I have really enjoyed my two weeks in the Fred Hutch Explorers program. It has certainly expanded my horizon of options for scientific careers. There are so many interesting and fulfilling career paths that make me so excited to explore the scientific field.
One highlight of my time here was learning about the opioid crisis. I have grown up hearing that opioids are dangerous, and that people die from overdose on them. But I never learned what exactly made them so deadly and addictive. But after attending two afternoon sessions about opioids I finally know how they work on a cellular level. When opioids activate the opioid receptors, they block pain signals from getting through. But after the receptor is activated it becomes desensitized and it takes a small amount of time before it is ready to be used again. While it is desensitized, pain signals are able to travel again. This is why to get pain relief, the dosage needs to get higher and higher. But after a while of not regularly taking opioids, the brain is back to handling normal amounts of them. So if a person were to take the same amount of opioids that they took beforehand, the results can be deadly because vital signaling in the brain can be shut off resulting in death.
Those sessions also made me rethink how I look at people who are addicted to drugs. Before, I thought their addictions solely came from bad decisions they made in life. But now I know how drugs like opioids can become addicting so easily. They rewire your brain so that people have to take higher and higher doses, and they also release chemicals in your brain to make you feel euphoric, forming an addiction. And after only a few doses withdrawal symptoms can become excruciating. Many people seek out opioids again just to get relief from their withdrawal symptoms. I am so glad that I was able to attend those sessions about the opioid crisis, it made me realize how complicated opioid addiction can be and that finding a solution is a difficult task.
This illustrates the inner workings of the opioid receptors in the brain. You can see how when the opioid receptors are activated they are able to block the majority of signals from traveling. (image taken from ResearchGate)
One interesting article that I found from Hutch News Stories is called How studies of coronavirus immunity can inform better vaccines, treatments. Researchers in the Hutch labs are being led by Dr. Tyler Starr in a study concerning the variation in antibody binding. Their goal is to seek out antibodies that bind to a variety of coronaviruses. Antibodies are integral to figuring out how to develop the best immunity against Covid-19. When an antibody binds to a virus, it prevents it from entering the cell and producing more viral material. But since viruses can mutate and develop variants, antibodies once effective will no longer have the ability to recognize the virus. During this research they discovered a powerful antibody that can bond to a common epitope among all corona spikes. Creating vaccines with this antibody will lead to better immunity that can help defend the public from the delta variant and more variants in the future. I chose to read about this study because all the different factors that play into immunity are so complex and there’s still more to be discovered. Studies about immunity are very relevant to global health and new discoveries will help advance the field of vaccines.