The Vaccine Publicity Machine

Yesterday there was a big announcement from Professor Ian Frazer at the University of Queensland regarding his plans to begin clinical trials for a new vaccine that may help prevent some kinds of skin cancer. This is exciting news, especially in the country where the incidence of skin cancer is the highest in the world, and in a state (Queensland) that has highest number of reported melanomas. Scottish-born Professor Frazer is already a hero in Australia, having received numerous awards, including Australian of the Year in 2006 ("Ian embodies Australian know-how, determination and innovation"), for his work on the development of a vaccine to prevent papilloma virus infection, a vaccine more commonly known around the world as Gardasil. Human papilloma virus (HPV) infections cause nearly all cases of cervical cancer, which is the fifth leading cause of death of women worldwide. 

In the past 24 hours I have seen several news stories about Professor Frazer's announcement about the skin cancer vaccine. In these stories he has been referred to as the man "who developed the vaccine for cervical cancer," "the scientist who discovered the cure for cervical cancer", the "creator" of the HPV vaccine, and "the Australian scientist who pioneered the vaccine for cervical cancer." Here, on the UQ campus, it's hard not to see a photo of Professor Frazer somewhere, whether at a bus stop or in the latest glossy brochure heralding the university's achievements. Obviously, Australia is quite proud of Ian Frazer's accomplishments--as they should be. Gardasil is now available worldwide, with already over 16 million doses distributed just in the United States, as of June 30th of this year.

Just before we moved to Australia last year, I saw a story about the HPV vaccine in an American newspaper. It contained a brief history that featured the work of researchers at Georgetown University and the University of Rochester, but there was no mention of any research in Australia, except for the fact that it was one of 13 countries involved in the clinical trials of Gardasil. I ran a Google news archive search to see how often Frazer's name was mentioned in conjunction with Gardasil in the past three years.  After excluding Australian news sources, I could find only one or two entries.

So, why then is there nary a mention of the discoverer of the HPV vaccine outside of Australia? A 2006 article that appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, titled "Who Invented the VLP Cervical Cancer Vaccines?" may provide some answers. It turns out that four institutions hold the patents for the Gardasil vaccine--the National Cancer Institute (in the U.S.), Georgetown, the University of Queensland, and the University of Rochester. And, according to the peer-reviewed literature, "the development of the VLP/L1 vaccine was an incremental process with multiple contributors." There were five key discoveries that led to the various institutions and researchers each claiming credit for the vaccine:

1991: Expression of the human papillomavirus L1 and L2 proteins together, but not L1 alone, resulted in the formation of small VLPs described as "incorrectly assembled arrays" of subunits (reported by Jian Zhou, Ian Frazer, and colleagues at Queensland; Virology).

1992: HPV L1 expression in mammalian cells led to an L1 in cells that was recognized by monoclonal antibodies that bind conformational epitopes; no VLPs were produced in this study but it was considered important because the ability of L1 to self-assemble into VLPs and produce neutralizing antibodies depends on the native conformation of L1, which involves conformational epitopes (reported by Shin-Je Ghim, A. Bennet Jenson, and Richard Schlegel of Georgetown; Virology).

1992: L1 from bovine papillomavirus type 1 self-assembled into morphologically correct VLPs that induced high levels of neutralizing antibodies in immunized animals (reported by Reinhard Kirnbauer, Doug Lowy, and John Schiller at NCI and colleagues; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

1993: L1 from HPV 11 self-assembled into VLPs, later shown to induce neutralizing antibodies (reported by Robert Rose at Rochester and colleagues; Journal of Virology).

1993: L1 from HPV 16, taken from lesions that had not progressed to cancer, self-assembled more efficiently than the HPV 16 L1 that researchers everywhere had been using; the old strain was shown to be a mutant, possibly because it had been isolated from a cancer (reported by Kirnbaueer, Lowy, and Schiller at NCI and colleagues; Journal of Virology).

Thus, the way the Australian media wants to paint the picture of Ian Frazer as being some sort of Aussie Jonas Salk is misleading. Big discoveries in medicine, and science in general, can rarely be attributed to one person any more. Many people work on different pieces of the puzzle. Apparently, such (international) teamwork makes it difficult, however, for journalists to tell the whole story.

Fast Food Fighting

Student elections at UQ are going on this week.  I don't remember this kind of strong campaigning for an election at any of the other universities with which I have been associated in the past 25 years.  I believe there are just two parties, Fresh and Now!, which are running for control of the student-run UQ Union.  Unlike most universities in the U.S., there isn't a student-run newspaper here, like The Daily Iowan or The Emory Wheel, which might provide more information about what's going on in students' heads.  My colleagues have told me that the national political parties back these student groups because they want to promote their own agendas, particularly those having to do with whether compulsory student fees will ever be reinstated. (These were abolished on July 1, 2006, under the Howard government, which led to a great curtailing of student services on Australian campuses).  One of my colleagues informed me that Fresh is backed by the Liberal party (the party on the right) because they want to keep the fees voluntary, but most UQ students are unaware of this affiliation.  All week, both Fresh and Now! have had huge teams of supporters wearing yellow and blue shirts passing out fliers all over campus.  

A member of Fresh asked for a few minutes to speak to my class on Tuesday to tell my students why they should vote for her party.  Her main message appeared to be that Fresh has been working hard to get Subway on campus, whereas Now (made up of Greens and other progressives) doesn't support this action.  Yes, this seems to be a central issue in the campaign this year, as you can see in the banner below.

Sure, I occasionally went to Subway when I lived in the States, but I usually preferred going to local shops for my sandwiches.  I rarely encountered any sort of line when I did go to Subway, so imagine my surprise at seeing long queues nearly every time I have come upon a Subway here.  Australians just go mad about Subway.  Since my arrival, I've been to shopping areas full of quaint food stands and quick eateries that were serving original, delectable dishes, but the only place with any kind of line was Subway.  They always seem to be busy.  I can't explain why Subway is such a huge phenomenon here, nor why it's such an important issue to UQ students. And vegemite isn't even on the menu.  Then again, I don't understand pickled beetroot on hamburgers either.

Global Changes

V. and I attended special public lectures last night delivered by two of the University of Queensland's most eminent professors, Paul Burn from the School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences, and John Quiggin from the School of Economics and Political Science.  They both conduct research on issues related to climate change.  Burn is developing cheap plastic solar panels and light displays, and one of his messages was that we need to set aside some of our non-renewable energy sources (e.g., oil) now to develop renewable energy ones.  Quiggin is focused on the impact of global warning on the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's most significant agricultural area, which is quickly drying up.  One of his messages was that, although there's a lot of uncertainty about the future of the basin, it's no excuse for inaction now.

Since arriving in this country I have been repeatedly confronted with Australians' concerns about global warming.  Early last year the Howard government passed legislation to ban incandescent lightbulbs, which Quiggin referred to in his talk as a stupid purchase for a consumer to make, as their efficiency is woefully smaller than nearly all the alternatives.  Thank goodness, he implied, that the government decided to take away this decision from the consumer.  A great majority of grocery shoppers bring their own 'green' reusable bags to the stores here, rather than using plastic bags, and there's still a lot of discussion about whether plastic bags should just be banned outright.  At first V. and I were skeptical about reusable bags because we liked to use the plastic ones for nappies (diapers), but we have now changed our ways.  Recycling is much more extensive in Australia as well.   In Atlanta we sorted just our cans, bottles, and newspapers from the rest of the garbage, although most of our neighbors didn't even do that.  Here one can also recycle cardboard, jars, junk mail, and packaging, which really starts to add up.  As a final example, there are widespread public campaigns here to get people to reduce their energy and water consumption that I rarely, if ever, saw in the United States.

It might seem 'cute' that such a small country with a relatively tiny footprint on the world's greenhouse gas emissions is much more obsessed with global warming than the U.S., which is a much larger contributor by far.  My guess is that the typical Australian would in fact be shocked if they spent a week in an American home and saw how comparatively little concern there is for the environment there.  Not surprising, Australians are highly concerned about the American elections.  There are several reasons they should be, including the impact of the current financial crisis on their own markets, but Aussies are also watching what the next administration is going to do about developing renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gases.  A few sensible changes in America's energy policy, for example, would have a far greater impact on the future than if Queensland decides to ban plastic bags at the grocery store.

I believe that Australians are 'ahead' of the game on all this because they live in a place that is terribly susceptible to changes in the environment.  I think this entry from Wikipedia says it best:

By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid lands commonly known as the outback. Australia is the flattest continent, with the oldest and least fertile soils, and is the driest inhabited continent. Only the southeast and southwest corners of the continent have a temperate climate. Most of the population lives along the temperate southeastern coastline. The landscapes of the northern part of the country, with a tropical climate, consist of rainforest, woodland, grassland, mangrove swamps, and desert. The climate is significantly influenced by ocean currents, including the El Niño southern oscillation, which is correlated with periodic drought, and the seasonal tropical low pressure system that produces cyclones in northern Australia.[29] In June 2008 it became known that an expert panel had warned of long term, maybe irreversible, severe ecological damage for the whole Murray-Darling basin if it does not receive sufficient water by October.[30] Water restrictions are currently in place in many regions and cities of Australia in response to chronic shortages resulting from drought.[31] The Australian of the Year 2007, environmentalist Tim Flannery, predicted that unless it made drastic changes, Perth in Western Australia could become the world’s first ghost metropolis, an abandoned city with no more water to sustain its population.[32]

Of course, global warming is going to adversely affect everyone, but American politicians have been slow to realise this.  Here's hoping that they don't become too distracted by the screams of Wall Street so that they can begin to make a real difference sooner rather than later.

I'm a Podcaster Now

We had some (unusual) significant rainfalls the last few days, which are finally putting the Brisbane dam levels above 40% (later today), the first time they have reached that level since 2005. There will be some easing of water restrictions, but nothing that will really matter until the dams reach 60%. With all this wet weather has come some cold temperatures, which have caused many of my colleagues to "rug up" like the girl in this photo. The max yesterday was around 14 C (57.2 F), which is frigid for longtime Queenslanders, most of whom don't have any real heat in their homes. As for me, I find this weather quite nice!

This week I began giving lectures for the second semester at UQ. I'm teaching a new course, Social Neuroscience, which I'm really excited about because the topic is very close to my core interests. But it also requires a lot of preparation because I am having to read a lot of new research that has been published only in the last 2-3 years. As part of the course, I'm recording my lectures as video podcasts. I have some software on my laptop that records the slides the students are seeing while also recording the audio. I am making the podcasts available on my socialneuro website, where you can even subscribe to the entire course via your local iTunes app. Listening to myself, however, makes me wish for a low, deeply resonating voice like you hear on FM radio. A guy can dream...

Where (Almost) Everyone Knows Your Name

I had to get up at 4 a.m. this morning so that I could be in the office for a 4:30 conference call with colleagues back in the U.S. I don't usually go to such great lengths to make phone calls, but one of my former students was proposing her Master's thesis, and I was invited to take part. Anyway, when the meeting was done two hours later, I went home and resumed our normal morning routine: V. leaving for work at 7 and me taking care of Will until I dropped him off at daycare at 9. So, by the time I got back to the office, I was starting to feel sluggish after 5 hours of activity.

What a pleasure it was then to go to my favourite coffee shop on the UQ campus (Bar Merlo, at the library) to get my daily cup of flat white. Ordering a cup of coffee there involves giving your name to the clerk who writes it down on the cup's lid. When the barista is ready with your coffee, he or she calls your name out. After several months of being a regular customer, however, most of the staff now know my name. They are always quite friendly, and a few even call me "hon" (even though they are in their 20s), which makes me feel like I'm back in Georgia. There has been only one other time in my life where food service staff got to know my name--more than 12 years ago, when Patty and I used to go to the Crown City Brewery in Pasadena, California nearly every weekend (I miss the lavosh), and we always got our favourite waitress. It's such a small thing knowing a customer's name, but it works on me on every time.

"Norm!"

(that's a reference to an old TV show, for you young readers out there).

28 Times and Counting!

Today is the first day of classes at the University of Queensland, and the start of the academic year. The campus population has increased many times from just a few weeks ago. This morning after I dropped off Will at 9:00, I had to search hard for a parking spot that ended up being triple the distance away from where I usually park. Students are crowding the campus sidewalks so much that I was forced to walk in the street or a flower bed several times. I just tried to walk down a hallway where students were waiting to get into a lecture theatre and ended up crashing into a couple who were trying to find the right room number. But, despite their intrusion on this otherwise peaceful campus, I always enjoy the reappearance of students after the summer break. They all look so excited and especially nice (showing everyone their latest outfits), and they seem so full of hope that this will be their ideal semester, whatever that ideal is.

I started my own university studies in August 1981. I have always been on a university campus every year since, so that means this is the 28th time I have seen the beginning of another academic year. Today's first-year students were mostly born in 1990 or '91, when I was still in graduate school and the first George Bush was still the president. Time flies.

Favourite Answer

I'm in the middle of marking (grading) a few hundred exams right now. I particularly liked this student's answer to the following question: "Contrast Premack's and Hull's definition of a reinforcer."

Answer: That is a secret that I will take to the grave.

The Friday Routine

My Friday afternoons now go like this. There is almost always an alternating weekly seminar at 3:00--one week it is the “School Seminar” and the other it's the Social or Psychonomics Seminar (click here to see the current schedule). After each seminar, a graduate student rolls a trolley cart into the room with plenty of wine glasses and about 6 bottles of red and white wine (always different each week), chips, and possibly other nibbly bits. It is this student’s job to cater this little function and clean the wine glasses afterwards (all on the School’s budget!). Then, at around 4:30 some people start to walk over to the staff club, which has a very nice pub atmosphere and outdoor seating. I have gone each week for about an hour and sat next to grad students and faculty (called staff here) from the different programs and chatted about all sorts of interesting stuff. I then walk down to the ferry landing to catch the 6:09 pm boat home to V. and Will. It is all very civilized (or civilised, depending on my mood) here in Oz.

Some Peace

I haven’t written for nearly a week, mainly because our lives have become much quieter as we continue to settle in. On Sunday we said goodbye to our "old" friends, Patrick, Grass, and Isabella, who had come up from Sydney to visit us for a week. Unfortunately, our home is so inhospitable at the moment that they had to stay in a nearby motel. They moved from London to Sydney back in January. On the last day of their visit we drove up to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast (our second trip since arriving), where the surf, the beach, and the temperatures were simply perfect. Will (who turned 18 months old this week) discovered the wonders of playing with beach sand, but there was the worry that he would throw it in his face, so we had to watch him closely. By the way, this photo of Mooloolaba comes from Trig's flickr page, as I still don't have all our photos properly edited. We head back to Mooloolaba this Sunday, when we go on a whale watch. I promise more of our own pictures then.

I have been spending a lot of my time at work on my first lectures. I am also getting to know my new colleagues, who (surprisingly) represent a wide range of nationalities. My undergrads were just as charming during the second week of lecture, with many coming up to me during the break and after lecture to ask more questions about the material. Another pleasant surprise about Australian university life is the mixture of informality and respect between students and academics. The students are used to addressing their instructors by their first names, and I noticed that my colleagues always introduce themselves to students that way. However, the students are also very polite and appreciative of their instructors, so the informality in no way undermines a sense of faculty “authority.”

We have received word that the big shipment of our belongings arrives in Brisbane a week from today. It could then take between 5 and 14 days in customs before it’s delivered. That's nearly 3 months since it all left our home in May. We are starting to worry about what we are going to do with everything. Our townhouse is about 1100 sq ft., but we’re moving from a house that had about 4800 sq ft! We do have two large verandas, so we may be putting some of our inside furniture on the outside. Yes, I can hear Jeff Foxworthy saying, “You might be a redneck if…” I guess ten years in Atlanta had an effect on me after all.

Oh, and I just have to mention something I posted on another blog. I bravely ordered a chicken quesadilla at a restaurant on campus the other day. When the server brought it to my table, she said something like, “chicken kwehs-a-dill-a, sir?”

Si, muchas gracias!

I did it (twice)

I am no longer a virgin Aussie lecturer. Today, in fact, I did it twice--once at 10 am in front of 250 students, and the second time at noon in front of another 90. And, surprise, surprise…it felt just like giving a lecture back in the States. The students laughed when I made stupid jokes, looked bored when I expected them to be, asked questions and responded to mine, and even started packing up their belongings at the same precise moment (just before the last three words of my lecture). Interestingly, the first student to introduce himself to me was an American undergrad from my old alma mater, USC (the one in Los Angeles), who is doing an honors thesis with a prof I knew well back in my grad school days. By the way, that class with 90+ students is titled Behavioural Neuroscience (like that spelling, my American readers?!). When I asked how many students were taking it because they were interested in neuroscience, nearly everyone raised their hands. Incredible!

At home we are now the proud owners of a Toyota Yaris. Thanks to a comment to this blog by Eric H., I thought we should give Toyota a try before I bought a Honda. And I liked what I saw! Our little car is a brilliant cherry red. Other “middle-aged” men buy a fancy sports car during their mid-life crises, but I decided to go with a nice starter car usually marketed to university students. A couple of cool things about buying a car in Australia--the financing included the option of buying comprehensive insurance from two different independent vendors. The insurance itself was about half the price of what I paid in the U.S. for the same thing, and includes a $400 deductible. In addition, the dealership took care of the registration with the state government (something that doesn’t happen in Georgia, for example). There was no pressure to buy an extended warranty or add options that I wasn’t interested in. And, I got a loan with no problem--me, with absolutely no credit history in Australia.

A few other observations about our new life here: (1) The major television networks spend most of their prime time hours broadcasting U.S. television shows, particularly those involving crime, such as “NCIS,” all three “CIS” shows, “SUV”, “Numbers,” etc. It’s no wonder that many Australians are scared of visiting the U.S., thinking they will be violently attacked as soon as they leave the airport. (2) Batteries are expensive. I bought two packs of two “D” batteries for Will’s music machine, and they were nearly $10 each. (3) The newspapers and television news are terribly sensationalist and biased, except for the ABC (the BBC of Australia), even compared with U.S. media. It doesn’t help that several major news outlets are part of Murdoch’s empire. (4) Some Australians really do say, “G’day, Mate!” It’s happened to me about every other day, and I nearly cracked up each time. (5) Most of the wines we have bought, including the mid-priced ones, have screw-tops instead of corks. And they’re good! (6) Both the private and public school kids wear uniforms, and some look like they’re from a 19th Century costume drama. One high school girl I saw the other day looked like an extra from “A Room With a View.” (7) Paper towels are about half the width of the ones in the U.S. (8) Three-wheeled “prams” (strollers) are all the rage here. We got one ourselves last weekend. (9) The weather forecast is usually focused on the next 24 hours, and maybe not even tomorrow. It’s rare to see anyone talk about the next 5-7 days. Thus, I was surprised to see that it was raining this morning because I hadn’t checked the weather yesterday. (10) And even though I lectured for about 3 hours today in front of a total of 340 students, not one mobile phone went off the entire time. How cool is that?

Campus Tour

Inspired by Lori's request, here are a few pictures that I snapped this morning while I made my way to the office. It turned out to be a graduation day for some parts of the university, so there were many people walking around in caps and gowns. You should be able to click any picture to enlarge it.

This first just shows some of the interesting trees that grow here. Someday soon I hope to be able to identify them.

The building below is the Social Sciences Library, which houses the psychology collection and is just across the street from my building. It's also a good example of the sandstone exterior that is found on several UQ buildings.

This is the Student Union. It includes a pharmacy, a hair salon, a (meat) pie shop, a refectory, a pre-school/nursery, a convenience store (called a lolly shop here), a school supply shop, a noodle stand, a sushi restaurant, and so much more:

There's a series of ponds or lakes behind the Student Union. It's a great place to eat lunch:

This is one of many cafés on campus. That's the co-op bookstore next to it.
Here's a little news shop, selling all sorts of salacious mags to the students (and staff).

Here's a shot of the Great Court. It's home to a Great coffee shop.
Keep in mind that this is winter and SE Queensland is experiencing its worst drought on record. Imagine how much nicer it would look if a little rain were to fall...