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POPSNanoparticle 'smart bomb' targets drug delivery to cancer cells The researchers say that the virus is appealing in both its ability to survive outside of a plant host and its built-in "cargo space" of 17 nanometers, which can be used to carry chemotherapy drugs directly to tumor cells. "Another factor that makes the virus unique is the toughness of its shell," Lommel says. "When the virus is in a closed state, nothing will leak out of the interior, and when it does open, it opens slowly, which means that the virus has time to enter the cell nucleus before deploying its cargo, which increases the drug's efficacy."
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POPSThe Chaos Inside a Cancer Cell One of the rearrangements disrupts a gene called RAD51C which is involved in mending serious chromosome breaks, those in which both strands in the DNA are disrupted. The impairment of double strand break repair could be a major cause of all the other rearrangements, the researchers suggest.
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POPSDenmark's Kinder, Gentler System of Eugenics Let's say the idea of terminating a Down's pregnancy doesn't disturb you. But what about babies who will be born with holes in their hearts, a potential for cancer, or possible schizophrenia? Where does eugenics become genetic fascism? Given that this kind of pre-natal screening is aimed at helping parents make an informed decision about whether to terminate, what conditions should parents be allowed to screen for?
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POPSNew Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of Aging A growing number of scientists suspect that the breakdown of mitochondria is among the most important causes of cell-level changes that eventually cause the body's tissues to degenerate with age. The damage accumulates gradually until hitting some critical mass of malfunction, at which point diseases arrive rapidly. That may be why so many diseases first occur during middle age, and become steadily more common afterwards.
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POPSBack-to-School Season for Your Immune Cells In fact, "backpack" is a near-perfect analogy for this technology. The synthetic patch application consists of three layers of polyelectrolytes (certain types of polymers). Inside, the middle layer is whatever the scientists want the cell to be carrying: examples include a vaccine, a protein marker, or magnetic nanoparticles for controlled direction. The bottom layer of the patch is a polymer that attaches to the surface of the immune cell, and the top layer binds to other cells.
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POPS'Supermice' who can resist cancer and age almost half as fast as normal In the latest study, published in the journal Cell, the scientists solved that problem by changing the genes of the mice first to make them resistant to the disease. The researchers found that mice which had been created in this way had better muscle in old age, healthier skin tissue and fewer digestion problems. "By simultaneously increasing the amounts of telomerase and the resistance to cancer we are able to delay ageing in mice and also to extend their life span by 40 per cent," said Maria A. Blasco, from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), who carried out the study with colleagues from Valencia University. "These mice get to live for as long as the eldest mice in records of the same kind. "If we were to parallel it to humans, then it would mean reaching 120 years of age and also to start ageing much later in life."
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POPSThe Promise and Power of RNA RNA interference, or RNAi, discovered only about 10 years ago, is attracting huge interest for its seeming ability to knock out disease-causing genes. There are already at least six RNAi drugs being tested in people, for illnesses including cancer and an eye disease. And while there are still huge challenges to surmount, that number could easily double in the coming year. “I’ve never found a gene that couldn’t be down-regulated by RNAi,” said Tod Woolf, president of RXi Pharmaceuticals, one of the many companies that have sprung up in the last few years to pursue RNA-based medicines. The two scientists credited with discovering the basic mechanism of RNA interference won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006, only eight years after publishing their seminal paper. And three scientists credited with discovering the closely related micro-RNA in the 1990s won Lasker Awards for medical research this year.
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POPSCancer Redefined The studies have also revealed to scientists looking to treat these diseases just how difficult their challenge really is. "For the first time, these are giving you the complete picture of these two cancer types," Velculescu says. "This is important, because if we ever want to cure cancer, we have to know what's wrong with it. And unfortunately, what appears to be wrong with most cancers is more complicated than we may have anticipated."
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POPSDrug tries to offset 10,000 years of evolution Gene therapies, expected some time between 2015 and 2020, promise to correct this genetic problem caused by nature, but many obese people do not want to wait. They are hoping that Nastech’s new nasal spray can provide a solution now. Within 20 to 35 minutes after taking a whiff, this new drug moves quickly through the nasal lining and into the bloodstream, sending a message to the brain that our tummy is full. So far the drug has had no negative side effects. PYY is undergoing clinical trials now, and is expected to be in drug stores by 2009 or 2010. Obesity is the 2nd leading cause of preventable death in America, so this drug offers a great chance for more people to improve their health and get ready to enjoy our “magical future”.
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POPSNew You By 2018 Therapeutic: Cloning for tissue replacement is already happening, as stem cells have successfully grown new heart tissues in patients. Researchers believe replacing muscle, bone, skin; even neurons, teeth, eyes, and other organs could be in beginning stages by 2018. Augmentation: Procedures expected to be in place by as early as 2015 include improved memory recall, simultaneous language translation, long range and microscopic vision on demand, wide spectrum hearing, distinctive voice projection, and stronger muscles. And by mid-to-late-2020s, “nanobots” monitoring each of our cells could keep us ageless and forever healthy. Designed Evolution: These could include memory, intelligence, speed, agility, and other behavioral and physical attributes. Eliminating undesired genes that might pre-dispose a child to cancer, heart disease or alcoholism could be possible by about 2015.
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POPSDrug for Longer Life The other drug is a small synthetic chemical that is a thousand times as potent as resveratrol in activating sirtuin and can be given at a much smaller dose. Safety tests in people have just started, with no adverse effects so far. The hope is that activating sirtuins in people would, like a calorically restricted diet in mice, avert degenerative diseases of aging like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. There is no Food and Drug Administration category for longevity drugs, so if the company is to submit a drug for approval, it needs to be for a specific disease. Nonetheless, longevity is what has motivated the researchers and what makes the drugs potentially so appealing.
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POPSConverting genetic activity into music may be a way to monitor health. Together, the notes would form a harmonic chord in normal, healthy states and become increasingly out of tune as key physiological signs go awry, signaling disease. Alterovitz employed mathematical modeling to determine relationships between physiological signals. Much like the various systems in an automobile, many physiological signs work in synchrony to keep a body healthy.
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POPSBaby to be born free of breast cancer after embryo screening This case of genetic intervention for the elimination of genetic diseases, is a ground breaking first that may change our world and our ethical outlook. Many more will follow. I was quite surprised to read the following: "Some critics say it is wrong to destroy embryos because there is only a chance women with the gene may develop breast cancer in adulthood. They argue that, increasingly, breast cancer can also be successfully treated. " The said "embryos" are 3 days old lumps of undifferentiated cells.
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POPS2016 Major Predictions Almost forgot: Prediction: 100 petaflop computer by the end of 2016, which will allow a huge further acceleration of all information dependent technologies (virtually all technologies as of today)
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POPSCould an Acid Trip Help to overcome anxiety ? This is an important article. I believe that psychedelic drugs not only have highly valuable therapeutic properties, but they can serve when responsibly used, to expand one's consciousness and boost intelligence and creativity in many aspects of life. The use of psychedelic drugs is one of those case where something which is highly beneficial to the individual is arbitrarily banned by the 'system' because the system do not want us too conscious, or too creative, not even too intelligence. All these threat the stability of the system while promoting independent thought. It is worth mentioning that the family of psychedelic drugs DO NOT contain dangerous addicting drugs such as opium, heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, etc.
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