Oscar Pistorius, the “Blade Runner”, is a South African runner who had both his feet amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect. Since then, he started to run in sprints events for both below-knee amputees and non-disabled.

Since Pistorius was starting to win over the best able-bodied athletes, people have started questioning more about the role of prosthetics in athletics. In the media, there was an important controversy whether prosthetics give unfair advantages to amputees over able-bodied athletes. 

Can really runners with prosthetics obtain a better performance than able-bodied athletes?

After Pistorius was banned from competitions in 2008, scientific research was conducted to discover if his prosthetics were really giving him any advantages. 

A research group led by the biomechanics Alena Grabowski, where Pistorious himself took part in, aimed at comparing his abilities to those of some able-bodied track athletes. Three distinct tests were performed to measure a series of parameters: 

1. Energy cost in running → measured by breathing and metabolic of runners during short sprints;  
2. Endurance → measured by setting a treadmill on the maximal speed that runners could maintain; 
3. General running mechanics → observed by asking runners to augment their speed on a treadmill until they could no longer take eight consecutive strides without maintaining their position.

Results of this study proved that Pistorius’ running capabilities are not significantly different from those of able-bodied runners. This allowed him to end his ban and come back to compete.

Pistorius was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. This happened at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics. 

Oscar Pistorius became the 1st double amputee to compete in the Olympic Games, specifically the 400-metre race. 

… Research on prosthetics is not over …

After this initial research, Grabowski conducted another study to test the influence of some parameters in a prosthetic on a runner’s performance. First of all, she modelled the foot as a spring system in order to pick the crucial parameters of a prosthetic to modify: speed, stiffness, and height.

The research consisted of testing five runners on a treadmill, increasing the speed on each trial until they could no longer hold their position. This same experiment was repeated by changing the different parameters of the prosthetics until enough data was collected to compare. 

Findings of this study are very interesting: 

1. The length of the prosthetic did not have any effect on running speed;
2. The stiffness seemed to help runners only at medium/low running speed but not high running speeds.

Therefore, a prosthetic gives a significant advantage for long distance runners but not for short springs. 

Final considerations

I chose the module “Engineering Replacement Body Parts” because I have always been fascinated by the world of prosthetics. After the lecture focussed on hip and knee implantation and leg prosthetics, I realised that there are so many requirements that must be addressed during the design in order to make a functional prosthetic. However, the most important factor that engineers consider is always: “What does the patient want to achieve?”. 

The world of prosthetics can open up many different doors for amputees: from addressing simple day-to-day tasks to competing alongside able-bodied athletes in the Olympic Games. Before researching more in detail about Pistorius’ stories, I had already heard his name multiple times but I was probably too young to remember his participation in the Olympic Games in 2012. As I saw this familiar name in my research results, I decided to dig down more about this very fascinating topic. 

This research was extremely illuminating because I learned from scratch a completely new world under several aspects. First of all, I had no idea that amputees could compete with able-bodied athletes or at least not in such prestigious competitions like the Olympic Games. Secondly, I was shocked that an amputee actually competed with able-bodied athletes because I had never heard or seen it before. Thirdly, I initially believed that prosthetics didn’t give any advantages to the amputees but only disadvantages over able-bodied athletes in terms of running performance! 

Grabowski experiments’ results were the most shocking part for me but also the most intellectually challenging. I learned that scepticism on athletes with prosthetics competing with able-bodied athletes at the Olympics has not been scientifically proven, as the effects are minimal or even non-existent in the case of sprinters. I believe that this is the reason why experiments conducted by Grabowski and her team are so important. Moreover, this research was conducted only because Pistorius was a champion who wanted to fight for his rights to compete in such a prestigious competition like the Olympics. However, very likely there are many more other athletes over the world, and none of this has come to light as much as Pistorius.  

I believe that regulations of all competitions should follow scientific facts and research over emotions and fear. Amputee athletes should be allowed to compete with able-bodied athletes until there is concrete evidence which proves the opposite. In the future, I will keep the rational attitude I used while doing this research to write this post in order to effectively welcome and learn from any piece of scientific research that completely reverses my initial thoughts!  

In the following years, with further development of prosthetics, I am sure there will be much more research about prosthetics in sport, as more amputee athletes will be able to reach the same level of performance as able-bodied athletes. So far, an amputee athlete has never won over able-bodied athletes at the Olympic Games, not even a champion like Pistorius. With the help of scientific research … Who knows, maybe some amputee athletes could change the Olympics history in the future!

Reference

University of Nottingham, page: “Biomechanicals in the Wild”, article written by Kaleb Schoolman, 2019

“Doug Whitney has a terrible family legacy. Many of his relatives carry a gene mutation that causes early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, a severe form of Alzheimer’s that strikes in one’s 40s and 50s. The disease has wreaked havoc on his family, killing his mother, older brother and more than a dozen of his aunts, uncles and cousins. In 2011, Whitney learned that he also carried the mutation. But at 67 years old—years past when family members began to show symptoms—Whitney’s memory is intact.”

The Resilience Project

How is Whitney’s story possible?

Some people have genetic changes that protect them from getting specific diseases or more able than most to recover from challenges to their health. 

These people are called “RESILIENT HUMANS” 

The “Resilience Project” aims to discover why some people are more able than others to resist or recover from challenges to their health and escape disease.

Finding and studying resilient individuals could pave the way to new insights about health, better disease prevention strategies and new treatments. This is why scientists hope that studying their resilience will inspire new treatments for diseases. 

Factors affecting a person’s resilience … much more than genetics and biology!

Research shows that our health and our resilience to disease are influenced by a number of factors:

1. Social circumstances: people with stronger social connections tend to live longer, are more likely to survive a heart attack and are less likely to suffer a recurrence of cancer.
2. Environment: access to healthy food, green spaces and gyms can boost resilience to disease –  e.g., reduce the risk of diabetes
3. Medical Care: access to therapies and drugs 

I discovered the existence of “The Resilient Project” around one year ago because it  was briefly quoted during a lecture. This has been stuck in my mind since then, as I immediately felt quite shocked getting introduced to some of these incredible humans’ stories, such as Whitney’s experience. This strong curiosity made me read other resilient stories and inspired me to research more about the “The Resilient Project”.  

Further research on The Resilient Project’s website completely challenged my previous assumptions about human disease. I believed that only genetic factors could significantly contribute to the development of a disease, together with minor contributions from the environment as the initial trigger. I also had never thought about medical care as a relevant component of a disease. However, this can be life-saving in specific conditions of isolation such as rural areas, or even third world countries with an insufficient number of clinics and hospitals and lack of appropriate medical equipment.

More incredibly, I realised that there are so many other factors that can affect our resilience but on which we can exercise total power, such as social circumstances and individual behaviour. For instance, we can choose our circle of relationships, from our partner and best friend to the furthest acquaintance. Amazingly, this can not only extend our lifespan but also protect us from developing very severe and common diseases, including cancer and heart attacks!  

Through this research, I learned that human diseases are extremely complex and cannot be caused by a single factor, such as our genes. Having challenged this assumption will help me to stay open-minded while examining scientific papers. As a future scientist, I will keep in consideration that many other variables are involved in diseases, and only a small percentage is under my control, such as developing new drugs based on pure genetics and observable biological mechanisms. 

In conclusion, I believe that writing this post to openly talk about “The Resilient Project” can increase people’s awareness about the existence of such unthinkable humans. Everyone can potentially know another resilient human or be a resilient human themselves! This could tremendously help current research by simply contacting this association in order to make concrete outcomes for other people across the world who are suffering from the same disease.
If you are interested to know more about the “Resilience Project” or read stories from resilient humans, you can find more information in the following link: https://www.resilienceproject.com/resiliencestories/.

The human genome is “packed” in a particular molecule called DNA, which composes the core of our cells. This molecule is extremely big; if we could completely stretch it, it would be 2 metres long! 

This incredible molecule, DNA, is composed of 2 main regions: coding and non-coding regions. The non-coding region is significantly more abundant and composes 98% of the total of our genome, while the coding genome only the remaining 2%. However, the coding region is hugely important, as it makes proteins, the basic functional units responsible for the smooth running of our body.

How do we identify and study the function of each coding region of DNA that makes a specific protein?

The scientific method utilised is called “knockout”, which refers to the use of genetic engineering to inactivate or remove one or more specific genes from an organism. In order to explore the function of a particular gene and study the effect of its loss, scientists historically used genetic engineering to create knockout organisms to study the impact of removing a gene from an organism, allowing the discovery of a gene’s functions.

For instance, rather than study the gene directly, it is easier for scientists to study the final product of a gene, its protein. Moreover, since the cell is composed of thousands of different genes that encode a massive range of proteins, how can we identify the function of THAT specific gene without concretely isolating it from the such chaotic “crowd”? 

The most commonly used animal model for knockouts is mouse as, incredibly and totally unexpected, it shares approximately 70% of the same protein-coding gene sequences with us. 

How do we make a knockout mouse?

Although knockout mice are very useful tools, they still have their disadvantages:

1. Genetic engineering is a difficult, expensive and time-consuming
2. Unethical issues due to the use of animals for scientific research 
3. Although the degree of gene homology is enormous between mice and humans, there are still genes that could have a certain function in laboratory animals but not the same function in humans

Absent or non functional proteins are the cause of more than half of human’s diseases. This is why knockout animals are so important for biomedical research. Once the function of a gene is known, researchers can work on developing a range of drugs to treat the disease, such as drugs that replicate the function of the missing protein or drugs that mitigate the effects of the disease.

Conclusion

Last year during university lectures, I had heard for the first time the term “knockout” without having a clue of what it was. In the first lecture of this new module, Engineering Replacement Body Parts, I was explicitly introduced to this concept for the first time. 

My interest to research and expand knowledge on this methodology was that I had found this concept completely counterintuitive, as it works in a “reversed” manner! The principle is that we cannot study directly what the gene encodes if it is functional but we can infer its function when its final product, the protein, is no longer functional or completely absent. 

Initially, I thought that scientists were always able to “isolate” the molecule of interest and then test it under a range of conditions in order to discover their properties and functions. This assumption was harshly challenged by the fact that, unfortunately, isolation of molecules is rarely achievable for a series of obstacles, such as lack of powerful enough technology or extremely high costs. For instance, we cannot visualise “in real time” the action of very tiny cellular components, such as nucleic acids, but we can do it for larger entities like living bacteria under a microscope. 

I realised that something, which could immediately appear as counterintuitive, is not necessarily extremely complicated to understand. In the future, I will not feel discouraged if I cannot instantly catch a counterintuitive principle or technique, as this could reveal it as extremely important! Deepening my knowledge of knockout revolutionised my understanding of an essential scientific methodology used worldwide to discover the cause of many genetic diseases. As a future biomedical scientist, I will apply this knowledge to real-world scenarios not only to perfectly understand and review others’ research but also to design my future experiments and discover the cause of some human diseases!

Reference

National Human Genome Research Institute: https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Knockout

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a well known form talking therapy, utilised for the management of a range of problems, by changing the way you think and behave.

There are a number of disorders that can benefit hugely from CBT, including OCD, phobias, eating disorders, panic disorders and depression. As somebody who has undertaken and subsequently completed their CBT journey, I will forever be an unwavering advocate for this form of therapy. Not only do you benefit from having a safe space to talk to a trained professional without fear of judgement, you learn new habits and methods that allow you to overcome your problem for the long-term. Completing CBT will leave you with a retrained brain, one that uses healthy habits and coping skills, instead of reverting to the dangerous behaviours that may have previously derailed your life.

Brain development in early life has always fascinated me. It’s intriguing to consider the extent that environmental factors, in particular social interaction, dictate neurological development. Is it nature or nurture? The first episode of the Netflix series, Babies (2020), titled ‘Love’ delves into the biology of a mother and father’s love for their baby. It touches on the work of the GUSTO project, which comprised of a series of social experiments investigating a mother’s interactions with her baby. It also analyses different parenting styles, specifically their attentiveness to the babies. It shows some mothers constantly checking their babies, and others leaving them to their own devices. The less attentive babies were visibly calmer and quieter, which I found interesting despite unsettling. Along with a series of MRIs on the babies brains, the experiment concluded that the less attended to babies had larger hippocampi, the area of the brain which deals with stress. This is theorised to be because they have to deal with discomfort and stress by themselves, and due to the plasticity of developing neural circuits, the brain has tried to accommodate this. I found this study deeply fascinating, and as an adoptee, it forced me to consider my own experience in an orphanage and how it may have altered by own physiology at such a young age.

I am Issy, I do 3rd year Natural Sciences. I focus on sustainability and the environment, with some geology. In my first year I studied chemistry, physics and maths, but I moved away from that as my interests lied in the environment. In Natural Sciences we get to choose modules from different degree programmes to give us an interdisciplinary view on sciences, so this modules works well with this.

I am looking forward to learning about rehabilition in this module and the workshops.