Author: Tyler

Contagion is a medical thriller movie produced in 2011. The movie was directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns. The stars of this movie include Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law (IMDB). Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow play Beth Emhoff and Mitch Ehmoff in the movie, whom are the main characters in the movie, and are a husband and wife with the two kids.

The plot of Contagion is quite interesting – and quite terrifying. Beth Emhoff comes down with a mysterious illness after travelling home from Hong Kong on a business trip. Shortly after arriving home, Beth experiences seizure-like conditions and is rushed to the hospital by her husband, Mitch. Beth ends up dying of “unknown causes,” and the disease that she contracted during her Hong Kong visit begins to spread around the world. Mitch, being suspected of contracting the disease, is put in isolation. However, he seems to possess a gene that makes him immune to the disease and is released back home to his daughter. The next question that arises is if his daughter inherited the immunity to the disease.

The disease in the movie takes the world by storm, and eventually leaves it almost entirely apocalyptic. People begin robbing and looting as the number of deaths from the disease go rampant. The CDC is forced to take action and attempt to develop a vaccine for the disease. Through rigorous tribulations, a vaccine is developed, but it can’t meet demand. The vaccine is limited to a lottery system and allotted for certain citizens, such as first responders.

The movie Contagion is actually pretty accurate it in its depiction of its Biology-related elements. The entire concept of a disease outbreak is a biological nightmare and creating vaccines for such diseases are biological feats. The movie’s accuracy actually struck a nerve with the CDC and the public, causing them to release a program separating the “facts from fiction” within the movie-virus. The CDC program reads, “While the movie Contagion is a fictional account of an outbreak of a dangerous infectious disease occurring globally, the real-life stories of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service are just as exciting as the one on the screen…contagious disease outbreaks can and do happen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates contagious diseases every year. They can emerge in the US or anywhere on the planet, just a plane ride away from spreading globally.”

One of the main biological plot lines in the movie is the issue of immunity and vaccines. In the movie, some people are immune to the disease because of certain alleles of genes that they possess. Vaccineinformation.org explains immunity as, “When disease germs enter your body, they start to reproduce. Your immune system recognizes these germs as foreign invaders and responds by making proteins called antibodies. These antibodies’ first job is to help destroy the germs that are making you sick. They may not act fast enough to prevent you from getting sick, but by eliminating the attacking germs, antibodies help you to get well.” In this particular movie, however, the disease kills the victim before the antibodies even have time to act, so vaccines are completely imperative to survival. Carrington College explains that a vaccine is, “…a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. It contains an agent resembling a disease-inducing microorganism – a bacterium, virus, or toxin – that activates the body’s immune system.” In the Contagion movie, developing a vaccine is the only hope in preventing a bottleneck population issue where only the immune can survive the mass outbreak.

Immunity is another key factor in the movie, adding to the dramatics. Certain people in the movie possess an allele of a gene that makes them immune to the disease, and Mitch is left to question whether his daughter inherited the immunity or not. This concept of immunity relates both to gene heredity and natural selection that we looked at in class. Since Mitch’s mother did not have the gene allele to prevent the disease and Mitch did, it is left to chance whether their daughter inherited the allele or not. This would be true for all individuals concerning the allele, making the gene naturally varying in the population. And, considering the deadly nature of the disease that it prevents, people possessing the allele are more likely to survive and are “more fit” than those who do not have the allele. Thankfully, vaccines exist to combat unknown diseases such as this, so natural selection is hindered by modern science.

 

Figure “Contagion (2011).” IMDB, 2011, www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/mediaviewer/rm492927744.

 

Works Cited

“’Contagion’ Reality Check: CDC Experts Explore Some of the Film’s Scenarios.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 23 Sept. 2011,    www.pbs.org/newshour/health/cdc-experts-examine-the-science-of-hollywoods-contagion.

“Contagion: Facts Behind the Fiction.” Center for Disease Control, CDC, www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/media/pdf/Contagion.pdf.

W., Melanie. “How Do Vaccines Work?” Carrington College, 25 Jan. 2016, carrington.edu/blog/medical/vaccines/vaccines-work/.

Norman Heatley was a British biochemist born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. In his early years, Heatley enjoyed sailing on the River Deben.  In his obituary, Eric Sidebottom paints him as the, “quintessential family man – a proud and immensely involved father, an affectionate husband, an accomplished house husband, an excellent host.” He attended Tonbridge School, where his Chemistry teacher sparked his interest in Biochemistry (Evans). Heatley went on to earn his degree in Natural Sciences at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1933, but he didn’t stop there. In 1936, Ruth Evans explains, “Norman Heatley earned his PhD, and was invited to join a team of scientists in Oxford working under the dynamic Australian pathologist Howard Florey.”

Heatley’s new team of scientists set out to study Sir Alexander’s discovery of Penicillin. Today, Penicillin is a common antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, but discovering how to harness the drug was a challenge. Before joining the team of scientists, Heatley had a history as an inventor. His creative mind was crucial to the team, because Penicillin is extremely unstable and hard to make. Heatley had to find a way to not only grow enough Penicillin to study, but also separate it from the fungus it grows in and measure it (Lienhard). Heatley accomplished this by devising a new assay that, “measured the activity of Penicillin, established appropriate conditions under which Penicillin was stable, and pioneered a multi-stage technique to isolate from the culture fluid and concentrate it.” (Sir William School of Pathology). The strains of Penicillin were tested on mice to see their effectiveness. Robert Gaynes explains, “On May 25, 1939, the group injected 8 mice with a virulent strain of Streptococcus and then injected 4 of them with Penicillin; the other 4 mice were kept as untreated controls. Early the next morning, all control mice were dead; all treated mice were alive. Chain called the results ‘a miracle.’” This success was a huge stepping stone towards turning the Penicillin fungus into a life-saving antibiotic. The next trial was on a policeman who had a serious infection, including abscesses throughout his body, and his condition improved dramatically within 24 hours.

Eventually, the United States took over the production of Penicillin. Andrew Florey and Heatley travelled to the United States with their strain of Penicillin in 1941. There, they met with Charles Tom, the principal mycologist of the US Department of Agriculture, and Andrew Jackson Moyer, director of the department’s Northern Research Laboratory (Gaynes). The United States found a way to produce more Penicillin than the original research team ever had. The new technique developed for producing Penicillin by the United States was “deep-tank fermentation.” Gaynes explains deep-tank fermentation as, “This process adapted a fermentation process performed in swallow dishes to deep tanks by bubbling air through the tank while agitating it with an electric stirrer to aerate and stimulate the growth of tremendous quantities of the mold.”

The new growing and separating techniques to obtain medical Penicillin were notable during World War II. Penicillin is said to have reduced the number of deaths and amputations during WW2. Records say that there were only 400 million units of Penicillin during the first five months of 1943, but by the end of WW2, U.S companies were making 650 billion units a month (Kalvaitis). This output completely changed the world of medicine; previously fatal infections could now easily be treated.

Penicillin was officially announced as an antibiotic in 1940. In 1945, the leaders of the team, Fleming and Florey, got their Nobel Prize in medicine for their work – thanks to Heatley’s imaginative designs. In 2004, Heatley published “Penicillin and Luck: good Fortune in the Development of the Miracle Drug.”

Even though Heatley was one of the main hands in Penicillin’s discovery that lead to its use as an antibiotic, he did not receive the Nobel Prize. He also denotes Penicillin’s discovery to luck in his book. Heatley’s humble attitude towards his own work is something that I can relate to. Heatley’s main goal was not to obtain the glory for developing Penicillin – it was to bring it to people to help them and use his interests and talents tohelp them.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Norman George Heatley.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 Sept. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Norman-George-Heatley.

 

 

Works Cited

Endocrine Today, August 2008. “Penicillin: An Accidental Discovery Changed the Course of Medicine.” Healio, Aug. 2008, www.healio.com/endocrinology/news/print/endocrine-today/%7B15afd2a1-2084-4ca6-a4e6-7185f5c4cfb0%7D/penicillin-an-accidental-discovery-changed-the-course-of-medicine.

Evans, Ruth. “Obituary: Norman Heatley.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Jan. 2004, www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jan/08/guardianobituaries.highereducation.

Gaynes, Robert. “The Discovery of Penicillin.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403050/.

Lienhard, John H. Engines of Our Ingenuity, www.uh.edu/engines/epi601.htm.

“Norman Heatley (1911-2004).” BBC Oxford, BBC, 20 July 2010, news.bbc.co.uk/local/oxford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8828000/8828836.stm.

Sidebottom, Eric. “Norman HEATLEY (1911–2004).” Norman Heatley: Oxfordshire         Blue Plaques Scheme,                         www.oxfordshireblueplaques.org.uk/plaques/heatley.html.

“The Norman Heatley Lecture.” Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, www.path.ox.ac.uk/content/norman-heatley-lecture.

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