercilessly and the humidity was high.

I know why we don't stop. The police will ultimately harass us. But somehow that explanation seems so lame. Doesn't humanitarian feelings tell us that we should stop and help? Why do we run away from the scene, head averted, convinced it is none of our business?

All about chocolate

Appa has been stressed out lately. I advised him:

"Eat some chocolate, appa."

Appa: Chocolate is bad for your teeth."

Me: Nonsense appa.

Having said it was nonsense, I set out to prove I was right and appa was wrong. I was aided and abetted in this process by a lovely book called "Chocolate: The consuming passion" by Sandra Boynton. It is very informative book which answers every intelligent
question about chocolate. The book debunks some of the more popular myths about chocolate:

1. Chocolate is bad for your teeth.
2. Chocolate is fattening.
3. Chocolate is a dangerous drug.
4. Chocolate is not nutritious.

The book also makes a very provocative observation: The greatest tragedies were written by the Greeks and by Shakespeare. Neither knew chocolate. The Swiss are known for nonviolence. They are also known for superb chocolate.

You can read more about the benefits of chocolate yourself here

Listen Honey...Life is a stitch...and a story

Today there was gloom in the house. The Reliance webworld told us that the internet connection has been terminated but the datacard that I had to purchase remains purchased. There is no return back policy. Appa was upset because he felt that it was on his advice that I had purchased the datacard and therefore lost Rs 3000. But amma set him right:

"There is no need to worry," she told him. "Just write off the loss."

Then she turned to me and advised:

"If I were you, I would write a story, sell it to a magazine and recoup the money. Just send another book to Shishu Sahitya Samsad and you will get your Rs 3000 back."

Appa, of course, was tad bit startled. Already with a sister for a writer and a daughter as aspiring writer, he feels life is just too miserable. He tried to imagine what his life would have been if his wife too had been a writer...

The title of the blog comes from cross-stitch pattern called Listen Honey. These designs feature ladies with attitude. And as they appreciate chocolate as much as I do, you can understand why I love them so much. I first came across them in the US but never got around to purchasing these charts or doing it. It has thus far remained on my to do list. My favourite is the one where the lady says: Listen Honey...It is official...I have become my mother! It always competes with the ones that say Listen Honey... Will Work For Chocolate, and Listen Honey, I am looking for a tall dark hunk...of chocolate.

But more about the beneficial effects of chocolate in the next blog.

Ramar Sethu

I love the inanities of life. Especially when it comes at the end of a miserable day.

So somebody in the government came up with the idea of Sethu Samudram Project. The DMK government wants it badly because it feels it will go down well with the voters. The BJP opposes it because this is the point where Rama crossed over to Sri Lanka to wage war with Ravana. And the Central Government is clueless. Any way the whole matter is with the court. The Centre has now submitted before the courts that Rama himself destroyed the Sethu he built across the sea.

Oh Wow! It is almost as if they had a private audience with Rama and he told him this. (The Centre says it is written in Kambar Ramayana which would imply Kambar had a private audience with Rama. Whatever!)

In all this mesh of idiotic arguments is lost the simple fact that we would have to pay a heavy environmental cost. It is also not by any means clear that this canal would shorten the distance between Sri Lanka and India. But if our political parties became sensible where would we go for laughter?

The fall of Sonu

Sonu, who fell down the borewell, is dead.

Unfortunately this is not an isolated case. It happens with sickening regularity. There was Prince who had fallen down a borewell in Haryana. It made a big headline with all the news channels stationing their reporters at the site for minute by minute updating. But did any of us ever ask the question why was the left open for children to fall down? What were those responsible for the borewell thinking? What was the panchayat thinking? What were the parents thinking?

Heck, why borewell? What about open drains? What about open pits? What about dug up sidewalks? Does any body put a warning sign? I remember there was a case of a woman being washed down a drain because the roads were flooded and she could not see where she was stepping.

The bottom line is that we do not care. It did not happen to us, right? So what the heck? Why should we worry?

The Delhi Government in the aftermath of the Nithari case woke up. Enough to put up lovely poster boards every where loudly proclaiming: Delhi Loves its Children.

Yet there are children who beg right under that poster. They do not exist of course. Or do they?

The much touted anti-child labour law is another such thing. In one stroke we have eliminated child labour. Yet there are many within my own campus who hire children to work in their houses. Other than social boycotting I do not know what to do with them.

As a society we simply do not care. That is why Sonu happens with such regularity.

Tales From Firozsha Baagh

This was title of the book by Rohinton Mistry. I was little apprehensive and in two minds whether to issue it or not from British Council Library. I have read one of his books: A Fine Balance. It was, I found, horrible though my friend Minu liked it a lot and insisted we read it for the Book Club in Colorado. But I could not wade through it and about 3/4th of the way I completely gave up. There was never a lighter moment and the only thing that kept happening was troubles. Troubles pile upon the heroine, Dina somebody, in waves. Her husband dies within a year of marriage, her family is dysfunctional, poverty of course is a constant companion, her brother does not like her and tries to swindle her, and so on and so forth. There was not even humor to lighten up the scenario. The writing was turgid and heavy and I simply hated it.

So when I saw a collection of short stories by the same author I was in two minds. Should I or should I not.

I am glad I picked it up. The writing was much lighter and though the tone was heavy and dark throughout, it was not as bad as his novel. In fact I enjoyed almost all the stories. The 11 stories are interlinked and somewhat semi-autobiographical I suspect based on the last story. It tells the stories of the tenants of a building called Firozsha Baagh in Bombay. The setting is from post-independence to early 1970s when I think the author emigrated to Canada. The story I liked best was one called Condolences. Daulat has just lost her husband. She very much dislikes recounting the story of his last days to the people who come to pay her condolences. Her pesky neighbour, Najamai, keeps turning up at the most importune moment much to Daulat's intense irritation. It is a situation where she is helpless to say anything to Najamai though by the end of the story she has retrieved the situation.

The pesky neighbour reminded me of my mother's ex-neighbour. She would dictate every aspect of my mother's life much to our irritation. Only her removal from the building retrieved the situation for us.

Internet woes

The internet conked off once more two weeks back. It was working fine till 10 am in the morning. I went to the office and came back to find that the internet was no longer working. Since then I have been unsuccessfully calling up MTNL to get the problem fixed. Finally, I was told that I would have to call the area manager who would then authorize for the problem to be fixed. No, don't ask me what, why, etc. All I know is that for the past three days I have been calling the area manager's office persistently. I pestered them, scolded them, yelled at them, to get the problem fixed. It was finally done today. Whew!

When the internet was AWOL, we had the bright idea of switching the internet service provider. Reliance provides wireless internet service. It was supposed to reliable, fast etc. etc. So I called them up and they promptly landed up at home with the datacard which works only on Windows system.

"Not on Linux?"
"No, Ma'am. Do you have Windows?"

I have a double booting system thanks to my brother. So we fixed the stuff up and they told me to activate the card. The speed was worse than dial up and when I and my brother talked on Skype we ended up not understanding what the other was saying. I called up the Reliance service to get the problem fixed but guess what? They are as good as MTNL.
"You must have too many programs on your computer."
"But I use the laptop in my office. The office connection works fine. We have broadband service."
"You must have automatic update switched on. Why don't you download netbooster from our web site."
"I cannot open your website."
"Very well Ma'am. When you open our website, please install netbooster and check the speed. If it does not work then go to the nearest Reliance webworld and check the data card."
"Excuse me. I cannot open your website."
"Yes, Ma'am. Please install the netbooster and check the speed. If it does not work then go to the nearest Reliance webworld and check the data card."
I gave up.
It was at this point I decided to stick with MTNL. At least I know the area manager's phone number.

Nobel Prize-Medicine

This year it has been awarded to three scientists for their work on viruses-HIV and papilloma virus.

For a long time the discovery of HIV virus was point of dispute. Robert Gallo, who discovered HTLV, and Luc Montagnier who identified in AIDS patient. Luc Montagnier has won the Nobel Prize. Robert Gallo is nowhere mentioned.

This is however not the first time that this has happened. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of siRNA. The only problem is that it was discovered long time back in plants. But Fire and Mello were able to identify the mechanism, and revolutionized the entire field of genetics. For that they deserved the prize.

Or take the most famous example: Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize for solving the structure of DNA. The X-ray crystallography data, however, was produced by Rosalind Franklin. Of course she had died by the time the Nobel Prize was awarded but in their book "The Double Helix" she is lampooned by Watson, which is kind of unacceptable. The major problem was that Rosalind Franklin was unable to solve the structure. Watson and Crick were able to and that is the end of the story. In fact, at that point in time Linus Pauling was also involved in the race to solve the structure. He proposed a triple helix. Had he read Erwin Chargoff's paper, he would have realized that a triple helix was not possible.

I usually tell this to the first year students emphasizing how important it is to analyze the data.

Coming back to Nobel Prize- I think somewhere out there the HIV virus must be chuckling to itself quietly. All efforts to control it has failed for the simple reason it always has a trick up its sleeve. It is a tough virus to work with and these scientists deserve their prize. I only feel sorry for Robert Gallo because I think, honestly, he has contributed a lot to the field of retroviruses.

The Empty Marketplace

We went over to Sarojini Nagar Market yesterday. Amma wanted to buy somethings. She was in two minds- should she let me go by myself or should she come along? Finally, she chose to come with me and appa.

Sarojini Nagar Market in the best of days is jam-packed with sellers and buyers. There is hardly any space to manoeuver. You have to crawl along, sometimes pushing your way through.

Yesterday was different. There were just few shoppers. I asked the shopkeeper what happened to the crowd?

"Those days are gone, madam."

It was sad to see the empty marketplace. The markets derive their vibrancy from the people. If they are not there what is left of our marketplaces?

The bombers, whoever they are, have certainly achieved one thing: Fear. It is there in all of us as we go about our daily lives. Who knows where they will plant the next one? I hate them for that.