A once abandoned drug compound shows an ability to rebuild organs damaged by illness and injury.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,140
By Far the Strangest Scientific Discovery of 2018: Your Memories Are a Viral Infection
Agree or Disagree?
According to two papers published in Cell on January 11, 2018, the making of memories and the processes of learning resemble, of all things, a viral infection. It works like this: The shells that transport information between neurons are assembled by a gene called Arc. Experiments conducted by two research teams revealed that the Arc protein that forms a shell, functions much like a Gag, a gene that transports a virus’s genetic material between cells during an infection. For example, the retrovirus HIV uses a Gag in exactly this manner.
Israeli Company’s New Cutting-Edge Cancer Treatment
DAILY DOSE | A new cutting-edge cancer treatment has been developed in one of the innovation capitals of the world — Israel. How does it work and why is some of the medical community eagerly awaiting to use it? Accelerated Evolution Biotechnologies CEO Ilan Morad discusses with host Ayman Sikseck.
Story:
Has a cure for cancer finally been found? Maybe, and it may have born right here in Israel.
An Israeli team of scientists is developing an anti-cancer drug that will target several mutations in cancer cells using a combination of several-cancer directed peptides.
The treatment is called MuTaTo, or multi-objective toxin, and is essentially on the scale of a cancer antibiotic.
For more, see our ⬇.
UK Military Could Deploy Iron Man-Style Jet Suit in Combat
Gravity Falls
This wasn’t the first time Gravity has wowed observers with its Iron Man-esque Jet Suit, which features jets mounted to each of a wearer’s arms. The company even let a CNBC journalist take it for a test flight last year.
In spite of the wow factor, though, one of Williamson’s aids clarified that Gravity’s suit — which costs an imposing $440,000 — isn’t ready for combat yet.
Blue light could treat superbug infections
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that causes infection in various parts of the body, is often called a “superbug” thanks to its ability to dodge many common antibiotics. Although most MRSA infections aren’t serious, some can be life-threatening, sometimes resulting in amputation of the infected appendage.
Rather than rolling the dice with a multi-drug combination or wasting precious time trying to determine which medicine to prescribe, doctors could soon use a new method for disarming the superbugs: light therapy.
Researchers at Purdue University and Boston University have discovered that exposing the bug to blue light can render it defenseless against antiseptics as mild as hydrogen peroxide. The findings were published in the journal Advanced Science.
Scientists Found an Edible Mushroom That Eats Plastic, and It Could Clean Our Landfills
Whether we like it or not, our society has become completely reliant on plastic. From food preservation to water transportation, computer technology to healthcare and medicine, plastic can be found in nearly every facet of the human experience.
But as we well know, plastic is a double-edged sword, with massive amounts of plastic waste not only piling up in landfills, but floating in the most remote depths of our oceans and water supplies. And despite our knowledge of plastic’s harmful effects on the environment, we’ve become so reliant on plastic that there seems to be no end in sight. In fact, plastic production is growing on a yearly basis–and posing a potentially mortal threat to us all.
However, a newly-discovered type of mushroom could not only play a crucial role in slashing plastic pollution, but could have myriad other uses in addressing the environmental crises the planet faces.
An Interview with Dr. Judith Campisi
In this interview with Dr. Judith Campisi at Undoing Aging 2019, she talks about senolytics, immunotherapy, and other scientific topics.
At Undoing Aging 2019, we interviewed some of the best researchers who are involved in discovering therapies for the root causes of aging. Their research aims to ameliorate the damages of aging and may one day lead to a future without age-related diseases.
Dr. Judith Campisi, one of the speakers at this conference, is a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. We asked her about the capabilities and future of senolytic drugs, which remove senescent cells from the body, along with other, related topics.
Scientists worry ‘zombie deer’ disease could jump to humans
If you’ve heard of “zombie deer,” you’ve heard of the horrors of chronic wasting disease. CWD causes infected animals to stumble through the forest, sometimes drooling and becoming aggressive towards humans they once feared. They lose weight. They’re listless. The spookiest thing about it, though, isn’t its resemblance to zombie-dom—it’s the fact that it’s an incurable prion disease.
Prions are misfolded proteins that are somehow infectious (we’re still not really sure how or why) and for which we have no treatments or cures. If you were to catch one, you’d basically deteriorate over the course of several months, possibly losing the ability to speak or move, and eventually you would die. Doctors wouldn’t be able to do anything to save you.
Right now, CWD appears limited to deer, moose, and elk. But University of Minnesota researchers warned local lawmakers this week that we should be taking action now to prevent the potential spread to humans. Michael Osterholm, director of the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention, testified that “It is my best professional judgment based on my public health experience and the risk of BSE transmission to humans in the 1980s and 1990s and my extensive review and evaluation of laboratory research studies … that it is probable that human cases of CWD associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events,” according to the Pioneer Press.