RELATE: Understanding Science in the 21st Century

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Novi Public Library
Meeting Room West

Event Details

RELATE (Researchers Explaining Lay-Audience Teaching and Engagement) is a communications training and community engagement program designed to improve the dialogue between researchers and different public audiences. February 17th discussion topics below: Charles Wang: The Changeling in Your Nose: How the Pneumococcus Survives through Transformation Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as the pneumococcus, is a bacterium that normally lives inside the noses of healthy people, typically young children. Occasionally, pneumococcus spreads beyond the nose to other locations in the body to cause potentially life-threatening infections such as pneumonia and meningitis. PCV, a vaccine against pneumococcus which has been available for the past 15 years, has been effective at reducing the number of new cases of severe pneumococcal infections, particularly in children. However, pneumococcus has rapidly evolved to hide and protect itself from the vaccine. The strains that are immune to PCV are replacing those that the vaccine has eliminated. This threatens to undo the progress PCV has made in reducing pneumococcal disease. To guard against that possibility, I study the strategies that pneumococcus uses to evolve and protect itself from vaccines and other threats. One such strategy is pneumococcus’s ability to acquire the DNA and genes of other bacteria, including other strains of pneumococcus. This lets pneumococcus adapt far more quickly and efficiently than it would be able to otherwise. Understanding how pneumococcus uses this strategy and others to its advantage will hopefully help our efforts to eradicate pneumococcal disease. Alison Ludzki Exercise is NOT a big fat loser! Exercise does lots of good things for our health. Something we are just starting to learn about is how it might make our fat healthier. Our body fat has lots of different cells and they work together to store the extra food we eat as energy. We think exercise causes some structural changes in fat that make it better able to expand in a healthy way. This could improve our overall health especially during periods of overeating and weight gain. My ongoing research involves taking fat samples from people to measure how they change after exercise, and if exercise makes fat healthier.
Event Type(s): Family
Age Group(s): 12+
Presenter: Librarian
Matt Kessler