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Jul 24, 2023

Natural Compounds That Target DNA Repair Pathways and Their Therapeutic Potential to Counteract Cancer Cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

Resistance to current cancer treatments is an important problem that arises through various mechanisms, but one that stands out involves an overexpression of several factors associated with DNA repair. To counteract this type of resistance, different drugs have been developed to affect one or more DNA repair pathways, therefore, to test different compounds of natural origin that have been shown to induce cell death in cancer cells is paramount. Since natural compounds target components of the DNA repair pathways, they have been shown to promote cancer cells to be resensitized to current treatments. For this and other reasons, natural compounds have aroused great curiosity and several research projects are being developed around the world to establish combined treatments between them and radio or chemotherapy. In this work, we summarize the effects of different natural compounds on the DNA repair mechanisms of cancer cells and emphasize their possible application to re-sensitize these cells.

Day by day we are exposed to chemical carcinogens in the environment, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, ionizing radiation, and also those substances produced in our body during cellular metabolism that attack and produce a variety of DNA injuries. Each lesion favors the development of alterations in DNA and chromosomes, which favors oncogenic transformation and tumor progression. In order to reduce the number of changes in the genome and its instability, cells have several pathways of response to damage and DNA repair proteins that eliminate these lesions. DNA adducts, such as those created by alkylating agents, can be cleaved and repaired by base excision repair (BER) or by nucleotide excision repair (NER), depending on whether it is necessary to remove only a nitrogenous base or a nucleotide. Also, O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), an alkyltransferase, eliminates alkylations.

Jul 24, 2023

Primal Eye

Posted by in category: evolution

Steve Nichols’s research from 1979 concerning the early evolution of mind, E2 to E1. Latest research see https://posthumanuniversity.com

Jul 24, 2023

Brain on a Chip: Research team bags grant to merge brain and AI

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Just_Super/iStock.

This transformative project aims to grow human brain cells on silicon chips, creating remarkable capabilities in the realm of machine learning.

Jul 24, 2023

Unleashing Cosmic Power: Energy Flow in the Universe’s Largest Shock Waves

Posted by in categories: education, energy, government

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Kazuhiro Nakazawa from Nagoya University.

Nagoya University, sometimes abbreviated as NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the seventh Imperial University in Japan, one of the first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of Top Global University Project by the Japanese government. It is one of the highest ranked higher education institutions in Japan.

Jul 24, 2023

What happens to the brain during consciousness-ending meditation?

Posted by in category: neuroscience

There’s a meditative state described in ancient Buddhist scriptures that is hard to imagine because it is not something – but nothing. Referred to as nirodha-samāpatti, it roughly translates as ‘the cessation of thought and feeling’, and it is the highest meditative state possible in Theravada Buddhism, following eight others called jhānas. Each jhāna requires deepening levels of concentration, and a retreat into the mind, away from typical consciousness.

According to David Vago, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and director of the Contemplative Neuroscience and Mind-Body Research Laboratory, nirodha-samāpatti refers to a ‘state of profound concentration or absorption in which all mental activity is temporarily suspended’. It’s said that the state leads to a total absence of sensation and awareness, which would help explain the stories of monks who stayed in this deep trance while fires burned around them.

Continue reading “What happens to the brain during consciousness-ending meditation?” »

Jul 24, 2023

Excitatory nucleo-olivary pathway shapes cerebellar outputs for motor control

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Complex spikes (CSs) driven by inferior olivary neurons have crucial roles in motor control. Wang et al. identified an excitatory pathway from the cerebellar nuclei to the inferior olive that drives rapid feedback CSs and contributes to the fine control of ocular and body movements.

Jul 24, 2023

Probing the Abyss: Fermilab’s Dark SRF Experiment Illuminates the Search for Dark Photons

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

The Dark SRF experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has achieved unprecedented sensitivity in the search for hypothetical dark photons. By innovatively employing superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities, researchers can now explore different potential mass ranges for these elusive particles, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of dark matter.

Scientists working on the Dark SRF experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have demonstrated unprecedented sensitivity in an experimental setup used to search for theorized particles called dark photons.

Researchers trapped ordinary, massless photons in devices called superconducting radio frequency cavities to look for the transition of those photons into their hypothesized dark sector counterparts. The experiment has put the world’s best constraint on the dark photon.

Jul 24, 2023

Gene therapy eyedrops restored a boy’s sight. Similar treatments could help millions

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

Dr. Alfonso Sabater pulled up two photos of Antonio Vento Carvajal’s eyes. One showed cloudy scars covering both eyeballs. The other, taken after months of gene therapy given through eyedrops, revealed no scarring on either eye.

Antonio, who’s been legally blind for much of his 14 years, can see again.

The teen was born with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a that causes blisters all over his body and in his eyes. But his skin improved when he joined a clinical trial to test the world’s first topical gene therapy. That gave Sabater an idea: What if it could be adapted for Antonio’s eyes?

Jul 24, 2023

First Successful Transplant of Functional Cryopreserved Rat Kidney Performed

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

The first successful transplantation of a cryopreserved rat kidney has indicated that long-term storage of human organs for transplantation may be possible.

Jul 24, 2023

How Oppeheimer Visualizes “Almost Magical” Shift “From Classic Physics to Quantum Physics”

Posted by in categories: cosmology, military, quantum physics

Similar to Interstellar, Oppenheimer (now in theaters) finds Christopher Nolan at his most abstract, with the director working overtime to ascribe a visual language to concepts just beyond our comprehension.

It wasn’t enough to simply make a biopic about the father of the atomic bomb — he needed to take us inside the extraordinary theoretical mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played in the film by Cillian Murphy) and show us the Big Bang-like birth of quantum physics and how it directly led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

RELATED: Oppenheimer’s Atomic Bombs Marked a New Geologic Age of Humans.