When medical scientists try to find a cure for disease X, they usually start by engineering an animal model that exhibits the etiology (or at very least, the symptoms) of the disease.
I’ve been writing recently about genetic mouse models of autism which, because of the heterogeneity and “humanness” of the condition, are extremely difficult to make.
I was pretty surprised to learn today that scientists have also had major difficulties making a mouse model of a decidedly less complex condition: acne.
The first problem is that mice are hairy. But that one’s easy to circumvent: use bald mice.
The bigger problem lies in the nature of acne, the pus-filled legions that crop up when bacteria infects hair follicles. Those bacteria can’t survive without oil in the skin, and the bald mice apparently don’t have enough oil.
So what did some clever scientists turn to? Teflon. As published in PLoS ONE in February, dermatologist Chun-Ming Huang and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego put human cells into tiny Teflon chambers, and stuck those chambers under the abdominal skin of mice. After letting them thrive for a bit, they infected the cells with Propionibacterium acnes bacteria and, voilà, pimples!
They isolated some proteins coming from the bacteria and from the liquid that oozed from the pimples, both of which will apparently be useful for developing an acne vaccine (talk about a blockbuster drug…). Super. For me, it’s the methods that make this a great story. Who doesn’t love the image of itty bitty pimples growing on itty bitty Teflon pans in the belly of a mouse?!
(Hat tip: Today in Mice)
Finally, a celebrity has spoken to counter all that 
In Sub-Saharan Africa, about 1.5 million pregnant women live with HIV.
Malaria is the leading cause of death and disease in developing countries, according to the CDC, killing more than one million people every year.
Yesterday morning, in an adorable backyard patio apartment in Carroll Gardens, I experienced my first coffee cupping. The organizers, coffee consultant Daniel Humphries and dancer-gourmet chef Bobbie Marchand, put out an amazing spread. The coffees—some sweet and citrusy, some spicy and savory—came from Sumatra, Ethiopia, and Panama. They were paired with: orange blossom yogurt over red quinoa; a medium-boiled egg over pea puree; a vanilla-bean encrusted roast beef sandwich; and a sticky citrus-banana bread cake. To quote the uber-annoying Rachael Ray: YUMO!
