SWINE FLU - THE 2009 PANDEMIC: A PARADIGM OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN ACTION

Professor Barry Schoub will deliver the next Darwin Lecture. As Executive Director for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases he has been in the news recently commenting on the formal declaration of the first pandemic of influenza in this country - the H1N1 virus, commonly called Swine Flu.  The influenza virus, one of the most enigmatic of all human viruses, is a perfect model of real-time evolutionary adaptation to selective pressures and as part of the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin lecture series, he looks at the future course of this pandemic by reviewing past pandemics which have some common features but also some very distinctive differences.

Thursday 23 July

Time:    5.30 for 6pm

Venue: New Learning Centre, Anatomy Building, Health Sciences Campus, University of Cape Town, Anzio Road, Observatory

RSVP:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  021 557 0246

In one of my first immunology classes at university, we played a game called Pandemic.

We were each given two sterile Petri dishes filled with a standard agar growth medium, and a sterile and very sticky piece of toffee. We washed our hands thoroughly and then, in one hand, squeezed the toffee until our hands were gooey.

Each person then, one by one, shook hands with one other person. After the first round of hand-shaking, we swabbed our sticky hand and plated it onto the first agarose gel. Then we did a second round of hand-shaking, and plated again.

One toffee, out of the whole class, had been covered in a marker bacterium. The purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate how rapidly, through simple interpersonal contact, a disease could spread.

Michael Jackson had a skin disorder called Vitiligo. It is a chronic disorder that causes pigment loss in patches of the skin. In terms of its biology, it occurs when the melanin pigment-producing cells called melanocytes die are not able to function properly.

There is evidence to suggest that it is triggered as an event by a combination of immune, environmental and cellular development factors.

It is genetically inherited. The worldwide incidence of Vitiligo is between 1 to 2 per cent.

The Living History Project has been completed. A final report on the results has been written by Professor Himla Soodyall of National Health Laboratory Service and School of Pathology, University of the Witwatersrand.

The report is available as a PDF file, and can be downloaded here.

All through 2009 public talks and activities are commemorating the work of the famous evolutionist Charles Darwin. First published 150 years ago in the book On the Origin of Species, Darwin’s ideas live on as the central organising concept of modern biology. The geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky said “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

Yet when it was first published Darwin’s book provoked a storm of controversy, some of which continues today. What turned an fairly ordinary young man into the great thinker who wrote the Origin of Species?  Darwin always said that it was the Beagle voyage that made him what he eventually became:  'The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.' Five years at sea, travelling around the world on a British surveying ship, he certainly saw many sights. On that famous voyage he also began an intellectual journey. He returned home with a torrent of new ideas to contemplate.

With all the celebrations of Darwin's two hundredth birthday around the world, three points are coming up again and again. First, how central his ideas are to our pressing concerns about climate change and the other critical impacts humankind is now having on global biodiversity. Second, how difficult governments and many other bodies are finding it to recognize what Darwinian science is now telling us so urgently about the pace of change and the dangers ahead. And third,  how greatly we need to build the Darwinian  understanding and share it with others, if we are all to agree on effective action to avoid ecological disaster.

Until recently, Darwin has been  seen as a remote and forbidding figure with a chilling message about life on earth. Interest is now growing  in the man and his life. In meetings with conservationists, teachers and pupils in Brazil,  Galapagos and now here in South Africa, I’ve found an enthusiasm for Darwin's years on the Beagle voyage. Students, artists, poets and musicians are also exploring Darwin's later life at Down House in England, and it is increasingly clear that all  Darwin’s insights can be explained vividly and interestingly through what he did on his travels round the world and then around his  home in the English countryside. This is proving a worthwhile way to use his heritage for understanding,  and themes are being developed in exhibitions, drama, films and many other treatments.