thescientist--2020-10-01--Neurological Correlates Allow Us to Predict Human Behavior

When he asks if I need help , I am mortified .
At 38,000 feet , the stranger next to me believes I ’ m having a crisis .
Maybe I am .
I ’ m crying uncontrollably as I watch the scene unfolding before me on the seven-inch screen .
Damn that Clint Eastwood .
Movies , songs , and photographs can bring us to tears of joy or sadness .
Why did Million Dollar Baby reduce me to a quivering mess while other people enjoy it without the emotional overflow ?
My lab has spent much of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predict when an experience will induce emotional reactions .
Our research established the neurochemical oxytocin as a key signal that the brain values an experience and thereby affects people ’ s decisions , and a vast literature now describes oxytocin ’ s role in motivating prosocial behaviors such as trustworthiness , generosity , and charitable giving .
Recently , we found that combining measures of oxytocin with other neurochemicals allows us to build models that accurately predict what individuals and populations of people will do—such as whether they will be invested enough in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when she dies .
Neural measures are valuable because people have difficulty articulating the motivations for their actions .
As a result , survey-based research can lead organizations that supply goods and services to waste time and money offering people the wrong things .
To improve market assessments , my team and I have worked to identify what neurological correlates are able to forecast human behavior .
We even launched a startup and developed a software platform so that companies can use neural responses to predict which TV shows and movies will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s number one , as well as to identify learners who have effectively understood education and training and to drive up productivity after virtual meetings .
While scientists are just beginning to use neurological measurements to predict what people will do , the technology holds great promise to improve people ’ s lives .
Since its discovery by English pharmacologist and physiologist Henry Dale in 1906 , oxytocin has revealed itself to be the quintessential mammalian peptide , being part of a cascade of factors involved in childbirth and parental care .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ both as a hormone—binding to receptors on cells in organs in the body such as the uterus ( to trigger contraction ) and breasts ( to initiate milk letdown ) —and as a neuromodulator , binding to receptors on neurons in the brain .
Animal research over the last 40 years has established that oxytocin mediates social behaviors .
When group-living mammals encounter familiar conspecifics , oxytocin is released in the brain and motivates approach behaviors .
The peptide also plays a critical role in maternal attachment , pair bonding , and even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that are valuable for protection , food sharing , and learning through play .
Oxytocin is typically measured in cerebrospinal fluid in animals .
When I hypothesized that oxytocin might explain human social behaviors , I did not want to subject people to spinal taps .
An odd property of oxytocin is its simultaneous release in the brain from cells of the hypothalamus and in peripheral blood from the posterior pituitary .
Taking advantage of this property , my lab developed a protocol to measure the change of oxytocin in blood that would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But oxytocin has a 3–5 minute half-life and relatively fragile chemical bonds , so we would have to draw blood rapidly , and keep it cold while it was processed .
It was a tricky procedure to sort out , and for a month my arms were riddled with prick marks as I let my PhD student Bill Matzner , also a practicing physician , practice on me , the only test subject I knew would consent to multiple needle sticks .
Once we learned how to handle the blood samples , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oxytocin release .
Childbirth and breastfeeding would not do , but the animal literature had demonstrated that oxytocin release could be triggered by a social stimulus .
So I turned to a senior colleague for advice .
In the 1990s , members of Vernon Smith ’ s lab at the University of Arizona experimented with sequential money-sharing tasks to document cooperation between strangers even when there is an incentive to cheat .
The task they developed separates participants and masks their identities , allowing them to act freely without fear of judgment as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Each participant earns $ 10 for agreeing to join the experiment and is randomly paired off with another individual into dyads of decision maker 1 ( DM1 ) and decision maker 2 ( DM2 ) .
After comprehensive instructions , the computer prompts DM1 to send between $ 0 and $ 10 to DM2 .
Both DMs know that whatever DM1 chooses to send is removed from her or his account , and that three times the amount is added to DM2 ’ s account .
DM2 then gets a prompt showing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new total in his or her account , and is prompted to transfer an amount between zero and the account total back to DM1 .
The chosen sum is removed from DM2 ’ s account and that same value is deposited in DM1 ’ s account .
Participants never meet , and are paid their account balances in cash privately when the experiment concludes .
Both participants can walk away with more than their $ 10 show-up earnings if DM1 believes that DM2 will cooperate and if DM2 chooses to do so .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Smith ’ s lab and other groups , that ’ s often what happens : most DM1s send some money to DM2s , and most DM2s return enough to bring DM1 ’ s account balance to more than the $ 10 she started with .
The consensus view by experimental economists is that the DM1 to DM2 transfer is a signal of trust .
The DM1 transfer seems to say , using the southern California vernacular where we ran our studies , “ Hey dude , we can soak these scientists for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you understand why I ’ m sacrificing to grow the pie and will flip some dough back to me.
” The back-transfer from DM2 to DM1 is then a measure of trustworthiness .
Smith , who later won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for introducing experimentation to the field , told me that he had no idea why people cooperated with strangers on this task considering that DM2s can keep all the money without suffering any repercussions .
I suspected that our human social nature , perhaps due to oxytocin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DM1 ’ s transfer of money , denoting trust in DM2 , would cause an increase in oxytocin in DM2 that would spur him to reciprocate .
The key to testing this hypothesis was measuring the change in oxytocin over the course of the experiment .
In studies published in 2004 and 2005 , we reported that 90 percent of DM1s sent some of their money to DM2s , and that the more money DM2s received , the larger their spike in oxytocin .
The magnitude of the oxytocin rise was also highly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ returned to DM1 .
It wasn ’ t the money itself that caused the oxytocin surge ; a control condition , where the DM1-to-DM2 transfer was determined randomly , and the participants knew DM1 had no choice in the matter , produced no oxytocin response and few back-transfers to DM1s .
Rather , the data indicated that it was the intention of trust from DM1—reflected in the choice of transferring money—that triggered the rise in oxytocin in DM2 .
We also measured nine other neurochemicals known to affect the release of oxytocin or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; none of these correlated with oxytocin release or money transfers .
It appeared that oxytocin alone was responsible for reciprocity .
Scientists by personality and training are skeptics .
Even before publishing our findings relating the endogenous release of oxytocin to trustworthiness , I was concerned about causation .
To demonstrate that oxytocin caused trust-related behaviors , I had to get oxytocin safely into human brains .
Synthetic oxytocin ( trade name Pitocin ) has a very safe drug profile ; intravenous Pitocin is regularly used to speed up labor .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intravenous oxytocin enters the brain .
An intranasal oxytocin infuser , used to initiate milk flow for breastfeeding , was available in Europe but had gone off the market in the US , despite also being very safe .
I found a Swiss pharmacy that would mail oxytocin infusers to me with a prescription , but after a year of corresponding with the US Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) , I was told that I would not be allowed to import the drug .
In 2003 , Swiss graduate student Markus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University of Freiburg , sent me his doctoral dissertation that used intranasal oxytocin administration to study social stress in humans .
Heinrichs had shown that oxytocin reduced stress responses when participants interacted with one another prior to a public speaking task .
Desperate to show oxytocin was causally related to trust , I called Markus and suggested a collaboration : he had the intranasal oxytocin infusers and I had the trust task .
We put a group together and ran the study in Switzerland .
Think of synthetic oxytocin as inducing the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a friend .
While in our previous experiments , DM1s did not get a social signal prior to making a choice and thus did not show a change in oxytocin , we expected that an oxytocin boost in the form of intranasal infusion would influence DM1s ’ behavior .
Sure enough , our experiment showed that oxytocin more than doubled the number of DM1s who sent all their money .
Overall , DM1s who received an infusion transferred an average of 17 percent more money to the DM2s in their dyads than those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time , the additional oxytocin had no effect on DM2 behavior .
This was not entirely unexpected , because there is already a strong desire to reciprocate trust , as evidenced in our previous experiments ; more oxytocin , it seems , could not push return transfers even higher .
Our team published these results in 2005 in Nature .
Shortly thereafter , I obtained approval to use intranasal oxytocin in the US .
Our studies of endogenous oxytocin and exogenous oxytocin infusion showed that the molecule affects many prosocial behaviors such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ These findings were extended by other labs showing that oxytocin administration increased empathy , did not make people gullible , and had context-dependent effects .
While patients with social anxiety , depression , and autism have dysregulated oxytocin , administering oxytocin in these patients does not seem to help alleviate the symptoms , likely because it does not change the underlying neural circuitry .
My team also showed that endogenous and exogenous testosterone , known to inhibit oxytocin release , reduced trustworthiness and generosity in money-sharing tasks .
Oxytocin appeared to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sociality .
But we wanted to see how far we could go .
After my experience watching Million Dollar Baby , I wondered if more than just personal interactions could trigger the release of oxytocin .
Entertainment only works if one cares about the characters in the narrative .
Movies put this effect into overdrive by combining visuals , music , and emotional displays .
Neurologically , it is odd that people who are cognitively intact and sitting in a movie theater ( or on an airplane ) will cry or laugh at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know if the movies and videos that elicited such emotional responses were provoking oxytocin release .
In order to rule out the random neurochemical changes that are part of the brain ’ s housekeeping , my lab and I designed experiments that included a behavioral task .
If the neurochemical changes we observed were a response to the video and not background noise , they should correlate with choices made by participants after viewing the videos .
Our first study used a fundraising video we obtained with permission from St. Jude Children ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two 100-second segments of a father with his two-year-old son who was dying of brain cancer .
The narrative version of the video showed the father talking about how it felt to know that his son was dying .
The control video showed the same father and son at the zoo .
We paid people to participate and obtained blood samples before and after they viewed the video .
After the second blood draw , participants had the option to donate some of their earnings to St. Jude .
This was done in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give .
The narrative version of the video caused a spike in oxytocin while the control did not .
Furthermore , the increase in oxytocin correlated with the amount of empathic concern participants reported for the father and son .
But oxytocin alone was not sufficient to predict whether participants would donate .
Going into the study , we had decided to measure neurochemicals associated with arousal , knowing that very high arousal can inhibit oxytocin release .
It turned out that arousal was a critical factor in determining who gave money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , in addition to an increase in oxytocin , participants who donated showed positive arousal—initially , a rise in cortisol , and later , an increase in the faster-acting adrenocorticotropic hormone ( ACTH ) .
The data hit us with a new insight : it seemed that participants had to both pay attention to the video—i.e.
, be aroused—and be emotionally engaged with it to donate .
In order to establish whether or not oxytocin plays a causal role in people ’ s decisions to donate to charity , our next study @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before they watched 16 European public service announcements ( PSAs ) in English .
The videos warned viewers about public health issues such as heart disease and drunk driving .
Many were funny , some were sad , and others simply stated facts .
Participants earned $ 5 after watching each video and could donate to a US-based charity that worked on the highlighted problem .
Sure enough , participants who received oxytocin donated 56 percent more money to 57 percent more charities and reported more concern for the people shown in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recruited a new batch of people and had them watch one of the 16 PSAs and took blood samples before and after .
As in our previous study , donations were made by those who had increases in oxytocin and ACTH .
We coined the term “ immersion ” to denote the neurological state of attention and emotional resonance during an experience that results in an observable behavior .
To more fully understand what stories such as the St. Jude video do neurologically , we needed higher-frequency data .
Blood draws before and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the nervous system .
In 2011 , the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA ) had launched a program called Narrative Networks that supported neuroscience research into persuasive communications .
I had met the program officer , William Casebeer , at several conferences and he invited me to submit a proposal for funding .
Once funding was secured , we returned to the St. Jude video and measured myriad physiological signals including cardiac rhythms , vagus nerve activity , and electrical conductance of skin to capture arousal and emotional responses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the attentional response occurred first while the emotional response followed typically 10–15 seconds later .
Combining arousal and the effect of oxytocin into a measure of immersion , the pattern looked like a classic narrative arc , with the intensity of immersion peaking at the video ’ s climax and declining as the video resolved .
Our subsequent studies of hundreds of audio and video stories showed that the narrative arc is an effective way to sustain immersion and motivate actions—which makes sense , as it ’ s been used to teach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our contract with DARPA required that we predict with at least 70 percent accuracy who would donate after the video using only neurological data .
Building statistical models from the electrical signals that constitute immersion , our predictive accuracy in 2015 was 82 percent .
Modeling second-by-second data , we found that those who donated to St. Jude had a more pronounced spike in immersion at the peak of the narrative arc compared with non-donors .
Measuring immersion is a way to understand , and predict , why people do what they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the word “ oxytocin ” picked up a video from Cannes , France .
In it , Josy Paul , chairman of the India division of the global advertising agency BBDO , said that BBDO ’ s ads were so creative that “ they caused the brain to make oxytocin.
” I was intrigued .
And skeptical .
Had BBDO really measured oxytocin using blood draws ?
A few searches led me to Paul ’ s email , and I sent a query .
They were “ guessing ” about oxytocin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in doing a test .
I explained that immersion , not just oxytocin , was the best predictor of actions that I had found , and that I could measure it with wireless sensors .
BBDO executives cooked up a plan to hold my feet to the fire : a blinded prediction .
Here is how it went .
BBDO sent me 18 TV commercials they had created for six different brands .
There were three commercials each for Snickers candy bars , Cesar dog food , AT & T phone services , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Guinness and Bud Light .
BBDO ’ s clients had already ranked the commercials by the sales bumps they had produced—information that BBDO withheld from us while we analyzed people ’ s immersion levels as they watched each commercial .
A blinded prediction is the ultimate test of accuracy because there is no way to cherry-pick the data or do esoteric statistical analyses to improve the forecast : either immersion predicted sales or it did not .
We recruited 61 participants to watch the BBDO commercials .
Immersion correctly identified the ads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five of the six brands .
Moreover , we found a statistically significant linear relationship between immersion and sales bumps : as immersion increases , so do sales .
BBDO was thrilled , as was I .
The BBDO study gave me the confidence to scale up data collection .
I started a company called Immersion Neuroscience and , together with my collaborators , built a software platform that allowed anyone to measure immersion .
The Immersion Neuroscience software lives in cloud servers and takes the signal from popular wearables that measure cardiac @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infer neural states in real time .
We launched the platform in 2018 , and since then , clients have used it to measure immersion in ways we had never thought of .
Rather than lab experiments , Immersion ’ s clients are performing field studies .
These studies have shown that immersion can identify top-rated reality TV shows with 88 percent accuracy and that immersion while listening to music three months prior to release had a nearly perfect correlation with post-release Spotify streams .
Client usage has also found that information recall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high positive correlation with immersion .
Since we launched our platform , a major professional services company , Accenture , has been measuring immersion during the training they provide to employees and has used immersion data to ensure all learners benefit from training .
Real-time feedback on immersion is increasingly important as training and education go virtual and instructors are not in the same room with learners .
I have had the privilege to take the basic science we have done on the behavioral effects of oxytocin and create a tool to predict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Immersion seems to capture the value of experiences .
When experiences are valued , they are remembered , acted on , and shared with others .
Oxytocin is only part of the neurological process that leads to actions , but the research from my lab and many others during the last 20 years shows it is an important signal of the value that people derive from experiences with social content .
Paul J. Zak is a professor and founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Immersion Officer of Immersion Neuroscience , which launched the first “ Neuroscience as a Service ” platform that enables clients to predict human behavior by measuring immersion .

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, MAKSIM TKACHENKO
When he asks if I need help, I am mortified. At 38,000 feet, the stranger next to me believes I’m having a crisis. Maybe I am. I’m crying uncontrollably as I watch the scene unfolding before me on the seven-inch screen. Damn that Clint Eastwood.
Movies, songs, and photographs can bring us to tears of joy or sadness. Why did Million Dollar Baby reduce me to a quivering mess while other people enjoy it without the emotional overflow? My lab has spent much of the last 20 years measuring brain activity to predict when an experience will induce emotional reactions. Our research established the neurochemical oxytocin as a key signal that the brain values an experience and thereby affects people’s decisions, and a vast literature now describes oxytocin’s role in motivating prosocial behaviors such as trustworthiness, generosity, and charitable giving. Recently, we found that combining measures of oxytocin with other neurochemicals allows us to build models that accurately predict what individuals and populations of people will do—such as whether they will be invested enough in Hilary Swank’s character to cry when she dies.
Neural measures are valuable because people have difficulty articulating the motivations for their actions. As a result, survey-based research can lead organizations that supply goods and services to waste time and money offering people the wrong things. To improve market assessments, my team and I have worked to identify what neurological correlates are able to forecast human behavior. We even launched a startup and developed a software platform so that companies can use neural responses to predict which TV shows and movies will be hits and which songs will reach Billboard’s number one, as well as to identify learners who have effectively understood education and training and to drive up productivity after virtual meetings. While scientists are just beginning to use neurological measurements to predict what people will do, the technology holds great promise to improve people’s lives.
Oxytocin: A biomarker of trust
Since its discovery by English pharmacologist and physiologist Henry Dale in 1906, oxytocin has revealed itself to be the quintessential mammalian peptide, being part of a cascade of factors involved in childbirth and parental care. Synthesized in the hypothalamus, it functions both as a hormone—binding to receptors on cells in organs in the body such as the uterus (to trigger contraction) and breasts (to initiate milk letdown)—and as a neuromodulator, binding to receptors on neurons in the brain.
Animal research over the last 40 years has established that oxytocin mediates social behaviors. When group-living mammals encounter familiar conspecifics, oxytocin is released in the brain and motivates approach behaviors. The peptide also plays a critical role in maternal attachment, pair bonding, and even the maintenance of cross-species “friendships” that are valuable for protection, food sharing, and learning through play.
While scientists are just beginning to use neurological measurements to predict what people will do, the opportunity to improve people’s lives holds great promise.
Oxytocin is typically measured in cerebrospinal fluid in animals. When I hypothesized that oxytocin might explain human social behaviors, I did not want to subject people to spinal taps. An odd property of oxytocin is its simultaneous release in the brain from cells of the hypothalamus and in peripheral blood from the posterior pituitary. Taking advantage of this property, my lab developed a protocol to measure the change of oxytocin in blood that would reliably reflect the change in the brain. But oxytocin has a 3–5 minute half-life and relatively fragile chemical bonds, so we would have to draw blood rapidly, and keep it cold while it was processed. It was a tricky procedure to sort out, and for a month my arms were riddled with prick marks as I let my PhD student Bill Matzner, also a practicing physician, practice on me, the only test subject I knew would consent to multiple needle sticks.
Once we learned how to handle the blood samples, we still needed a way to stimulate oxytocin release. Childbirth and breastfeeding would not do, but the animal literature had demonstrated that oxytocin release could be triggered by a social stimulus. So I turned to a senior colleague for advice.
In the 1990s, members of Vernon Smith’s lab at the University of Arizona experimented with sequential money-sharing tasks to document cooperation between strangers even when there is an incentive to cheat. The task they developed separates participants and masks their identities, allowing them to act freely without fear of judgment as they interact with one another by computer. Each participant earns $10 for agreeing to join the experiment and is randomly paired off with another individual into dyads of decision maker 1 (DM1) and decision maker 2 (DM2). After comprehensive instructions, the computer prompts DM1 to send between $0 and $10 to DM2. Both DMs know that whatever DM1 chooses to send is removed from her or his account, and that three times the amount is added to DM2’s account. DM2 then gets a prompt showing the tripled amount received along with the new total in his or her account, and is prompted to transfer an amount between zero and the account total back to DM1. The chosen sum is removed from DM2’s account and that same value is deposited in DM1’s account. Participants never meet, and are paid their account balances in cash privately when the experiment concludes.
Both participants can walk away with more than their $10 show-up earnings if DM1 believes that DM2 will cooperate and if DM2 chooses to do so. Across many studies using this task, from Smith’s lab and other groups, that’s often what happens: most DM1s send some money to DM2s, and most DM2s return enough to bring DM1’s account balance to more than the $10 she started with. The consensus view by experimental economists is that the DM1 to DM2 transfer is a signal of trust. The DM1 transfer seems to say, using the southern California vernacular where we ran our studies, “Hey dude, we can soak these scientists for a bunch of cash. I trust that you understand why I’m sacrificing to grow the pie and will flip some dough back to me.” The back-transfer from DM2 to DM1 is then a measure of trustworthiness.
Smith, who later won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for introducing experimentation to the field, told me that he had no idea why people cooperated with strangers on this task considering that DM2s can keep all the money without suffering any repercussions. I suspected that our human social nature, perhaps due to oxytocin, was the explanation. I hypothesized that DM1’s transfer of money, denoting trust in DM2, would cause an increase in oxytocin in DM2 that would spur him to reciprocate. The key to testing this hypothesis was measuring the change in oxytocin over the course of the experiment.
In studies published in 2004 and 2005, we reported that 90 percent of DM1s sent some of their money to DM2s, and that the more money DM2s received, the larger their spike in oxytocin. The magnitude of the oxytocin rise was also highly correlated with the amount of money DM2 returned to DM1. It wasn’t the money itself that caused the oxytocin surge; a control condition, where the DM1-to-DM2 transfer was determined randomly, and the participants knew DM1 had no choice in the matter, produced no oxytocin response and few back-transfers to DM1s. Rather, the data indicated that it was the intention of trust from DM1—reflected in the choice of transferring money—that triggered the rise in oxytocin in DM2. We also measured nine other neurochemicals known to affect the release of oxytocin or the binding of oxytocin to its receptor; none of these correlated with oxytocin release or money transfers. It appeared that oxytocin alone was responsible for reciprocity.
Putting oxytocin to the test
Scientists by personality and training are skeptics. Even before publishing our findings relating the endogenous release of oxytocin to trustworthiness, I was concerned about causation. To demonstrate that oxytocin caused trust-related behaviors, I had to get oxytocin safely into human brains. Synthetic oxytocin (trade name Pitocin) has a very safe drug profile; intravenous Pitocin is regularly used to speed up labor. But the evidence indicated that little or no intravenous oxytocin enters the brain. An intranasal oxytocin infuser, used to initiate milk flow for breastfeeding, was available in Europe but had gone off the market in the US, despite also being very safe. I found a Swiss pharmacy that would mail oxytocin infusers to me with a prescription, but after a year of corresponding with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), I was told that I would not be allowed to import the drug.
In 2003, Swiss graduate student Markus Heinrichs, now a professor at the University of Freiburg, sent me his doctoral dissertation that used intranasal oxytocin administration to study social stress in humans. Heinrichs had shown that oxytocin reduced stress responses when participants interacted with one another prior to a public speaking task. Desperate to show oxytocin was causally related to trust, I called Markus and suggested a collaboration: he had the intranasal oxytocin infusers and I had the trust task. We put a group together and ran the study in Switzerland.
Think of synthetic oxytocin as inducing the same physiological effect one would experience when meeting a friend. While in our previous experiments, DM1s did not get a social signal prior to making a choice and thus did not show a change in oxytocin, we expected that an oxytocin boost in the form of intranasal infusion would influence DM1s’ behavior. Sure enough, our experiment showed that oxytocin more than doubled the number of DM1s who sent all their money. Overall, DM1s who received an infusion transferred an average of 17 percent more money to the DM2s in their dyads than those given a placebo. At the same time, the additional oxytocin had no effect on DM2 behavior. This was not entirely unexpected, because there is already a strong desire to reciprocate trust, as evidenced in our previous experiments; more oxytocin, it seems, could not push return transfers even higher. Our team published these results in 2005 in Nature.
Shortly thereafter, I obtained approval to use intranasal oxytocin in the US. Our studies of endogenous oxytocin and exogenous oxytocin infusion showed that the molecule affects many prosocial behaviors such as generosity toward strangers and charitable donations. These findings were extended by other labs showing that oxytocin administration increased empathy, did not make people gullible, and had context-dependent effects. While patients with social anxiety, depression, and autism have dysregulated oxytocin, administering oxytocin in these patients does not seem to help alleviate the symptoms, likely because it does not change the underlying neural circuitry. My team also showed that endogenous and exogenous testosterone, known to inhibit oxytocin release, reduced trustworthiness and generosity in money-sharing tasks. Oxytocin appeared to be a critical part of the fabric of human sociality.
But we wanted to see how far we could go. After my experience watching Million Dollar Baby, I wondered if more than just personal interactions could trigger the release of oxytocin.
Capturing Immersion Immersion is a neurological state of attention and emotional resonance that predicts what people will do after an experience, often with 80 percent or greater accuracy. We identified it by comparing neural activity in people who took an action after an experience versus those who did not. © MICHELLE KONDRICH Participants viewed a video about “Big” Ben Bowen, who suffered from an aggressive brain tumor at age two and was featured in a fundraising campaign from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As participants watched Bowen’s story, we measured attention and emotional responses using brain activity as measured by electroencephalography (EEG) as well as multiple signals from the peripheral nervous system. We also drew blood from participants before and after they viewed the video to measure changes in oxytocin, cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). One-half of the hundreds of people who viewed the video donated money to St. Jude. Our analysis predicted who would donate with 82 percent accuracy.
PDF See full infographic: WEB
Immersion in an experience
Entertainment only works if one cares about the characters in the narrative. Movies put this effect into overdrive by combining visuals, music, and emotional displays. Neurologically, it is odd that people who are cognitively intact and sitting in a movie theater (or on an airplane) will cry or laugh at a flickering image. I wanted to know if the movies and videos that elicited such emotional responses were provoking oxytocin release.
In order to rule out the random neurochemical changes that are part of the brain’s housekeeping, my lab and I designed experiments that included a behavioral task. If the neurochemical changes we observed were a response to the video and not background noise, they should correlate with choices made by participants after viewing the videos.
Our first study used a fundraising video we obtained with permission from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. We cut out two 100-second segments of a father with his two-year-old son who was dying of brain cancer. The narrative version of the video showed the father talking about how it felt to know that his son was dying. The control video showed the same father and son at the zoo. We paid people to participate and obtained blood samples before and after they viewed the video. After the second blood draw, participants had the option to donate some of their earnings to St. Jude. This was done in private so people would not feel pressured to give. The narrative version of the video caused a spike in oxytocin while the control did not. Furthermore, the increase in oxytocin correlated with the amount of empathic concern participants reported for the father and son. But oxytocin alone was not sufficient to predict whether participants would donate.
Going into the study, we had decided to measure neurochemicals associated with arousal, knowing that very high arousal can inhibit oxytocin release. It turned out that arousal was a critical factor in determining who gave money to St. Jude. The analysis showed that, in addition to an increase in oxytocin, participants who donated showed positive arousal—initially, a rise in cortisol, and later, an increase in the faster-acting adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). The data hit us with a new insight: it seemed that participants had to both pay attention to the video—i.e., be aroused—and be emotionally engaged with it to donate.
In order to establish whether or not oxytocin plays a causal role in people’s decisions to donate to charity, our next study administered synthetic oxytocin or placebo to people before they watched 16 European public service announcements (PSAs) in English. The videos warned viewers about public health issues such as heart disease and drunk driving. Many were funny, some were sad, and others simply stated facts. Participants earned $5 after watching each video and could donate to a US-based charity that worked on the highlighted problem. Sure enough, participants who received oxytocin donated 56 percent more money to 57 percent more charities and reported more concern for the people shown in the PSAs compared with placebo recipients. We recruited a new batch of people and had them watch one of the 16 PSAs and took blood samples before and after. As in our previous study, donations were made by those who had increases in oxytocin and ACTH. We coined the term “immersion” to denote the neurological state of attention and emotional resonance during an experience that results in an observable behavior.
To more fully understand what stories such as the St. Jude video do neurologically, we needed higher-frequency data. Blood draws before and after viewing cannot capture second-by-second responses in the nervous system. In 2011, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had launched a program called Narrative Networks that supported neuroscience research into persuasive communications. I had met the program officer, William Casebeer, at several conferences and he invited me to submit a proposal for funding.
Once funding was secured, we returned to the St. Jude video and measured myriad physiological signals including cardiac rhythms, vagus nerve activity, and electrical conductance of skin to capture arousal and emotional responses without blood draws. The data showed that the attentional response occurred first while the emotional response followed typically 10–15 seconds later. Combining arousal and the effect of oxytocin into a measure of immersion, the pattern looked like a classic narrative arc, with the intensity of immersion peaking at the video’s climax and declining as the video resolved. Our subsequent studies of hundreds of audio and video stories showed that the narrative arc is an effective way to sustain immersion and motivate actions—which makes sense, as it’s been used to teach and entertain for thousands of years.
Think of synthetic oxytocin as inducing the same physiological
effect one would experience when meeting a friend.
Our contract with DARPA required that we predict with at least 70 percent accuracy who would donate after the video using only neurological data. Building statistical models from the electrical signals that constitute immersion, our predictive accuracy in 2015 was 82 percent. Modeling second-by-second data, we found that those who donated to St. Jude had a more pronounced spike in immersion at the peak of the narrative arc compared with non-donors. Measuring immersion is a way to understand, and predict, why people do what they do.
Predicting people
In 2013, my Google alert for the word “oxytocin” picked up a video from Cannes, France. In it, Josy Paul, chairman of the India division of the global advertising agency BBDO, said that BBDO’s ads were so creative that “they caused the brain to make oxytocin.” I was intrigued. And skeptical.
Had BBDO really measured oxytocin using blood draws? A few searches led me to Paul’s email, and I sent a query. They were “guessing” about oxytocin, he said, but they were interested in doing a test. I explained that immersion, not just oxytocin, was the best predictor of actions that I had found, and that I could measure it with wireless sensors. BBDO executives cooked up a plan to hold my feet to the fire: a blinded prediction.
Here is how it went. BBDO sent me 18 TV commercials they had created for six different brands. There were three commercials each for Snickers candy bars, Cesar dog food, AT&T phone services, Visa credit cards, and two beers, Guinness and Bud Light. BBDO’s clients had already ranked the commercials by the sales bumps they had produced—information that BBDO withheld from us while we analyzed people’s immersion levels as they watched each commercial.
A blinded prediction is the ultimate test of accuracy because there is no way to cherry-pick the data or do esoteric statistical analyses to improve the forecast: either immersion predicted sales or it did not. We recruited 61 participants to watch the BBDO commercials. Immersion correctly identified the ads that produced the largest sales bump for five of the six brands. Moreover, we found a statistically significant linear relationship between immersion and sales bumps: as immersion increases, so do sales. BBDO was thrilled, as was I.
The BBDO study gave me the confidence to scale up data collection. I started a company called Immersion Neuroscience and, together with my collaborators, built a software platform that allowed anyone to measure immersion. The Immersion Neuroscience software lives in cloud servers and takes the signal from popular wearables that measure cardiac activity, using algorithms we wrote to infer neural states in real time. We launched the platform in 2018, and since then, clients have used it to measure immersion in ways we had never thought of.
Rather than lab experiments, Immersion’s clients are performing field studies. These studies have shown that immersion can identify top-rated reality TV shows with 88 percent accuracy and that immersion while listening to music three months prior to release had a nearly perfect correlation with post-release Spotify streams. Client usage has also found that information recall two weeks after a presentation has a high positive correlation with immersion. Since we launched our platform, a major professional services company, Accenture, has been measuring immersion during the training they provide to employees and has used immersion data to ensure all learners benefit from training. Real-time feedback on immersion is increasingly important as training and education go virtual and instructors are not in the same room with learners.
I have had the privilege to take the basic science we have done on the behavioral effects of oxytocin and create a tool to predict what people are likely to do. Immersion seems to capture the value of experiences. When experiences are valued, they are remembered, acted on, and shared with others. Oxytocin is only part of the neurological process that leads to actions, but the research from my lab and many others during the last 20 years shows it is an important signal of the value that people derive from experiences with social content.
Paul J. Zak is a professor and founding director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California. He is also the founder and Chief Immersion Officer of Immersion Neuroscience, which launched the first “Neuroscience as a Service” platform that enables clients to predict human behavior by measuring immersion.


thescientist--2020-10-01--Michelle Gray Tracks Huntington’s in Different Brain Cells

ABOVE : Lexi Coon/University of Alabama at Birmingham Michelle Gray says her mother knew never to tell her a story unless she could account for every detail .
“ If you told me one sentence , I was going to ask you another question , ” Gray says .
“ I was always in pursuit of more knowledge.
” Gray grew up in Alabama and attended Alabama State University , earning her bachelor ’ s degree in biology in 1997 .
She then headed to Ohio State University for her PhD and chose to work alongside neurobiologist Christine Beattie on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Beattie ’ s experiments showed that the neural circuits involved in the response are malleable , which might have been essential in the evolution of predator avoidance .
Having studied the development of neurons , Gray realized that she wanted to apply her knowledge to study the other end of the cell cycle : neurodegeneration .
The topic was quite a pivot from developmental biology , she explains , so much so that she didn ’ t know any researchers to contact .
Before she finished her PhD in 2003 , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
One of the researchers she contacted was neuroscientist X. William Yang .
He had just started his own lab at the University of California , Los Angeles , after helping to pioneer the development of the bacterial artificial chromosome ( BAC ) , a molecular tool used to clone chunks of DNA up to 300,000 base pairs long .
Yang planned to use BACs to create transgenic mice for the study of neurodegeneration in Huntington ’ s disease , a fatal brain disorder .
He agreed to take Gray on as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s mouse model .
“ I give her a lot of credit .
.
.
for being very bold , ” Yang says .
“ I was proposing to do things that hadn ’ t actually been done before.
” Huntington ’ s disease is caused by a dominant mutation in the huntingtin gene .
Together , Yang and Gray created a mouse model , called BACHD , which included the full-length mutant human huntingtin gene along with a molecular switch to reduce the expression of the gene in individual cell types .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ which cells were most important to the disease , Gray says .
After the model was made , it fell to Gray to characterize BACHD by detailing the behavioral , cognitive , and muscular changes the mice experience when expressing the human form of huntingtin .
Because it takes more than a year for the animals to show a full suite of symptoms , the work could be frustratingly slow , she says , but her diligence paid off : BACHD mice are now widely used in Huntington ’ s disease research .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ BACHD is really the best model out there , ” Mahmoud Pouladi , a neurogeneticist at the National University of Singapore , tells The Scientist .
Pouladi uses BACHD to study the disease ’ s effect on neuronal support cells called oligodendrocytes .
When it comes to the types of questions this model can answer , Pouladi says , “ the limitation is only our imagination.
” Using the model , Gray and her colleagues showed that reducing huntingtin expression in cortical neurons led to a partial improvement in the animals ’ motor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in both the cortex and the striatum , however , provided even more dramatic results ; it led to a reversal of every symptom afflicting the diseased mice , prevented brain atrophy , and bolstered the repair of neuronal connections linking the two brain regions .
The results , Yang says , informed current efforts to develop treatments for Huntington ’ s disease , including a drug now in a Phase 3 clinical trial that reduces levels of the mutant protein .
After wrapping up her postdoc , Gray started her own lab @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2008 .
There , she decided , she ’ d study the role of neuronal support cells called astrocytes in Huntington ’ s .
When Gray first mentioned the line of research to Yang , he says he remembers thinking it was risky , “ because at the time very few people thought astrocytes could be important.
” Taking the risk paid off .
Gray and other biologists at the university ’ s Center for Glial Biology in Medicine showed that BACHD mice with reduced human huntingtin expression in their astrocytes don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mice with normal expression levels , suggesting that astrocytes play some role in the disease ’ s progression .
Through her work with the Huntington ’ s Disease Society of America , Gray has witnessed that progression in human patients , she says .
That ’ s when “ you fully appreciate that [ your research ] is really going to be instrumental in people ’ s lives .
”

ABOVE: Lexi Coon/University of Alabama at Birmingham
Michelle Gray says her mother knew never to tell her a story unless she could account for every detail. “If you told me one sentence, I was going to ask you another question,” Gray says. “I was always in pursuit of more knowledge.”
Gray grew up in Alabama and attended Alabama State University, earning her bachelor’s degree in biology in 1997. She then headed to Ohio State University for her PhD and chose to work alongside neurobiologist Christine Beattie on the startle response of zebrafish. Gray and Beattie’s experiments showed that the neural circuits involved in the response are malleable, which might have been essential in the evolution of predator avoidance.
Having studied the development of neurons, Gray realized that she wanted to apply her knowledge to study the other end of the cell cycle: neurodegeneration. The topic was quite a pivot from developmental biology, she explains, so much so that she didn’t know any researchers to contact. Before she finished her PhD in 2003, she began attending neurology conferences and emailing neuroscientists.
One of the researchers she contacted was neuroscientist X. William Yang. He had just started his own lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, after helping to pioneer the development of the bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC), a molecular tool used to clone chunks of DNA up to 300,000 base pairs long. Yang planned to use BACs to create transgenic mice for the study of neurodegeneration in Huntington’s disease, a fatal brain disorder. He agreed to take Gray on as a postdoc to help develop the Huntington’s mouse model. “I give her a lot of credit . . . for being very bold,” Yang says. “I was proposing to do things that hadn’t actually been done before.”
Huntington’s disease is caused by a dominant mutation in the huntingtin gene. Together, Yang and Gray created a mouse model, called BACHD, which included the full-length mutant human huntingtin gene along with a molecular switch to reduce the expression of the gene in individual cell types. That was important because no one knew which cells were most important to the disease, Gray says.
After the model was made, it fell to Gray to characterize BACHD by detailing the behavioral, cognitive, and muscular changes the mice experience when expressing the human form of huntingtin. Because it takes more than a year for the animals to show a full suite of symptoms, the work could be frustratingly slow, she says, but her diligence paid off: BACHD mice are now widely used in Huntington’s disease research.
“For cell type–specific effects, the BACHD is really the best model out there,” Mahmoud Pouladi, a neurogeneticist at the National University of Singapore, tells The Scientist. Pouladi uses BACHD to study the disease’s effect on neuronal support cells called oligodendrocytes. When it comes to the types of questions this model can answer, Pouladi says, “the limitation is only our imagination.”
Using the model, Gray and her colleagues showed that reducing huntingtin expression in cortical neurons led to a partial improvement in the animals’ motor and behavioral deficits. Reducing gene expression in both the cortex and the striatum, however, provided even more dramatic results; it led to a reversal of every symptom afflicting the diseased mice, prevented brain atrophy, and bolstered the repair of neuronal connections linking the two brain regions. The results, Yang says, informed current efforts to develop treatments for Huntington’s disease, including a drug now in a Phase 3 clinical trial that reduces levels of the mutant protein.
After wrapping up her postdoc, Gray started her own lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2008. There, she decided, she’d study the role of neuronal support cells called astrocytes in Huntington’s. When Gray first mentioned the line of research to Yang, he says he remembers thinking it was risky, “because at the time very few people thought astrocytes could be important.”
Taking the risk paid off. Gray and other biologists at the university’s Center for Glial Biology in Medicine showed that BACHD mice with reduced human huntingtin expression in their astrocytes don’t decline as quickly as BACHD mice with normal expression levels, suggesting that astrocytes play some role in the disease’s progression. Through her work with the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, Gray has witnessed that progression in human patients, she says. That’s when “you fully appreciate that [your research] is really going to be instrumental in people’s lives.”


thescientist--2020-10-02--Tumor Dissociation Guidance for Single Cell Analysis

Scientists performing single cell RNA sequencing studies must process and reduce complex tissue samples into single cell suspensions through chemical @ @ @ @ @ knowledge of tissue handling best practices and quality control measures at each step of the @ @ @ @ @ successful tumor dissociation .
In this webinar with R & D scientists from 10x Genomics @ @ @ @ @ about • Best practices for tumor dissociation from a range of tissue types , sample @ @ @ @ @ and cell analysis

Scientists performing single cell RNA sequencing studies must process and reduce complex tissue samples into single cell suspensions through chemical or physical methods. With knowledge of tissue handling best practices and quality control measures at each step of the workflow, scientists can achieve successful tumor dissociation.
In this webinar with R&D scientists from 10x Genomics and Miltenyi Biotec, learn about
Best practices for tumor dissociation from a range of tissue types, sample storage, cell isolation, and cell analysis
Specific sample preparation considerations for tumor infiltrating lymphocytes


thescientist--2020-10-02--Tips for Early-Stage Molecular Diagnostics Companies to Scale Up

Finding a trustworthy materials supplier is essential for an early-stage molecular diagnostics company .
However , choosing a supplier that @ @ @ @ @ .
In this interview , two industry veterans speak from experience to provide tips on @ @ @ @ @ support a growing business as it advances toward commercialization .
Download this interview article from @ @ @ @ @ learn how to • Plan for future manufacturing and commercialization needs

Finding a trustworthy materials supplier is essential for an early-stage molecular diagnostics company. However, choosing a supplier that provides reliable products is tricky. In this interview, two industry veterans speak from experience to provide tips on selecting a supplier that will support a growing business as it advances toward commercialization.
Download this interview article from LGC, Biosearch Technologies to learn how to


thescientist--2020-10-02--Conservation Biology Icon Georgina Mace Dies at 67

Dame Georgina Mace , a conservation biologist who was involved in some of the largest biodiversity projects on the planet , died on September 19 , following reports that she had been ill off and on for some time .
She was 67 .
A representative announced her passing on Twitter , regarding her as “ a celebrated scientist , loyal friend , loving sister , aunt , wife , mother and grandmother.
” Born in London , she received her undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Liverpool in 1976 .
She received her PhD in evolutionary ecology @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Over the years , she held many prominent appointments , including director of science at the Institute of Zoology , president of the British Ecological Society , president of the Society for Conservation Biology , and director of the Natural Environment Research Council at Imperial College London ( ICL ) , and she founded the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research at University College London .
Mace may be most well known for her work with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) Red List , as she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and criteria that sort species ’ survival from least concern to extinct .
The Red List is one of the most exhaustive reports on biodiversity ever compiled and has been used to influence governmental protections for particular species or habitats around the world .
“ Beyond her transformative impact on science and academia in general , she also had a huge influence on environmental policy and how our research is translated in the real world , ” Guy Woodward , the deputy head of the Department of Life Sciences at ICL , writes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much of both the IUCN Red List and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment , two cornerstones of modern ecology and conservation.
” The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was created with grants from the United Nations and lasted from 2001–2005 and involved more than 1,300 scientists .
The project sought to explain how human activity affects ecosystem health and Mace led aspects of the research regarding biodiversity .
In 2016 , she was made a Dame of the British Empire .
The same year , she jointly received the Linnean Medal alongside botanist Sandra Knapp .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Society and received many other accolades , awards , and honorary degrees for her dedication to science and conservation .
In addition to her professional accomplishments , many of the tributes that have appeared online since her death have recalled her as someone who was steadfast in her work , yet incredibly warm and personable with everyone she met .
“ [ S ] he was just the sort of person who helped because she knew she could , she recognised we were trying , and she knew she could help us , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at ICL , recalling a time when , as a graduate student , he was coming up just short of a fundraising goal to host a conservation event .
Mace closed the gap , allowing the show to go on .
“ 100 or more people came , and it was a huge success , but I never forgot that it was that success because of Georgina.
” Mace ’ s final paper was published in Nature on September 10 .
It explores how as the human population continues to climb it will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what needs to be done to protect biodiversity and minimize habitat destruction in the process .
Eleanor Jane “ E.J.
” Milner-Gulland , a member of the IUCN Commission , was a postdoc when she met Mace in 1991 in working on the Red List .
“ I was overawed - to be part of a group consisting of some of the smartest , most influential conservation scientists in the world , and for no obvious reason .
But Georgina made me feel at home , she ensured that my voice was given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s , ” she writes in tribute from the IUCN .
“ That first major experience with collaborative working and understated but effective leadership left me with a foundational understanding of how to do science in a respectful and generous way - also tinged with humour .
”

ABOVE: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, JARELLA AND © ISTOCK.COM, CHAINARONG PRASERTTHAI
Dame Georgina Mace, a conservation biologist who was involved in some of the largest biodiversity projects on the planet, died on September 19, following reports that she had been ill off and on for some time. She was 67. A representative announced her passing on Twitter, regarding her as “a celebrated scientist, loyal friend, loving sister, aunt, wife, mother and grandmother.”
Born in London, she received her undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Liverpool in 1976. She received her PhD in evolutionary ecology from the University of Sussex in 1979. Over the years, she held many prominent appointments, including director of science at the Institute of Zoology, president of the British Ecological Society, president of the Society for Conservation Biology, and director of the Natural Environment Research Council at Imperial College London (ICL), and she founded the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research at University College London.
Mace may be most well known for her work with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, as she led the scientific work that determined categories and criteria that sort species’ survival from least concern to extinct. The Red List is one of the most exhaustive reports on biodiversity ever compiled and has been used to influence governmental protections for particular species or habitats around the world.
“Beyond her transformative impact on science and academia in general, she also had a huge influence on environmental policy and how our research is translated in the real world,” Guy Woodward, the deputy head of the Department of Life Sciences at ICL, writes in a tribute. “She shaped much of both the IUCN Red List and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, two cornerstones of modern ecology and conservation.”
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was created with grants from the United Nations and lasted from 2001–2005 and involved more than 1,300 scientists. The project sought to explain how human activity affects ecosystem health and Mace led aspects of the research regarding biodiversity.
In 2016, she was made a Dame of the British Empire. The same year, she jointly received the Linnean Medal alongside botanist Sandra Knapp. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society and received many other accolades, awards, and honorary degrees for her dedication to science and conservation.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, many of the tributes that have appeared online since her death have recalled her as someone who was steadfast in her work, yet incredibly warm and personable with everyone she met.
“[S]he was just the sort of person who helped because she knew she could, she recognised we were trying, and she knew she could help us,” writes Will Pearse, an ecologist at ICL, recalling a time when, as a graduate student, he was coming up just short of a fundraising goal to host a conservation event. Mace closed the gap, allowing the show to go on. “100 or more people came, and it was a huge success, but I never forgot that it was that success because of Georgina.”
Mace’s final paper was published in Nature on September 10. It explores how as the human population continues to climb it will require greater land use for food and what needs to be done to protect biodiversity and minimize habitat destruction in the process.
Eleanor Jane “E.J.” Milner-Gulland, a member of the IUCN Commission, was a postdoc when she met Mace in 1991 in working on the Red List. “I was overawed - to be part of a group consisting of some of the smartest, most influential conservation scientists in the world, and for no obvious reason. But Georgina made me feel at home, she ensured that my voice was given just as much respect as everyone else’s,” she writes in tribute from the IUCN. “That first major experience with collaborative working and understated but effective leadership left me with a foundational understanding of how to do science in a respectful and generous way - also tinged with humour.”


thescientist--2020-10-02--How to Win at Westerns

How to Win at Westerns

Scientists use Western blots in a wide variety of research settings from protein detection to virus characterization .
However , @ @ @ @ @ into consideration when performing Western blots to avoid common pitfalls .
For example , choosing @ @ @ @ @ buffer combination is key for a successful blot , as is selecting a suitable immunodetection @ @ @ @ @ from The Scientist 's Creative Services team and MilliporeSigma to learn • How to choose @ @ @ @ @ buffer • Where the Western blot fits into virus characterization

Scientists use Western blots in a wide variety of research settings from protein detection to virus characterization. However, researchers must take several factors into consideration when performing Western blots to avoid common pitfalls. For example, choosing the right membrane and transfer buffer combination is key for a successful blot, as is selecting a suitable immunodetection method.
Download this ebook from The Scientist's Creative Services team and Merck to learn


thescientist--2020-10-05--What We Know About Donald Trump's COVID-19 Treatment Plan

On Thursday , October 3 , it was announced that President Donald Trump , First Lady Melania Trump , and other White House officials had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 .
His symptoms worsened and on Friday evening , he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda , Maryland .
There has been some mixed messaging with the actual timeline of when he received his diagnosis and began a treatment regimen , as The New York Times reports , and doctors can only speculate on his prognosis .
Here is what is currently known about the drugs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illness : One of the first reported treatments Trump received was an experimental cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies from Regeneron .
Trump was intravenously given eight grams of the cocktail , which is the highest dose used during the drug ’ s small , 245-person clinical trial .
According to a September press release from Regeneron , the drug is meant to treat non-hospitalized patients and boost the patient ’ s immune response , decreasing viral load .
On Friday , Trump also received his first dose of remdesivir , a drug originally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the pandemic , it was shown in vitro to be effective against the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS , suggesting it could be effective against SARS-CoV-2 .
Further testing of the drug in COVID-19 patients , given over the course of five days , showed that it was effective in treating severe disease in patients with pneumonia receiving supplemental oxygen .
In late August , the drug received emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Association for patients with severe cases .
On Saturday , Trump received dexamethasone , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lungs and tempers the patient ’ s immune system .
The drug has a long history of use for a wide variety of ailments , including autoimmune diseases , cancer , and certain endocrine disorders , and has been on the World Health Organization ’ s list of essential medications since 1977 .
Over the summer , a study showed that the drug is also useful in treating severe COVID-19 , reducing the mortality rate by 20 percent .
“ I think we were all astonished to see how effective it was , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Richard Haynes , who is one of the leaders of the trial , wrote in an email to The Scientist in June .
“ We tested it because we believed it could be effective , but I don ’ t think anyone was expecting to see quite such large effects.
” As reported by the Times , the President was receiving supplemental oxygen when his levels dipped below 95 percent .
An October 2 memo from Trump ’ s physician reveals that in addition to these interventions , he has also been taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to aid in sleep ) , zinc , and famotidine , an antacid sold under the tradename Pepcid .
The memo also noted that Trump has been given vitamin D supplements .
In August , a study found a connection to low vitamin D levels and susceptibility to COVID-19 .
It is not clear if these supplements are part of routine health maintenance or his coronavirus infection care .
Notably absent from the President ’ s treatment plan is hydroxychloroquine , an anti-malarial that Trump has touted as a promising treatment throughout the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shown to be largely ineffective and potentially harmful .
In May , Trump claimed to have taken a two-week-long preventive dose of the drug .
In late July , he was still tweeting about the drug , long after its emergency use authorization had been rescinded .
The tweet has since been deleted .

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, WELLESENTERPRISES
On Thursday, October 1, it was announced that President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and other White House officials had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. His symptoms worsened and on Friday evening, he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
There has been some mixed messaging with the actual timeline of when he received his diagnosis and began a treatment regimen, as The New York Times reports, and doctors can only speculate on his prognosis.
Here is what is currently known about the drugs Trump has been taking to combat his illness:
One of the first reported treatments Trump received was an experimental cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies from Regeneron. Trump was intravenously given eight grams of the cocktail, which is the highest dose used during the drug’s small, 245-person clinical trial. According to a September press release from Regeneron, the drug is meant to treat non-hospitalized patients and boost the patient’s immune response, decreasing viral load.
On Friday, Trump also received his first dose of remdesivir, a drug originally developed to treat Ebola infections. Prior to the pandemic, it was shown in vitro to be effective against the coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS, suggesting it could be effective against SARS-CoV-2. Further testing of the drug in COVID-19 patients, given over the course of five days, showed that it was effective in treating severe disease in patients with pneumonia receiving supplemental oxygen. In late August, the drug received emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Association for patients with severe cases.
On Saturday, Trump received dexamethasone, a corticosteroid that mitigates inflammation in the lungs and tempers the patient’s immune system. The drug has a long history of use for a wide variety of ailments, including autoimmune diseases, cancer, and certain endocrine disorders, and has been on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medications since 1977. Over the summer, a study showed that the drug is also useful in treating severe COVID-19, reducing the mortality rate by 20 percent.
“I think we were all astonished to see how effective it was,” the University of Oxford’s Richard Haynes, who is one of the leaders of the trial, wrote in an email to The Scientist in June. “We tested it because we believed it could be effective, but I don’t think anyone was expecting to see quite such large effects.”
As reported by the Times, the President was receiving supplemental oxygen when his levels dipped below 95 percent.
An October 2 memo from Trump’s physician reveals that in addition to these interventions, he has also been taking daily aspirin, melatonin (a supplement to aid in sleep), zinc, and famotidine, an antacid sold under the tradename Pepcid.
The memo also noted that Trump has been given vitamin D supplements. In August, a study found a connection to low vitamin D levels and susceptibility to COVID-19. It is not clear if these supplements are part of routine health maintenance or his coronavirus infection care.
Notably absent from the President’s treatment plan is hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial that Trump has touted as a promising treatment throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, even after it was shown to be largely ineffective and potentially harmful. In May, Trump claimed to have taken a two-week-long preventive dose of the drug. In late July, he was still tweeting about the drug, long after its emergency use authorization had been rescinded. The tweet has since been deleted.
Correction (October 6): A previous version of the story incorrectly identified the date President Trump’s diagnosis was announced. The Scientist regrets the error.


thescientist--2020-10-05--New England Biolabs Expands its Luna® Portfolio with One-Step Master Mix for Multiplex RT-qPCR

New England Biolabs® ( NEB® ) today announced the launch of its Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR 4X Mix with UDG , which is optimized for the sensitive detection of target RNA sequences for probe-based applications , and allows for increased throughput by multiplexing up to five targets .
The new master mix consolidates all essential components into a single tube for one-step RT-qPCR .
`` This addition to the Luna qPCR/RT-qPCR portfolio is positioned for applications where RNA present in low abundance is of interest , such as detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus .
Its exceptional stability at room temperature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multiple reactions at a time , or working with automated workflows , will appreciate , '' said Steven Chiu , Product Marketing Manager , DNA Amplification , at NEB .
`` Additionally , the Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR Mix with UDG was designed to help increase the sensitivity of RT-qPCR experiments .
It is supplied at a 4X concentration to allow for high amounts of sample input and is optimized to outperform comparable one-step RT-qPCR reagents on the market . ''
The master mix contains UDG and dUTP to reduce the risk of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Luna WarmStart® Reverse Transcriptase and Hot Start Taq DNA Polymerase enhance performance robustness and stability , while also allowing reactions to be set up at room temperature .
Also included in the mix are dNTPs , a universal passive reference dye , and Murine RNase Inhibitor in an optimized buffer .
When evaluated against a similar commercially-available one-step RT-qPCR mixes via NEB 's unique `` dots in boxes '' scoring method — a high-throughput data visualization tool that provides quality scores for qPCR outcomes based on efficiency , low input detection , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR 4X Mix with UDG outperformed the competition .

New England Biolabs® (NEB®) today announced the launch of its Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR 4X Mix with UDG, which is optimized for the sensitive detection of target RNA sequences for probe-based applications, and allows for increased throughput by multiplexing up to five targets. The new master mix consolidates all essential components into a single tube for one-step RT-qPCR.
"This addition to the Luna qPCR/RT-qPCR portfolio is positioned for applications where RNA present in low abundance is of interest, such as detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Its exceptional stability at room temperature is a feature that customers setting up multiple reactions at a time, or working with automated workflows, will appreciate," said Steven Chiu, Product Marketing Manager, DNA Amplification, at NEB.
"Additionally, the Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR Mix with UDG was designed to help increase the sensitivity of RT-qPCR experiments. It is supplied at a 4X concentration to allow for high amounts of sample input and is optimized to outperform comparable one-step RT-qPCR reagents on the market."
The master mix contains UDG and dUTP to reduce the risk of carryover contamination between reactions. Paired together, Luna WarmStart® Reverse Transcriptase and Hot Start Taq DNA Polymerase enhance performance robustness and stability, while also allowing reactions to be set up at room temperature. Also included in the mix are dNTPs, a universal passive reference dye, and Murine RNase Inhibitor in an optimized buffer.
When evaluated against a similar commercially-available one-step RT-qPCR mixes via NEB's unique "dots in boxes" scoring method — a high-throughput data visualization tool that provides quality scores for qPCR outcomes based on efficiency, low input detection, and lack of non-template amplification — the Luna Probe One-Step RT-qPCR 4X Mix with UDG outperformed the competition.


thescientist--2020-10-05--Researchers Who Discovered Hepatitis C Earn Nobel Prize

This year ’ s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Harvey Alter of the US National Institutes of Health , Michael Houghton of the University of Alberta , and Charles Rice of the Rockefeller University “ for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus , ” the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announced today ( October 5 ) .
“ When the virus was discovered , it killed half a million people every year .
This discovery led to the characterization of the virus and led to the development of tests by which you can screen blood products @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the University of Copenhagen who has worked with Alter , tells The Scientist .
“ This literally eliminated hepatitis C as a transmissible agent from blood transfusions.
” “ Canada won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923 , and no researcher at a Canadian university has won since then .
This is a huge boost for our university , for the province of Alberta , and for Canada , ” Lorne Tyrrell , the founding director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1970s , Alter ’ s lab studied the occurrence of hepatitis in patients who received blood transfusions .
While blood tests for the then–newly discovered hepatitis A and B reduced the frequency of transfusion-related hepatitis , Alter and his colleagues showed that a large number of cases remained .
Alter later determined that blood from these hepatitis patients could transmit the disease , which he called “ non-A , non-B hepatitis , ” to chimpanzees , the only known susceptible hosts other than humans .
“ We always thought this third form of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ find the virus that caused it , ” Tyrrell says .
Houghton , who worked for the pharmaceutical company Chiron at the time , collected genomic fragments from nucleic acids in infected chimpanzees , theorizing that some of these fragments would be derived from the unknown virus .
His team then used patient sera , which Houghton theorized would have antibodies against the virus , to find cloned viral DNA fragments that encoded viral proteins , with one positive match that they named hepatitis C , a novel RNA virus in the flavivirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Rice , then a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis , sought to understand if the virus alone could cause hepatitis .
His team uncovered a region at the end of the hepatitis C viral genome that Houghton suspected could be important for replication .
He also found that new virus was highly varied and hypothesized that some of these variations might hinder virus replication .
Rice genetically engineered a highly infectious variant , which included the newly discovered region of the viral genome and did not have the inactivating genetic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the liver of chimpanzees .
The team found the virus in the chimpanzees ’ blood and observed the liver deteriorate , similar to hepatitis C cases in humans , demonstrating that the virus caused the unexplained cases of transfusion-related hepatitis .
All three researchers previously received Lasker Awards for their work discovering hepatitis C. In 2014 , the World Health organization released its first hepatitis C treatment guidelines , and the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first combination pill to treat the disease .
The three scientists will share 10 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million .
In 2013 , Houghton turned down $ 100,000 from the Gairdner Foundation for an award recognizing his Hepatitis C research because it did not include two colleagues—Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo—who worked with him to identify and clone the virus .
“ Especially in this day and age with the pandemic , this is the biggest success story for any positive strand virus , outside of the vaccination for polio , in terms of controlling a viral disease , ” Brett Lindenbach , a virologist at Yale University who worked in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , tells The Scientist .
“ We don ’ t have a vaccine for hepatitis C , but the efforts of Charlie Rice and other groups led to the discovery of antiviral compounds .
”

ABOVE: © NOBEL MEDIA 2020. ILLUSTRATION: NIKLAS ELMEHED
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Harvey Alter of the US National Institutes of Health, Michael Houghton of the University of Alberta, and Charles Rice of the Rockefeller University “for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus,” the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announced today (October 5).
“When the virus was discovered, it killed half a million people every year. This discovery led to the characterization of the virus and led to the development of tests by which you can screen blood products,” Jens Bukh, a virologist at the University of Copenhagen who has worked with Alter, tells The Scientist. “This literally eliminated hepatitis C as a transmissible agent from blood transfusions.”
“Canada won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1923, and no researcher at a Canadian university has won since then. This is a huge boost for our university, for the province of Alberta, and for Canada,” Lorne Tyrrell, the founding director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology at the University of Alberta, tells The Scientist.
In the 1970s, Alter’s lab studied the occurrence of hepatitis in patients who received blood transfusions. While blood tests for the then–newly discovered hepatitis A and B reduced the frequency of transfusion-related hepatitis, Alter and his colleagues showed that a large number of cases remained. Alter later determined that blood from these hepatitis patients could transmit the disease, which he called “non-A, non-B hepatitis,” to chimpanzees, the only known susceptible hosts other than humans.
“We always thought this third form of hepatitis existed, but no one could find the virus that caused it,” Tyrrell says.
Houghton, who worked for the pharmaceutical company Chiron at the time, collected genomic fragments from nucleic acids in infected chimpanzees, theorizing that some of these fragments would be derived from the unknown virus. His team then used patient sera, which Houghton theorized would have antibodies against the virus, to find cloned viral DNA fragments that encoded viral proteins, with one positive match that they named hepatitis C, a novel RNA virus in the flavivirus family.
Following Houghton’s discovery, Rice, then a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, sought to understand if the virus alone could cause hepatitis. His team uncovered a region at the end of the hepatitis C viral genome that Houghton suspected could be important for replication. He also found that new virus was highly varied and hypothesized that some of these variations might hinder virus replication. Rice genetically engineered a highly infectious variant, which included the newly discovered region of the viral genome and did not have the inactivating genetic variations, and injected this directly into the liver of chimpanzees. The team found the virus in the chimpanzees’ blood and observed the liver deteriorate, similar to hepatitis C cases in humans, demonstrating that the virus caused the unexplained cases of transfusion-related hepatitis.
All three researchers previously received Lasker Awards for their work discovering hepatitis C.
In 2014, the World Health organization released its first hepatitis C treatment guidelines, and the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first combination pill to treat the disease.
The three scientists will share 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.12 million. In 2013, Houghton turned down $100,000 from the Gairdner Foundation for an award recognizing his hepatitis C research because it did not include two colleagues—Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo—who worked with him to identify and clone the virus.
“Especially in this day and age with the pandemic, this is the biggest success story for any positive strand virus, outside of the vaccination for polio, in terms of controlling a viral disease,” Brett Lindenbach, a virologist at Yale University who worked in Rice’s lab for many years, tells The Scientist. “We don’t have a vaccine for hepatitis C, but the efforts of Charlie Rice and other groups led to the discovery of antiviral compounds.”


thescientist--2020-10-05--The Pandemic Continues to Put a Damper on Faculty Hiring

As the Great Recession in the US was beginning in 2008 , chemical engineer Andrea Armani got several emails in response to her applications for faculty jobs thanking her for applying , but explaining that the search had been canceled , at least in part due to financial uncertainty .
It was likely a disappointment faced by a number of would-be academic researchers .
According to a 2019 report by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources , new assistant professor hires were on the rise until the 2008 , when began a steady decline that lasted until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar disappointment this spring , as searches were canceled due to financial struggles at institutions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic .
And as the faculty hiring season ramps up this fall , ongoing hiring freezes , lower numbers of faculty positions , and uncertainty about what the job market will look like beyond this year have trainees worrying about the future .
“ You put in a lot of work—both your life ’ s work into training .
.
.
and writing what you feel is the best application packet you can—only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s completely out of your control , ” Armani says .
“ It ’ s just completely demoralizing.
” “ In general , the mood is tense—even more so than usual , ” says Pearl Ryder , a postdoc at the Broad Institute .
She runs Future PI Slack , an online community of more than 350 biomedical postdocs who aim to eventually run their own labs .
On the community , there ’ s a spreadsheet to track faculty job listings .
Last year , they had 97 jobs listed with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This year , they have 35 jobs with the same deadline .
Other informal data support a lower availability of jobs this hiring season .
The chemjobber blog , which curates available faculty jobs in chemistry , reported on September 29 that there are 99 research and teaching positions listed , in contrast to 354 similar positions at this time last year .
And neurorumblr , a crowdsourced spreadsheet of neuroscience faculty jobs administered by Princeton postdoc Adam Calhoun , likewise indicates that job postings are way down from 2019 .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frustrating , because you have these yearlong cycles where you apply in the fall , and you hope to hear maybe in the winter or the spring , and then if you don ’ t get a job , you have to sit around for another year , ” Calhoun , who is looking for a job this year , tells The Scientist .
“ When COVID hit , a lot of searches were canceled or put on hold , and a lot of institutions instituted either yearlong or even two-year-long bans on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This added to this backlog of people searching for jobs .
People who thought they ’ d get jobs last year didn ’ t get them so there are even more on the market this year .
And that , combined with the number of jobs available , is making things even worse.
” Career consulting website The Professor Is In has collected an unofficial list of institutions with hiring freezes with more than 400 entries .
In a Twitter poll administered on September 10 by Denis Wirtz , the vice provost for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half of 1,056 people responded that their insitution has a hiring freeze in place .
The other half responded that hiring was either ongoing but reduced or proceeding normally—a data point Wirtz found surprising .
“ I was , in this COVID-19 era , under the impression that many more universities would be really slowing down recruitment , if not blocking it altogether , ” Wirtz tells The Scientist .
And the interpretation of hiring freezes can vary widely , he adds .
For instance , Johns Hopkins officially has a hiring freeze @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and faculty can make a case for recruitment , especially in focal research areas such as artificial intelligence , neuroscience , and climate change .
The university is also contractually obligated to continue recruiting for major gifts , which often come with money earmarked for professorships .
“ In other words , it ’ s not all black .
It ’ s not all white .
It ’ s , as usual , a bit in between those two extremes , ” Wirtz says .
For instance , according to William LaCourse , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mathematical Sciences at the University of Maryland , Baltimore County , there is a hiring freeze in place for staff and vacant faculty slots have been temporarily removed from budgets .
But because the university has made a commitment to the continuation of academic programs , appeals for hiring faculty could be made , he says .
Not only do hiring freezes differ across institutions , Jenn Kong , a postdoc at Stanford University who is on the job market this year , tells The Scientist that some places appear to be continuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ curates a list of biology faculty jobs and points out that a few institutions , such as UT Southwestern , have postings for several tenure track positions .
Despite the institutions that are hiring , postdocs “ are feeling pretty down in general , ” Kong says .
“ The thing that I think most people are worried about is if it ’ s actually going to get better next year .
We ’ re hoping that universities start to open up jobs again , because they ’ ll realize that maybe their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But at least with Stanford , we don ’ t know when the undergrads are coming back , and that ’ s been a huge financial loss for the school.
” Amid all the financial challenges , academic science may also experience a loss of people if postdocs can ’ t find jobs and decide to do something else .
Fewer faculty jobs “ means a lot of great scientists are going to decide not to go the academic track and , as LeBron said , bring their talent elsewhere , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people changing routes , ” agrees Stephanie Eberle , vice chair of the board of the National Postdoctoral Association .
Many postdocs thought academia was going to be consistent and secure for the long term , Eberle adds , and now it looks like it ’ s not .
“ The secret to any career choice is understanding yourself and what you want , so a slow down allows you to do that .
In a recession , it just takes longer to get a job , and the longer that takes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think about exactly what you want.
” Another important consideration regarding postdocs who might opt out of the academic track is “ the unequal burden that some people are experiencing right now because of work from home , ” says Barbara Natalizio , the chair of the board of the National Postdoctoral Association .
Unlike a lot of other recessions where financial concerns are primary , the pandemic and the social and economic turmoil it has caused in the US may make it much harder for some people to be on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Learning how to do virtual interviews is a challenge , they say .
And “ if I have two children around and my partner works or I ’ m a single parent , that ’ s an additional burden beyond the recession.
” See “ Gender Gap in Research Output Widens During Pandemic ” Armani did get a job in 2008 and is now a chaired professor at the University of Southern California .
She acknowledges that what trainees experienced during the 2008 recession is not to the same level as current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the sense of frustration that postdocs are going through right now ” is familiar .
To support early-career researchers who are on the academic market this year or have just started their labs , Armani has organized a free virtual workshop for November 4 and 5 .
More than 400 people have already registered .
In addition to discussing what to expect when job hunting and becoming a new PI in a pandemic , she wants to try to minimize stress for these researchers .
“ Anything I can do to try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I feel I should do , ” she says .
“ We ’ re all stressed enough .
”

ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM,
BAONA
As the Great Recession in the US was beginning in 2008, chemical engineer Andrea Armani got several emails in response to her applications for faculty jobs thanking her for applying, but explaining that the search had been canceled, at least in part due to financial uncertainty.
It was likely a disappointment faced by a number of would-be academic researchers. According to a 2019 report by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, new assistant professor hires were on the rise until 2008, when they began a steady decline that lasted until 2016.
Postdocs across the US faced similar disappointment this spring, as searches were canceled due to financial struggles at institutions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. And as the faculty hiring season ramps up this fall, ongoing hiring freezes, lower numbers of faculty positions, and uncertainty about what the job market will look like beyond this year have trainees worrying about the future.
“You put in a lot of work—both your life’s work into training . . . and writing what you feel is the best application packet you can—only to receive an email about something that’s completely out of your control,” Armani says. “It’s just completely demoralizing.”
“In general, the mood is tense—even more so than usual,” says Pearl Ryder, a postdoc at the Broad Institute. She runs Future PI Slack, an online community of more than 350 biomedical postdocs who aim to eventually run their own labs. On the community, there’s a spreadsheet to track faculty job listings. Last year, they had 97 jobs listed with application deadlines of October 1 or earlier. This year, they have 35 jobs with the same deadline.
Other informal data support a lower availability of jobs this hiring season. The chemjobber blog, which curates available faculty jobs in chemistry, reported on September 29 that there are 99 research and teaching positions listed, in contrast to 354 similar positions at this time last year. And neurorumblr, a crowdsourced spreadsheet of neuroscience faculty jobs administered by Princeton postdoc Adam Calhoun, likewise indicates that job postings are way down from 2019.
Faculty openings on Neurorumblr in 2019 vs 2020 pic.twitter.com/wkUQVdFHHq — neuro rumblr (@NeuroRumblr) September 20, 2020
“The whole academic job market is so frustrating, because you have these yearlong cycles where you apply in the fall, and you hope to hear maybe in the winter or the spring, and then if you don’t get a job, you have to sit around for another year,” Calhoun, who is looking for a job this year, tells The Scientist.
“When COVID hit, a lot of searches were canceled or put on hold, and a lot of institutions instituted either yearlong or even two-year-long bans on hiring,” he says. “This added to this backlog of people searching for jobs. People who thought they’d get jobs last year didn’t get them so there are even more on the market this year. And that, combined with the number of jobs available, is making things even worse.”
Career consulting website The Professor Is In has collected an unofficial list of institutions with hiring freezes with more than 400 entries.
In a Twitter poll administered on September 10 by Denis Wirtz, the vice provost for research at Johns Hopkins University, about half of 1,056 people responded that their insitution has a hiring freeze in place. The other half responded that hiring was either ongoing but reduced or proceeding normally—a data point Wirtz found surprising.
“I was, in this COVID-19 era, under the impression that many more universities would be really slowing down recruitment, if not blocking it altogether,” Wirtz tells The Scientist. And the interpretation of hiring freezes can vary widely, he adds. For instance, Johns Hopkins officially has a hiring freeze in place, but individual department chairs and faculty can make a case for recruitment, especially in focal research areas such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and climate change. The university is also contractually obligated to continue recruiting for major gifts, which often come with money earmarked for professorships.
“In other words, it’s not all black. It’s not all white. It’s, as usual, a bit in between those two extremes,” Wirtz says.
For instance, according to William LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, there is a hiring freeze in place for staff and vacant faculty slots have been temporarily removed from budgets. But because the university has made a commitment to the continuation of academic programs, appeals for hiring faculty could be made, he says.
Postdocs reflect on career choices
Not only do hiring freezes differ across institutions, Jenn Kong, a postdoc at Stanford University who is on the job market this year, tells The Scientist that some places appear to be continuing with faculty recruitment as usual. She curates a list of biology faculty jobs and points out that a few institutions, such as UT Southwestern, have postings for several tenure track positions.
Despite the institutions that are hiring, postdocs “are feeling pretty down in general,” Kong says. “The thing that I think most people are worried about is if it’s actually going to get better next year. We’re hoping that universities start to open up jobs again, because they’ll realize that maybe their financial situation isn’t as bad. But at least with Stanford, we don’t know when the undergrads are coming back, and that’s been a huge financial loss for the school.”
Amid all the financial challenges, academic science may also experience a loss of people if postdocs can’t find jobs and decide to do something else. Fewer faculty jobs “means a lot of great scientists are going to decide not to go the academic track and, as LeBron said, bring their talent elsewhere,” says Wirtz.
“We are seeing people changing routes,” agrees Stephanie Eberle, vice chair of the board of the National Postdoctoral Association. Many postdocs thought academia was going to be consistent and secure for the long term, Eberle adds, and now it looks like it’s not. “The secret to any career choice is understanding yourself and what you want, so a slow down allows you to do that. In a recession, it just takes longer to get a job, and the longer that takes the more time you have for reflection and to think about exactly what you want.”
Another important consideration regarding postdocs who might opt out of the academic track is “the unequal burden that some people are experiencing right now because of work from home,” says Barbara Natalizio, the chair of the board of the National Postdoctoral Association. Unlike a lot of other recessions where financial concerns are primary, the pandemic and the social and economic turmoil it has caused in the US may make it much harder for some people to be on the job market, Eberle tells The Scientist. Learning how to do virtual interviews is a challenge, they say. And “if I have two children around and my partner works or I’m a single parent, that’s an additional burden beyond the recession.”
See “Gender Gap in Research Output Widens During Pandemic”
Armani did get a job in 2008 and is now a chaired professor at the University of Southern California. She acknowledges that what trainees experienced during the 2008 recession is not to the same level as current pandemic-related hiring concerns, but says that “the sense of frustration that postdocs are going through right now” is familiar.
To support early-career researchers who are on the academic market this year or have just started their labs, Armani has organized a free virtual workshop for November 4 and 5. More than 400 people have already registered. In addition to discussing what to expect when job hunting and becoming a new PI in a pandemic, she wants to try to minimize stress for these researchers.
“Anything I can do to try to reduce the number of questions, I feel I should do,” she says. “We’re all stressed enough.”