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Le Inspirational

I recently met a personal hero of mine. I couldn't think of anything remotely intelligent to say and instead stood grinning like an overbaring Cheshire cat while we took a selfie. The only thing that I could think was she has a Wikipedia page. Clearly this is something Françoise Barré-Sinoussi doesn't regard as one of her greatest achievements: the discovery of HIV or the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physiology and medicine probably ranks up there. 

I wondered, while I stood there looking geeky, what she thought of these young PhDs gawking at her. In the speech she made later that day she said that scientists place too much emphasis on high impact papers. She said when you go to bed at night, papers that no one reads do not matter. At which point a bunch of people in the audience (predominantly clinicians and scientists) rolled their eyes; these people probably were also on a nature paper recently. She said that she tells her students to get out of the lab and to meet the people affected so they can look them in the eye and understand, not at a biological level but at a human level. That is where greatness is born.

I began to wonder if that is a lesson only learned by science's elite as they get older. Had she been awarded the Oscar of science at 25 say, how would her attitude be different? Filled with the folly and arrogance of youth or bolstered her to greater heights at a younger age? How much do these awards mean to the people who get them when they are only given 20 odd years after the fact?

Of course these mullings would all have been better things to think than "She has a Wikipedia page" when I met this great science mind. It is unlikely that I will ever be in close proximity to her again but with any luck, I will take her message to heart. Remember who you are working for. It is not for honour or accolade, it is for the people - past, present and future. A scientists reward: the selfish joy of discovery. And then there's a realisation that your tiny piece of information fits into an never ending jigsaw puzzle, the greatest one ever built. And if it doesn't fit, well, someone is bound to stand up and tell you that at a conference. Ah science, thy fickle beast!

B cell development: basically a romcom for the ages

I've always thought of our universe as a complicated version of one of the scenes from Men in Black. Will Smith peers into a locker containing an entire world of tiny aliens who think he's almighty because he is larger than them. What if all living things are really just small world's within bigger worlds within gigantic world's : worldception? Think about it: what if Bob the skin cell feels like he is just a cog in the policing machine for the man? Then one day he gets cruelly sloughed off just because you walked into a door. Supposing this is true, it should hardly come as a surprise that our cells' interactions very closely mimic our relationships or perhaps more accurately, a scene from The Notebook. 

Our immune system is a perfect example of the rollercoaster of love. They say that as soon as you stop looking for love it finds you. Well no one looks for disease and it finds our cells all the time. I never promised this would be a good analogy. Never the less the B cells have feelers out all the time, searching for meaning, searching for something to ignite their fire so to speak. Once they spot something they like, much like our version of brown hair or eyes that are as deep of the ocean, they activate. Secrete a bunch of things and start overreacting. Pretty much what happens to humans. 

Now although some B cells don't need any help to get to a happy chaotic stage much like humans, the majority need some company. And occasionally they need matchmakers. Certain cells provide T cells with an antigen or some attractive feature so that when a hunky naive B cell comes along they are ready to turn on the charms. Of course there are external factors at play, and certain factors drive the adonis B cells into different zones of the tissue. Think of the T zone as the awkward dating pool - the mesh of clubs, boring movies, sweaty hands etc. If the B cell doesn't find a T cell that matches what he is looking for he moves on. Likely to a place called the B cell zone. A place really where everyone hangs out and pretends they "don't need no woman" or whatever they tell themselves. In actuality what they are doing is just hoping to survive and go into dirt bike riding or some other crazy hobby until they again get sucked into the T zone. 

If the B cell does find what they like then they get trapped in the dating zone and they form a couple with the T cell. This of course changes both parties; for one once bonded it would be bad if the B cell went back off to scope out the rest of the T cell zone hoping for a more curvy possibly blonde T cell. Not only do they individually become pretty clingy but they strengthen their bond with reciprocal favours; bringing home flowers, washing the dishes, promising to fix the garage door. Eventually they form a synapse or as I like to call it, marriage. They move together out of the awkward dating pool and into their own place. Here they begin to divide and form a happy family called the primary focus. It is here that the sexy slim B cell often changes into a rather large flabby shadow of his former self, the plasma cell. However scattered throughout the home are cells that help provide complements (punny if you are an immunologist) to each of the cells and ultimately their marriage survives and they are average. 

Some B cells, like some people enjoy change and instead venture off into a new location with their partner. Here they change radically excelling in career and producing the best antibodies. Their partners change too. Occasionally there can be too much change and often B cells can no longer recognise the complements or attracting factors. Soon he's too busy working nights to notice Ben his eldest cell just apoptosed. The B cell is now barely himself mutating and hypermutating and now hangs out with his buddies in the dark zone. Sometimes the B cell gravitates back to the light zone once he has matured past his midlife crisis where he will be reunited with his T cell partner. Often the B cell and the antibodies he expresses have changed too little or too much and they must now fight for the affections of his partner or die. I realise this went medieval pretty quickly. 

Okay so perhaps not exactly like the Notebook - but still a better love story than Twilight.