HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

“I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.”
~ Bill Gates

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
~ Albert Einstein

With the NIH research budget currently under attack, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the weird-sounding basic research that has led in the past, or could lead in the future, to significant medical advances. Basic research is called “basic” because it is usually done in laboratories and often has no apparent application for human benefits. But it often leads to “clinical” research which can produce human benefit. For instance,  we made COVID vaccines so much quicker than any other previous viral vaccine because of the decades of NIH-supported basic research into MRNA (Messenger RNA). The MRNA COVID vaccine that prevented millions of severe illnesses and deaths was not an “over night success.”

Hornets and Alcohol
Hornets can thrive on a diet of 80% alcohol without showing any behavioral changes. Most animals show some sort of impairment in their behavior after consuming 4% ethanol (about the level of a lite beer). The source of alcohol in plants and fruits results from yeast deposited from the gut of pollinating insects. That deposited yeast allows fermentation of sugar to occur in the fruit or flower.  Researchers knew that hornet guts contained a whole lot of yeast that could convert sugar into ethanol in their gut. The scientists wanted to see how much alcohol the hornets could tolerate before they showed impairment in building a nest or in recognizing external threats. They found that the hornets could tolerate a 80% ethanol diet without impairment, and had a normal life span while honeybees died within 48 hours on such a diet. The hornets had evolved to the point where they could tolerate the ethanol produced by the yeast in their own gut by metabolizing the resulting ethanol 300 times faster than the honeybees. Researchers have identified the hornet gene that generates the enzyme that accomplishes that. The next step is to look for that gene in other animals like bats and some beetles known to seek alcohol as food. (SciAm Jan. 2025)  [The next steps will probably be looking for a similar gene portion to mimic for  production of medications or gene therapy for humans.]

Bumblebees Can’t Hold their Alcohol, but They Can Survive Underwater
Hibernating bumblebees can survive underwater when submerged for up to seven days. A lab accident resulting in the flooding of a bumblebee colony under study “freaked out” the scientist, but much to her amazement the queen bees survived after drying out without apparent harm.  She then immersed 21 hibernating queen bees for up to seven days and found that 80% of them survived. The drone workers did not survive submersion.   (SciAm Jan.2025)  [With the recent large decreases in our bee populations, the ability to survive in a world with rising water levels due to climate change could prove vital to the survival of the population of one of our major pollinators.]

Ointment in Hamster and Mice Noses Can Prevent COVID Infection
Application of Neomycin ointment, a simple and inexpensive antibiotic, into the noses of hamsters and mice prevented infection by both COVID and flu viruses. The researchers found that this had nothing to do with the ointment’s antibacterial effects. The neomycin actually activated multiple interferon-stimulated genes in the nasal cells that blocked invasion of the viruses.. Expanded study in humans not only prevented infection, but also reduced the severity of symptoms in people already infected with these viruses. Studies in the hamsters showed that nasal Neomycin also markedly reduced the aerosol distribution of the viruses which reduces the contagiousness of the viruses. (JourWatch July 1, 2024)   [Clinical trials in humans of this simple, inexpensive, non-invasive, and readily available tool in preventing the next viral upper respiratory pandemic are already underway.]

Rodent Cities Falsely Predicted a Dire Human Population Explosion
Not all weird or strange-sounding basic research leads to potential medical progress. In the 1950’s Dr. Calhoun sought to study the effects of over population by establishing, with a grant from the NIH, a controlled rat “city” consisting of many connected, but separate, “neighborhoods” that could be easily observed and measured. He found that rat behavior became destructive as the population grew until chaos ensued. He saw the same destructive chaos of behavior in his overpopulated mice city. Dr.Calhoun generalized this finding to humans and predicted that “if population growth continues to grow unchecked in humans, we might one day see the human equivalent of socially catatonic rodents.” None of this dystrophic animal behavior has been seen in the wild or in areas of densely populated human habitats. The author of a 2024 book Dr. Calhoun’s Mousery: The Strange Tale of a Celebrated Scientist, a Rodent Dystopia, and the Future of Humanity  notes that “the disturbing dynamics that Calhoun produced in his micromanaged universe have never been observed in the wild. Calhoun didn’t describe the world; he created his own.” (SciAm Oct. 2024)

Cellular Blobs Are Really Phase-separated Liquid-like Droplets (aka “condensates”)
. . . and they appear to be essential to our life processes. They can protect cells from heat stress, support error-free cell division, repair damaged DNA, and can kill some cancer cells. In my day of medical school microbiology (1962), these “blobs” were called  nucleoli or “small nucleus”, and were thought to be inert. In 2011 veteran cell biologists at Harvard Medical School clarified what they were, tangled, condensated, flexible clumps of proteins, and relabeled them as “blobs”. Blobs are found in every cell in our body, can form “molecular committees”, and are very much in cahoots with cellular DNA. These condensate “molecular committees” may cause the dysregulation (non-working) of genes associated with the onset of cancers, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases.  “Condensate biophysics is now moving drugs into clinical trials.. . . We don’t yet know the rules dictating what goes on at the scale [of these blobs], but it’s clearer than ever that life depends on them”. (SciAm Feb. 2025)

Angler Fish, Rat Pancreas and Gut, and Lizard Salivary Gland Studies Led to Our New Miracle Drug
Believe it or not, basic research (1984) in these lowly animals led to the development of  Ozempic (2017). . . and Liraglutide, Semaglutide, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, and probably others that are hard to remember and harder to spell .These new GLP-1 drugs (( GLP-1 or “glucagon-like peptide-1”- easier to remember and spell) mimic the hormone glucagon that opposes insulin resulting in more stable blood sugar levels. Diabetics who use it can stop using insulin and will decrease their risk for developing heart, kidney, and vascular diseases associated with diabetes. These drugs also result in weight loss, lower blood pressure, and reduced inflammation in people with or without diabetes.

The basic research in these lowly animals revealed the gene sequence that produced glucagon. Portions of that gene were then mimicked in the lab and the ones (aka peptides or “pieces of protein”) that were effective in reducing blood sugar were then manufactured by pharmaceutical companies as medications (aka “biologicals”) for testing in humans. Ozempic was FDA approved in 2017 for treatment of diabetes.  Other GLP-1 medications were FDA approved as weight loss drugs in 2014-2023. Combinations of GLP-1 medicines are now being clinically tested for treatment of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dependence-related disorders, and various neurodegenerative diseases. “Perhaps we have witnessed only the first moments of a new era of enteroendrocrine biology and GLP-1 medicines, with waves of innovation yet to crest.” (NEJM Drucker, MD Feb. 6, 2025) [ Appreciate all this benefit from “inefficient” basic research supported by NIH and other governmental grants!