Author Archives: Katie Maggs, Curator of Medicine

Collecting synthetic biology – an iGEM of an idea

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Collecting stuff is generally the bit I like most about my job. That’s probably why I’ve got a bit over excited about the new acquisitions we’ve made related to synthetic biology – from no other than Tom Knight widely described as the “father” of the discipline.

Synthetic biology is research that combines biology and engineering. Sounds like genetic engineering by another name? Well yes, but it goes much further. It looks to create new biological functions not found in nature, designing them according to engineering principles.  Some see the field as the ultimate achievement of knowledge, citing the engineer-mantra of American physicist Richard Feynman, “What I cannot create, I do not understand”.

Biofilm made by the UT Austin / UCSF team for the 2004 Synthetic Biology competition. From drugs to biofuels the potential applications are huge. (Image: WikiCommons)

Now like a lot of biotech, synthetic biology isn’t particularly easy to collect or represent through objects – as it’s the biology that’s interesting and most of the ‘stuff’ used in research is entirely indistinguishable from other biological equipment e.g. micropipettes and microwells.  

What we’ve acquired are a number of iGEM kits – hardware consisting of standardised biological components known as BioBricks™ . Students competing in iGEM are sent these kits to engineer new applications. Check out some of the former winner’s projects: Arsenic Biodetector, Bactoblood, E. Chromi.

Biological lego – parts that have particular functions and can be readily assembled. The kits document a fascinating ten year period in the discipline of synthetic biology – starting from this basic aliquot kit sent out when iGEM first launched c.2002. (Image: Science Museum)

The origin of these objects and the idea for BioBricks™ is rather curious. They didn’t emerge from biology – but from computer science. Tom Knight was a senior researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Tom became interested in the potential for using biochemistry to overcome the impending limitations of computer transistors.

Knight Lab: Tom set up a biology lab in his computer science department and began to explore whether simple biological systems could be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells. That led to setting up iGEM.

From aliquots to paper based DNA to microwells – the kits show the technological change and sheer complexity of distributing biological components to teams competing around the globe.

In 2008 - the kits trialled paper embedded DNA via these folders - but it didn't quite work out. The kits do, however, represent an important ethic - that of open-sourcing in science. Students collaborate and contribute to adding new biological parts. (Image: Science Museum)

Suggestions for other synthetic biology stuff we could collect gratefully received!

Remembering the Devonport Incident – 50 years on

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One bottle is a killer. The other is entirely safe. They’re identical in every other way – indeed from the same manufacturing batch. This new acquisition was donated by Professor Barry Cookson, former Director of the Laboratory of Healthcare Associated Infection, HPA. But what happened to make one so deadly and the other not?

These are the first bottles of dextrose solution to be published ( Science Museum, London )

These bottles of dextrose are sad reminders of the life and death hunt for 500 similar bottles in March 1972. Five patients died at the Devonport Hospital in Plymouth having received fluid from the same batch as these. The fluid was found to be heavily contaminated with bacteria.  A landmark inquiry was launched to discover what went wrong and to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

Sterilisation is a key story in the advancement of modern medicine. It’s critical to everyday hospital practice. Largely a practical matter of engineering and systematic checks, sterilisation isn’t glamorous but it’s critical for patient safety – as the Devonport Incident illustrated.

An autoclave is a machine that sterilizes equipment by subjecting them to high pressure steam ( Science Museum, London )

In 1971, these two bottles were autoclaved at the same time. A fault on the machine resulted in only the bottles on the top two shelves being sterilised properly. Those on the lower shelf were not. There were quality control checks – but the assessed bottles were only taken from the top shelf so the failure wasn’t detected and the whole batch was issued for use.

Eleven months later the bottles from the lower shelf reached Devonport hospital. During that time, surviving bacteria multiplied in the solution and produced a toxic fluid with deadly consequences.  There are only slight differences between the bottles – the aluminium cap on the contaminated bottle was still shiny as it hadn’t been sufficiently heated to go dull like the bottle that was sterilised

Image credit: Barry Cookson

 What’s sad is that it often takes tragic incidents like this to identify what’s going wrong with a system, and then implement new standards and checks. The inquiry identified numerous ways safety could be improved from manufacturer to hospital – thankfully those measures are still implemented today and the lessons from this incident are still taught to hundreds of healthcare workers every year.

The Secret of Life

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The third and final installment of Miranda Bud’s blogs… 

The Watson and Crick discovery of the DNA double helix is an iconic image of our scientific age. It is considered the milestone of contemporary genetics and is such an integrated part of our society that saying “it’s in my DNA” is a commonly used phrase by many people.

Working with Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin they unlocked the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. It led to countless advances, solved a mystery which had troubled scientists for decades and it was what produced Francis Crick’s famous statement in the Eagle pub on the 28th February 1953 that he and Watson had “found the secret of life”.

(The four Collaborators on the DNA model. Credit: ba-education.com)

Since then a lot more research has been done to unravel the secrets of DNA and to decode the human genome. What surprised me though was that DNA structure is not something merely left to the scientific world…

In 1993 Bijan, an American fashion designer, brought out ‘DNA’ perfume, with the caption “DNA…it’s the reason you have your father’s eyes, your mother’s smile”. This highlights the link between art and science that exists and which is becoming more visible, as more and more artists and designers take their inspiration from molecular biology.

(Bottle of 'DNA' eau de parfum, United States, 1993. Credit: Science Museum)

From my time at the Science Museum I have seen more than anything how science can be related to all aspects of life. From fashion to fission, science helps build a picture of the world around us and tries to give us reasons for why we live the way we do.

I loved seeing a different side to the museum, one most members of the public don’t get to experience. Blythe and Wroughton with their huge stores allow you to see not just science, but history as well. There are so many objects each with a unique story, and I only regret that I have only managed to discover but a few of those stories in my short time here.

Spectacular spectacles

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The second installment of Miranda Bud’s blogs… 

The majority of people will need to wear some form of glasses at some point of their lives, and I am no exception. I was fascinated therefore to discover the treasure trove of old spectacles frames and lenses hidden away in the basement of Blythe.

The most striking thing about the majority of these spectacles was their size. The glasses have tiny lenses which I can imagine were quite difficult to see through. The one pair I have chosen to focus on is a pair with double folding blue lenses which gave extra protection to the eyes.

(Turn pin spectacles with tinted, double folding lenses, France, 1790-1850. Credit: Science Museum)

The lenses on these steel wire spectacles protect the front and sides of the eye. They are tinted blue to protect from the sun. The spectacle arms are pivoted at the temple and can rotate 360 degrees. They are known as turnpin spectacles. These types of glasses where very popular  during the late 1700s and early 1800s, and even the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven owned a pair of round frame turnpin glasses.

(Round Turnpin Glasses similar to those worn by composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Credit: The College of Optometrists)

Obviously everyone had to have their own prescription, but back in the 19th century testing eyesight was a little different to how it is today.  In 1928 Henry Wellcome bought a set of 12 trial lenses and a pair of trial frames at auction, the lenses look as though as they would have been used to test a patient’s eyesight. However, the unusual shape of the lenses indicate they were used to test patients with severe sight problems.

(Set of 12 trial lenses and a pair of trial frames, Europe, 1880-1920. Credit: Science Museum)

Over the years glasses have evolved somewhat, moving from pince-nez and monocles to the more modern thick rimmed ‘hipster’ glasses. It is fascinating to see the progression and to see how some styles seem to keep coming back, while others thankfully have gone for good.

(Hipster Glasses. Credit: Bossip.com)

 

Breathing in Blythe

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In the next few blogs Miranda Bud, a work experience student, gives us an account of the objects that have sparked her imagination over the last few days… 

Before coming to the Science Museum I’d never heard of an iron lung, let alone seen one. My first day at Blythe I was intrigued by the huge coffin like contraption used predominantly during the polio outbreaks of the 1940s and 1950s. The first form of life-support, it was invented in America in 1928 to help victims of gas inhalation.

(Drinker-type iron lung respirator, London, England, 1930-1939. Named after its inventor, Philip Drinker (1894-1972). Credit: Science Museum)

Iron lungs became famous for keeping polio patients alive. In October 1928, an eight-year-old girl at the Children’s Hospital in Boston who was suffering from severe respiratory failure due to the disease, dramatically recovered within less than a minute of being placed in the chamber.

(Explanatory diagram showing a later iron lung model. Credit: Oobject)

Iron lungs help patients to breathe by sucking air out of the chamber causing the patients lungs to expand, and then pumping air back in, causing the patient to exhale. For many the iron lung was a temporary necessity, however others spent the rest of their lives in them. For these patients they developed a peculiar affinity with their iron lung, as it was both a prison and a savior. When more modern life-support machines were invented, iron lungs were no longer needed. However many patients would still return to hospital in order to sleep in their iron lungs, some even decided to modernise theirs, adding the Internet and television which they could control with their feet.

Re-’cycling’

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On Saturday I had tickets to see the Men’s Road Race competition. It was terrifically exciting as they zoomed nine times round Box Hill. Shame about the result but ho hum. In recent times Britain has become bike mad. Bicycle bits crop up a surprising amount of times – in rather unusual ways - in the medical collections.  So even if it all goes wrong for Bradley Wiggins in the time trial (and fingers crossed not!)- here’s some ideas to put his bike to good use to:

(The radium 'bomb' was built in the hospital's workshops - put together from simple available equipment such as bike parts. Credit: Science Museum)

This stange looking contraption is known as a radium ‘bomb’. Radium was a radioactive source used to give radiotherapy for cancer treatment in the 1930s at Westminster Hospital.  The radium was placed in the egg-shaped lead-lined head (known as the ‘bomb’) and a bicycle break cable enabled doctors to expose patients to the radium by opening and closing the shutter at a distance – helping them to avoid exposure to the radiation. 

This ‘exo-skeleton’  leg frame was designed to relieve pressure on the joints of people with arthritis. It features an adapted bicycle seat to help the user to rest their weight when strapped into the frame.  

(Made by Professor W. Thring in the 1960s, Thring was one of the first people to work on domestic robots. Credit: Science Museum)

Perhaps our star object is the Stoke Mandeville Hospital bed cycle – which employed bike chain and cassette to help injured WW2 veterans rebuild strength in arms and lengths by pushing pedals. Stoke Mandeville Hospital was the site for the games that went on to become the Paralympics. 

Dr Ludwig Guttmann set up the specialist Spinal Injuries Unit in 1944 where the bed cycle was used. On the first day of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, sixteen ex-servicemen took to the Hospital lawn in Aylesbury to compete in the first ever Stoke Mandeville Games. Credit: Science Museum).

Cycling is clearly not just a recent passion. A number of tattoo’s in our collection, dating from around the 1890s show a great love for the sport.

(Despite not being able to get hold of an image of my favourite tattoo - a pig riding a bike - here's a tattoo of a man riding a penny farthing. The inscription was a regular motto for German cyclists "All Heil!" meaning 'All's well!'. Credit: Science Museum)

It would be interesting to know whether many of the GB Team have taken their passion for cycling as far inking the skin. Anyway – good luck to Wiggins and all the cyclists – let’s hope they strike gold!

PS. Yay – Gold! Congratulations to Bradley Wiggins for winning the time trial. Ok so he wasn’t ever in danger of needing to break up his bike for hospital parts.

 

 

 

Delving into the mysteries of our slide collections…

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We have some amazing volunteers doing fantastic work helping us uncover more about our collections. Regina and Alix started volunteering with the Science Museum in October 2011, and are currently working on a project to catalogue the museum’s extensive microscope slide collections. Here’s the first in a series of blogs they’ve written to let you know more about what they’ve discovered in the basement of our store at Blythe House…

Some of the thirty-seven slide cabinets collected by Frank Horrocks (Source: Science Museum, London)

Imagine a room full to the brim with curious wooden cabinets, that haven’t been touched for over 40 years. That’s currently where we’re working, cataloguing these cabinets to make make them more accessible to researchers and exhibition organisers.

Each cabinet contains hundreds of microscope slides, covering a range of topics, from histology and biology to geology and even photography (tiny images of people’s portraits)! As well as researching and documenting these slide collections, we also hope to find out more about who put together these collections – who mounted the specimens, how they did it and why.

We, somewhat arbitrarily, started with the Frank Horrocks collection of slides, which was acquired by the museum in 1979. After doing some digging, we discovered that Frank Threapleton Horrocks (1916-1978) was a dentist and avid collector of microscopical preparations.

Frank Threapleton Horrocks (1916-1978) (source: Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club)

He was particularly interested in the history of microscopy and was heavily involved in the Quekett Microscopical Club. Not only was Frank Horrocks a collector, he also undertook microscopy courses at Belstead House, Suffolk, where he mounted his own specimens.

Some nice examples of Horrocks' own preparations, a section of a Caterpillar, something that looks like a Flea but is too big to be one (answers on a postcard), and the respiratory system of a Silkworm (Source: Science Museum, London)

So far we have looked through 4099 slides and are barely half way through!

We owe special thanks to Steve Bell of the Quekett Microscopical Club and Ernie Ives and Faith Hicks of Belstead House who have helped us in our quest to find out more about Frank Horrocks.

We’ll aim to keep you updated with our progress and also share interesting or important finds with you.

How to make your pets last longer…

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Wrapped up beneath these bandages is a mummified animal. How did it die? What material is it wrapped in? Are there amulets we can’t see inside? Is it an animal at all – could they be human remains?

Mummified cat, ancient Egypt, 2000-100 BCE, (source: Science Museum).

To answer question like these and more, the Science Museum is collaborating in a new nationwide project analysing the remains of ancient Egyptian animals. Led by researchers at the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, the Ancient Egyptian Animal Biobank project is aiming to scan, sample and study all such remains in the UK.  

Dr. Lidija McKnight and Stephanie Atherton - researchers from the UK wide Ancient Egyptian Animal Biobank project - take a look at our mummified animal collections on 30/03/11 (Source: Katie Maggs).

Ancient Egyptians appear to be the only civilisation to have deliberately mummified and preserved animals. Yet, relatively little is known about their motivations to do so (for some theories visit this British Museum site).

The study should produce valuable information about the role of animals in ancient Egypt – a critical part of the human story there.  Egypt was (and is) an agricultural society. Studying these animals will shed light on the food supplies and environment ancient Egyptians lived in, as well as the diseases that may have affected both animals and humans.

It’s a great opportunity for the Science Museum to get to know more about these objects. Part of the collections amassed by Henry Wellcome in the early 20th century, we know relatively little about where and when in Egypt they come from. Participating in this project will give us a better insight into how complete the remains are, whether there are other items inside we cant see, cause of death -  and a better idea of the time period and regions they’re from. Moreover – knowing more about their materials will help us care for them better in the future.

Along with birds like this one and cats - crocodiles, baboons, cows and bulls have all been found preserved through mummification. You can see some of the beak and wings poking though the cloth that this bird is wrapped up in. (Source: Science Museum)

Next steps will be bringing the animals up to a Manchester hospital for x-ray and CT scanning later in the year. With scanners focussed on patients for most of the week - imaging has to be carried out on the weekend by radiographers willing to donate their free time to do this.

Samples of the various remains will also be collected for testing. We don’t damage the animals on purpose to do this – often small fragments flake off whilst they sit in the showcase. We can gather these up and send them to the biobank for analysis. 

You can visit our collection of mummified animals in the Art and Science of Medicine gallery (5th floor). We’ll keep you up to date with progress and report back on what the study finds out!

Be Mine Anti-Valentine

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Valentine’s Day is like herpes: just when you think its gone for good, it  rears its ugly head once more (and perhaps it’s no coincidence its initials are the same as Veneral Disease?). Are you cringing from all the cutesy declarations of love? Avoiding all aphrodisiacs (including heart-shaped vegetables – no seriously they exist!)? Well here’s some suggestions from our collections of what not to give the love of your life on VD day…

1. Cosmetic Enhancement.

Cosmetic devices from the 1700s, England. (Image credit: Science Museum)

Breast pads to enhance cleavage, cork discs to plump out hollow cheeks, and a multitude of beauty spots to hide smallpox scars – whilst this cosmetic kit might have gone down a storm in the 1700s, as a surprise Valentine’s gift today it might leave your beau wondering why you’re focusing on their flaws just a tad too much.

To be fair – cosmetic enhancement isn’t always unromantic. Some people (and not even in the distant past!) would give their loved ones the gift of new dentures – which meant having all your teeth removed first. Ahhh there’s nothing that says “I love you” like serious dental work.

2.  A Chastity Belt.

Iron chastity belt, Europe, 1501-1600. Ah the heart detail on this chastity belt says it all. (Image credit: Science Museum)

Hmm me’thinks in this day and age a chastity belt screams trust issues. Whilst seemingly medieval - the majority of chastity belts and the stories that surround them appear to be the product of over-active 19th Century imaginations. So whilst your intention may be to present this padlocked token of love to your chosen lady to help her demonstrate her devotion – it’ll  definitely leave her thinking that you’re stuck in the Dark Ages.

3. Gonorrhoea Pants.

‘Gonorrhoea’ lingerie used in TV 'Essential Wear' ad campaign, London, England, 2007 (Image credit: Science Museum)

Whilst lingerie is usually the order on Valentine’s Day, this lacy little number probably won’t help you get into someone’s knickers. (Still – they could prove handy if you need to pass on a not so subtle message about what you inadvertently picked up there…).

4. A Heart Resuscitator.

Defibrillator, London, England, 1970-1980. (Image credit: Science Museum)

A heart-felt gift (groan!) of one of these would sure cause a shock (bigger groan!). That is assuming you don’t need an ECG to check that your loved one  is still sending you heart signals…

Developed in the 1950s, defibrillators deliver electric shocks to the chest. It’s used when the electrical signals in a person’s heart ventricles become chaotic – causing their heart to stop beating effectively.  Sadly, I don’t think it can be applied to heart-ache caused by erratic relationships.

5.  Scold’s Bridle.

A scold's bridle, Germany, 1550-1800. One of the more disturbing items in the collection. (Image Credit: Science Museum)

Used up until the early 1800s, Scold’s bridles were used as a punishments for women considered to be spending too much time gossiping or quarrelling – as wearing the mask prevented speech.  As a gift with the phone bill in mind – probably a no no.

Still, might come in handy if nagging for a decent Valentine gift gets too much?

‘A weapon calling for careful handling’…

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February 4th marks World Cancer Day. Alongside surgery, chemotherapy and hormone treatment, radiotherapy has been a mainstay of cancer treatment for well over 100 years. Just weeks after Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of x-rays in 1895, student doctors began experimenting with the mysterious rays to treat cancer, and other conditions such as ringworm.

By the 1920s, x-ray generators weren’t capable of making the intense beams of radiation needed to treat certain tumours. Hospitals turned to experimenting with radioactive materials such as radium.

This strange looking contraption is a radium ‘bomb’. It’s a rather ingenious machine developed at London’s Westminster Hospital for cancer treatment in the early 1930s.  

The 'bomb' - the egg-shaped treatment head pictured on the left – was a lead-lined container for radium that restricted the beam of radiation. It was extremely heavy, and to keep it in position its weight was offset by the counterbalance you see at the bottom. (credit: Science Museum Photo Studio).

Why does it look so odd? Well its designers were faced with several difficult dilemmas – how to deliver treatment to the patient whilst keeping staff safe from radiation exposure? With radium costing over £200,000 an ounce, maximizing the effect of the few grams of radium received on loan from the government, was a critical concern.

Like much experimental medical apparatus, this equipment was made in the hospital’s own workshops. In fact it was made up of bits of bike! Staff could be kept at a safe distance when positioning the ‘bomb’, and to expose the patient’s tumour to the radium – a shutter was operated via a bicycle brake cable.

When not in use, hospitals would keep radium buried in lead-lined chambers – protection that became critical with the impending threat of actual bombs during the Second World War.

Women painting alarm clock faces

Women painting alarm clock faces, Ingersoll factory, January 1932 (Science Museum)

Cancer treatment went on to change rapidly. More powerful radiation sources were developed, such as linear accelerators. Atomic reactors also helped to transform the situation – through producing large amounts of alternative radioactive material such as cobalt-60.