The Human Biology

This episode is brought to by a collaboration between the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. We're going on a road trip! We did it! We made it! We're here at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, here in beautiful Denver, Colorado. I mean, this place has got mountains, it's got splash pads, it's got this beautiful bear sculpture, and it's got this amazing museum that has been a fixture of Colorado and Denver for over 117 years. And I've heard that they've got some amazing research and collections work, so we're going to go check it out! I'm also super out of breath because the altitude is really high here. I gotta go!

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a lot of what you would expect in the collections of a natural history museum, zoology and anthropology, awesome earth sciences collections with vertebrate and plant fossils, and minerals. On the public side they have a gem exhibition that mimics an underground mine, beautiful dioramas, an exhibition on space, and a stomping t-rex. But the museum also has something pretty unique that I've never seen in a natural history museum. A health sciences collection with an exhibition about genetics where people are the scientific focus, but it makes sense.

Humans are a huge part of the natural world, so it's understandable that we would study ourselves the same way we study other organisms and communities around the planet. Dr. Nicole Garneau is the museum's curator of health sciences, we stopped by to learn more about this unique collection and have a chance to participate in her research. Because here's the fun part, I'm about to be the newest addition to their collection.

Emily: So Nicole, we are in a collection that is nothing like a collection we have at the Field Museum, what ' where are we?

Nicole: We're in the health sciences collection in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

E: Okay.

N: So, going along with the theme of humans are a part of the tree of life, it's really important for us to study our own biology. Not necessarily in the human health sense, so it's a kind of a misnomer, it's called 'health,' but it's really understanding. From body, to system to tissue, to cell, to DNA, what does it mean to be human?

E: So, what are some of the things that you have in this collection, I'm really excited to see.

N: Alright, let's go.

So we start off with an educational collection. It includes things from full human bodies down to specimens like this, which allows us to see systems working together.

E: The -- what?

N: Correct.

E: What? You have an arm.

N: We do! And it was the donor's intent. So, all of our specimens have donor intent with them.

E: You want my arm? Can I give you my arms?

N: You need to go through a proper donation process through the state of Colorado but yes, absolutely.

E: Okay! You can have my arms.

N: So, this is a really great way to teach people because it allows us to take something that feels sometimes abstract, like a collection, and make it feel very personally relevant, and makes you very curious about 'how does my body work?'

E: How is this prepared? I mean, I think this is another reason why I haven't seen anything like this in a museum. This is not a normal preparation technique.

N: Right, anyone who works in a wet collection for example, which is typically going to be soft tissue and you put it in formaldehyde or alcohol, there's still going to be aspects of decay occurring, so the collection is not really kept forever. Plastination eliminates that because anywhere there was water, is now plastic. You have something that you can use for generations and generations and generations for educational purposes.

E: It looks likes a plastic model, like somebody had a mold but to know that this was-

N: Real. This was a real person

E: I kinda wanna touch it.

N: Go ahead, and grab your glove. You'll probably just need one. Plastic is kind of pliable so when you feel it, it's kind of hard but it has that plastic feel to it.

E: Eugh.

N: And that's kind of what you want, because you want something that's not going to degrade over time.

E: But this isn't the only thing you have?

N: No, so this is at the big side.

E: Yeah.

N: And the let's dive deeper. This is looking directly into the body, like you are doing an x-ray, except for, again, this is real tissue.

E: They kind of look like pizzas, I'm not gonna lie. This is a slice of a body?

N: Yeah, so these are different, these are different slices of the body. The preparation is the bodies are frozen, and donor intent for educational purposes. And then slices happen and those slices go into baggies and those baggies get a different type of plastic, and acrylic based plastic, and dyes the bind, different tissues, and you get something like this. This is one of my favorites, which is a transverse slice of a human hand.

E: Oh my gosh! It's like my hand.

N: So, if I put this on top, it would be -- wow this is really good match for you.

E: So how is this information being used?

Besides this being a really cool and interesting collection, how can looking at this inform some aspect of science?

N: We use them mostly for education. These types of specimens get incorporated into all of our programming about the human body. Everything from little guys, the wee ones, they come through, all the way through high school students. And then like I said, we work really closely with communities that tend to fall into that health sciences area, who are interested in anatomy, for them to have more understanding and access to research and help them do their jobs better. So, medical students, massage therapists, it runs the gamut, sports therapist.

E: But then you have even smaller things?

N: We do.

E: We start really big and then we're shrinking.

N: At this level we're now diving into tissues and cells.

These are also slices but on a really small scale, and these are slices of tissue. This particular collection that we're working on right now with our students is the intestines. The nice thing about this collection is it has the normal histology, so you know, things are going good! Basic science, right? But it also has pathology. Which is what happens when things go wrong at the cellular level. So, we're able to understand, digitize, and make available for research purposes. Both the, here's how normal human cells work and here's what happens when things go awry.

E: And then you have another collection that you are building that is even smaller than the cellular level?

N: It is! It is! So, we have thousands and thousands of these little tubes that are small but powerful. So, this is pure DNA. So, when people come to my lab, which I hear you're going to do, they do a cheek swab to get their cheek cells. We get rid of everything in the cheek cells but save the DNA in the liquid solution so we can study the DNA.

E: So, you are actively allowing museum visitors and people coming to this collection to contribute their DNA to this greater understanding of human biology.

N: This represents a person who came to our lab as a quest of the museum and is now officially a part of the museums research collection.

E: I want -- Can I be a part of the museum collection?

N: We would love you to be a part of it! The goal of the sour science study is, truly, the big goal is to figure out if we can find the gene or genes for sour taste. By doing this huge population study where people are tasting sour samples and we get their DNA, we can compare the taste date to the DNA data. A reason why we have this community based aspect and the citizen science aspect of our work is because we want science to be accessible and personally relevant to people. And concurrently have people feel pretty jazzed about learning how their own body works and genetics.

E: I'm jazzed.

N: Yeah!

E: I'm ready. Let's do this.

N: Alright, so we already did the informed consent, you've agreed to participate in this research which is awesome. And we're going to start the taste test.

E: Oh boy!

N: So, go ahead and grab your nose clips, and you are going to wear them like a unicorn and then you do the sniff test.

E: *sniffs* I can't breathe!

N: That's perfect! If you can't breathe through your nose that's perfect.

E: Okay.

N: So, go ahead and take those off while you do the rest of the instructions so you don't have to wear them. When we want to study just taste, we want to remove all the rest of the cues.

E: Okay.

N: So, we're removing smell, we're removing mouth feel because all of the samples will feel the same in your mouth and they'll feel like water. We're removing visual cues, so they're just clear, there are no colors. And sound is too much involved in this one, although sound can play a role. Like, if you crunch a carrot and you think it's supposed to be crunchy and it's not crunchy –

E: You have some nasty carrot.

N: Correct! So we use all of our five senses for flavor, we're just studying taste. So that’s why we use the nose clips. What you're going to do is put on the nose clips, you're going to take the solution marked L, take a deep breath, put the whole thing in your mouth, and then swish it around for five seconds, spit it out, and mark how intense the sour is.

E: Okay. Here we go. That was pretty weak, I gotta say that was like a diluted lemonade.

N: Okay.

E: Like if you go to some kid's stand and they're like 'Want some lemonade?' but they didn't make it right and they didn't get the ratios correct, but you still give them a dollar because –

N: It's a kid.

E: It's lemonade.

N: Now, you're going to say how much you liked that solution.

E: I slightly liked it because I like citrusy things.

N: Perfect, so now you can take off your nose clips, you can take a deep breath in and out. Rinse your palate with some water. And we're gonna hit next. So, we have questions we're going to answer throughout, and this done purposefully to give your tongue a little bit of a break in between samples.

E: What is my race? I am very white. Next. Am I a member of the museum? Not currently.

N: We'll work on that.

E: laughs

N: So, we're going to go to sample E.

E: Okay. And I put back the -?

N: Yup, the reason we have it like this, again is so it's double-blind. I don't know which of them so we're testing five different sour molecules to figure out of those sour molecules, if all sours created equal.

E: Okay.

N: So, the reason that we have those randomized is so that you don't know which is which, and I don't know so I can't kind of prime you.

E: Is this malic acid? I don't know- I don't even know what malic acid is. That was a little more sour. I'm going to go with, like middle of the line sourness.

N: Alright, so go ahead and take a sip of water.

E: Alright, power through.

N: Swallow without the nose clips on.

E: Okay, nose clips.

N: Sniff test. All good?

E: Meh.

N: Alright, take a deep breath.

E: That was tart. I don't know if it was quite sour, almost like a sweet tart.

N: Okay.

E: And I slightly liked that, I'm going to slightly like all of these.

N: That's good. That's fine. We're gonna ask you some questions about food adventurousness, and that's how likely are you to try new foods. And that might be a factor in how you may rate something, is basically what taste scientists want to know. Cause humans are messy.

E: 'I don't trust new foods.' I disagree extremely with that.

'I like foods from different countries.' I agree extremely. 'I am very particular about foods that I will eat.' I agree, no, what, no, I disagree slightly, because I did travel to Denver and pack my lunch the same lunch I eat every day in Chicago, so.

N: That was a good answer then.

E: Alright, I'm ready. That was really - that one's really tart. Kind of puckering a little bit.

N: (laughs)

E: My mouth is suddenly very dry. Okay, I'm gonna, I don't know if that's sour but I'm gonna put that, that was a little bit more extreme. Put it a little bit over the middle line.

N: Go ahead and get some water in there and we are going to do the DNA sample.

E: Woo!

N: We're going to collect cheek cells, so these cheek cells right now, hundreds of thousands of them, you just swallow them. So, instead of swallowing them, we're just going to take some of them, of course with your permission.

E: Yeah.

N: And de-identified so no one can use your DNA against you.

E: So, my name is not going to be attached to this sample?

N: No, you are a visitor ID number. You are going to pick a side, don't switch sides. Try not to touch your tongue or your teeth, and the reason we want cells is because cells have DNA in them. Your DNA is like a cookbook for your body. So a cookbook has recipes, your DNA genome has recipes, they're called genes. And just like if you had a recipe for chocolate cake that you got from your mom but maybe you changed it a little bit, that change in the recipe can totally change the way the chocolate cake turns out. So, that's what happens in human genetics, these little tiny changes can mean that we have changes in ways that we can see like hair color and eye color and ways that we

can't see like how we experience taste and detect taste.

Go ahead and now put that in there, well done!

E: (sings) doo doo doo dooooo. I did it, I did it.

N: You did it! We'll go through and do an extraction process where we'll get rid of everything in the cell except for the DNA and we'll end up with this tiny little tube of Emily's DNA, de-identified. And that becomes part of our human biology collection here at the museum. So, by participating, you get to be a part of our museum forever.

E: Yay! That's always what I ever wanted!

N: So, we're good to move on to the last taste test.

E: Okay! Alright, last one.

N: We did it.

E: Not gonna lie that was a little, little on the disappointing side. In terms of like, flavor explosion.

N: You really wanted things to escalate!

E: Yeah! I really, I was really expecting, I was kind of hyped that you were like 'You might not like some of these things'

N: Everyone's an individual so we have people who come in who are like, all of them taste super strong to them.

E: Really?

N: Which is really good for me as a geneticist to say there's clearly different interactions that are going on here, let's figure out if genetics is a part of that.

E: I'm gonna say that I slightly liked that, because I guess I'm just a fan of acidic tastes. Can I take these off?

N: You may. Because you are a part of our study, we have a where do you fit board. And that board has a dot for it you love sour, take it or leave it, or if you hate sour. So, this is kind of nice because, real quick, guests can come in and see that holy cow, eight to twelve year love sour, and then you can see the different kind of data points and snapshots.

E: Cool! Thanks!

N: Alright, and that's yours, thanks for participating!

E: I'm part of science.

N: You are a part of science, and you're a part of the museum's permanent research collection.

E: Yes!