Sending immune cells on a search and destroy mission!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16391-implant-raises-cellular-army-to-attack-cancer.html

Researchers have been working on getting the immune system to fight off cancers. Normally the immune system do nothing to them because technically they originated from within the body. What Researchers did was wrap these biodegradable implants with signals that certain immune cells specifically dendrites can pick up and alert the T cells. The dendrites directs the T Cells to consider the cancer as an invader or something bad and go after it.

When they tested this idea out in mice in about 90% of the cases the cancer plagued mouses did not develop Tumors. Now if scientists can find a way to transfer over this idea to humans we could well be underway to a cure for Cancer! No more Chemo or Radiation this could make life a lot easier on Cancer suffers. I have a feeling this will work!

One huge step closer to the cure for Muscular Dystrophy.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226210147.htm

Muscular Dystrophy is a genetic disease when not enough dystrophin is produce. This cause the muscle cells to die and be replaced by fibrous or fat tissue. Not only do Researchers need to help the body regularly produce dystrophin but victims of the disease also need the production of nitric oxide to help maintain bloodflow to the muscles when they are exercising. Scientists have found where the gene is located that is suppose to produce nitric oxide. They genetically modified genes in mice. They restored the muscle cells in their test subjects.

This could be the hope for those suffering from Muscular Dystrophy needed!

Rare Antibody that can fight off many strains of HIV!

http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/duke_scientists_find_rare_potent_antibody_to_hiv_1

A rare antibody for HIV called 2F5 has been discovered by duke scientists. Out of a 300 patients they found one person with the antibody in their serum. This antibody can fight off 80% of HIV strains. The problem with this antibody is apparently by the time the cells produce this antibody the HIV has been wrecking havoc in the body for about 6 months and it is too late.

What makes this find extremely important is if Scientists can induce cells to produce this antibody many people who are living with HIV wouldn't have to worry about taking those Antiviral drug every day for the rest of their lives. Probably one shot from some sort of catalyst would be what cures the body of the infection.

This is interesting news. I hope they find a way to get cells to produce this antibody efficiently soon.

An antibody that might provide the bluprint for a universal flu vaccine!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226141118.htm

Apparently scientists have discovered in a few humans they've tested have a antibody called, CR6261. This antibody attacks the stalk portion of the influenza H1 virus strains. Those stalks don't constantly mutate so they are always present in that particular shape unlike the virus head cap which mutates every so often. The CR6261 antibody is able to successfully neutralize these awful viruses.

But the big question is if people have this antibody why do people still get afflicted with so many different strains of the flu? Researchers think the reason why you still get sick is because the antibody isn't being utilize properly in the body. Perhaps it is not being produced enough.

Why this is such a big deal is because this could provide a long lasting universal flu vaccine! As I said before in a previous post this would make it easier for people in undeveloped countries just to get one shot and not have to worry about it again next year.

The reason why our hair turns gray...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223131123.htm

Pretty interesting. Apparently as we age there is a buildup of hydrogen peroxide in our cells which prevents Melanin production. There are enzymes that typically break up hydrogen peroxide but as we age there are fewer and fewer of them and so the hydrogen peroxide builds up.

So...this means we may no longer have to dye our hair if scientists find a way to increase the enzymes that help break down Hydrogen Peroxide and stimulate Melanin production!

A great video about intro to immunology

Immunology is the study of how the body defends itself. This video explains it very clearly! It actually ends two minutes and 30 seconds in even though the length is at 4 mins long.

So basically what happens is there is an infection from an antigen which is a foreign cell. Macrophages recognizes the pathogen and ingest it. When it does that it becomes an anti-presenting cells or APC. After this happen a white blood cell called T-helper cell shows up and reacts with the Macrophage. The Macrophage releases a chemical warning alerting T-helper of the situation. This is called interleuken 1. The T-helper cell responding by releasing interleuken 2 which causes the proliferation of cytotoxic cells or B Cells. Pathogens that enter the cell may leave some of themselves on the cell surface. This leads cytotoxic cells to bind to that cell's position and killing off the infection.
The B Cells prefer an indirect route. They release antibodies to the blood stream to fend off the infection.
The other B Cell is memory B cell but that doesn't participate initially in fighting off the infection. It just serves to remember this infection so the body can fight it off more easily next time.

Fistula

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/health/24hospital.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

This is a very sad article about women from poor countries who are malnourished. They get pregnant and try to deliver a baby but they can't deliver through their birthing canals because they are not developed enough. So this causes them to be in Labors for weeks until the baby dies. Once that occurs the baby can pass through the birth canal. After all of this is over there is a hole made between the bladder and the vagina. It is an internal wound that makes the women unable to hold their urine so they leak it out wherever they go.

Because of this they are ostracized from their families and friends. They smell and they are also in pain. Many of them suffer from nerve damage on the leg. In developed countries this kind of thing is not seen because there are doctors that will treat mothers that have complication. But in these countries they don't have access to that so they end up with a very painful disease, Fistula.

Here is a video that shows you what fistula looks like and what it does to those that are its victims.


Here is another link related to the previous video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daAjZ0QX8LY

A Universal Vaccine for the flu?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16653-hidden-weakness-could-yield-universal-flu-vaccine.html

This is a interesting article. Apparently the flu has been fooling our immune system. Typically when the virus enters the body, the immune system would respond by sending antibodies to attack the head of the virus. the problem with the flu is the surface protein or the head constantly changes. So this means no one vaccine will make you immune to the flu forever. But what scientists have discovered is the stalk of the virus typically remains the same. They devised antibodies to attack specifically the stalk of the virus. This killed off the virus and prevented the flu in a couple of mouses.

This discovery could lead to a Universal Vaccine that works for years instead of months.

Anthrax Achillies?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223221355.htm

It seems bacteria like Anthrax uses a siderophore to steal iron from its host in order to survive. Scientists have discovered there might be a way to interrupt siderophore synthesis. There is an enzyme that bind Citric Acid which is an important structure for the uptake of iron for Anthrax. Scientists think if they can block the pathway leading up to siderophore synthesis they can disable Anthrax which is a lethal disease. Especially when breathed in.

Tricking bacteria to produce Vaccines.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223221427.htm

I stumbled upon this article on science daily. Bacteria grows Polysaccharides on their cell surface. Polysaccharides are chains of sugar. These Sugars can be recognized by the body as foreign and then eliminated. The Sugars would be linked with proteins that would be injected into the body.
Scientists have learned they can modify the Sugars on the surface by the specific bateria and then have the bacteria produce that mutant Sugar on its cell surface. What this mean is the scientist could make a large quantity of cheap vaccines this way.

Once the Sugars are extracted from the bacteria they are tied to proteins and administered to the patient. Very good article.

A great video about hepatitis

Pretty easy to understand

A great video on the liver and the disease Hepatitis

Its easy to understand and concise. I recommend you watch it.

Typhoid Mary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

This is pretty humorous, born back in the late 19th century Mary Mallon moved to America from Ireland. This woman came to America to be a cook. Apparently she made a lot of people sick so she had to move from job to job. And from job to job people would keep getting sick around her. Apparently Mary was a healthy carrier of Typhoid Fever. Typhoid Fever gives you diarrhea, crampings, and pains.

When Scientists started to suspect it was Mary that was causing this they confronted her and requested they test her urine and stool for the bacteria. Mary adamantly refused to take the test. She kept saying she was sure she was not the cause of people getting ill around her.

Apparently Typhoid Fever is spread from human fecal matter or Urine that comes in contact with food or water. Back then they didn't practice proper Hygiene so Mary ended up infected a lot of people. A couple of people died. Eventually police had to quarantine Mary in an installation to keep her from infecting other people for the rest of her life.

This may sound harsh but given the fact they warned her she was a carrier and she should give up cooking. She went and got a job cooking for other people. By doing this police had no choice but to take her liberties away.

What's Feeding Cancer Cells?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217092748.htm

This is an interesting article. Scientists are trying to figure out what differs between normal cells and cancer cells. They've linked Myc a cancer causing gene to microRNA which controls the production of glutamine. Glutamine is an energy source that can be used by Cancer Cells to thrive. Scientists theorize if the production of Glutamine is hindered the Cancer Cells will either die off or now thrive as well.

What makes this great news for cancer patients is currently treatment of cancer requires chemo, radiation and or surgery. If Glutamine is a principal function for Cancer cells all Scientists would need to do is create a drug that targets specifically Glutamine. Currently Chemo and Radiation can not distinguished between normal cells and abnormal cells. This is why after going through Chemo the patient often feels very ill.

A great video showing you how bone marrow is transferred.

Here is a great easy to understand video explaining how bone marrow is transferred from the donor and then inserted to the person who needs the stem cells. I hope you enjoy!

Gene Therapy may be the answer to HIV.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126964.400-gene-therapy-promises-oneshot-treatment-for-hiv.html

Over the years patients had to take these costly, daily Antiviral medicines to slow down the HIV virus and slow down the decline of their CD4 cells. Scientists know the HIV virus attacks cells by getting through a surface protein on the white blood cells and then replicating itself inside the hosts. There are many ways scientists are trying to tackle this problem.

One way is to extract CD4 cells and infect them with a virus that has a gene which prevents the surface protein from being developed. Without the surface protein the virus can't enter its host and replicate. Eventually these altered CD4 cells are sent back into the body and they reproduce immune CD4 cells which should eventually replace the infected CD4 cells.

A second way to attack the virus is by use of genetically altered stem cells that have a gene that cut up the virus when it gets into the cell before it can replicate. This process has some difficulties because it is competiting with the host white blood cells.

The Final way discussed in this article is apparently a multiviral attack in which viruses contain genes that stop the surface protein from being created and genes that cut up HIV viruses that enter the cell so they can't replicate.

If things go the way as these researches hope we might find a less costly, bothersome way to cure HIV. You won't have to take a bunch of pills everyday and possibly you could become immune to the virus completely.

Alzheimer's Disease could be a third form of Diabetes!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202174818.htm

Alzheimer disease is a disease in which the toxic proteins called ADDL(amyloid beta derived diffusible ligands) bind to neurons and interfere with synapses in the brain that control memory. The buildup of these proteins cause more and more memory loss. It has been discovered that when these proteins bind to cells they make the cell more insulin resistant. But when these cells are treated with proper amounts of insulin they make the cell more resistant to ADDL. So this means by perhaps injecting more insulin to those that are affected with this disease could possibly alleviate symptoms or keep it from ever occurring. Pretty interesting.

Here is a great video that talks about this new finding!

Stem Cells treat Chrohn's Disease

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219105326.htm

Chrohn's Disease is a genetic disease when the body attacks the intestinal flora. This cause the person to get inflammations and ulcers in the digestinal tract. When a person suffers from this they may experience diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and nausea.

Previously drugs would be used to suppress the immune system and to alleviate the symptoms of the disease. But eventually if things get really bad certain parts of the digestinal tract have to be removed in order to keep going along normally.

Scientists are using a combination of chemotherapy and stem cells to repair the damage cause by Chron's Disease. The stem cells are inserted into the body and if successful put the disease in remission. This procedure may bring hope to the millions that suffer from this life altering disease.

Tricking bad bacteria while preserving good bacteria.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219202725.htm

This is pretty cool. Apparently when scientists use antibiotics to kill infectious strains of bacteria it also could possibly kill helpful bacteria. So in a way this works like Chemo. It does not distinguish friendly from enemy. Apparently some bad bacteria rely on these spores that try to steal whatever they need for their nutrition from the host. Scientists are developing a technique that would fool bad bacteria to stealing something that would kill them when they consume it.

This is a pretty interesting technique. I wonder how far Scientists can go with this idea.

ROS(Reactive Oxygen Species) not be the cause of aging?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217173040.htm

This article puts to doubt that ROS a toxic molecule that does harm to the cells in the body is the cause of aging. Researches did tests on different specimen by shutting down their genes that break down ROS. Apparently on some tests the specimen lived long while on other tests it did not. So this mean whatever is the cause of aging it is not just isolated to ROS buildup. It is speculated that it primarily havs something to do with Mitochondria. The power plant of the cell that provides energy to get your body going. I hope you found this article interesting. Please post your comments.

Stem Cell donation leads to tumor.

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55430/

Very interesting. Apparently this boy suffers from a nuero disorder so his parents seeks these Russian Scientists who extracted nuero stem cells from aborted fetuses and implanted them in the child. 4 years later the kid developed a brain tumor. Tests performed on the brain tumor discovered the tumor originated from the brain tumor.

Now scientists are wondering if the nuero stem cells donation increase the risk of donar developing a brain tumor or if the brain tumor occurred because of the child weak immune system.

Another possibility is the stem cells that were implanted in the child were not really stem cells which would probably help better explain why this all happened. Whatever the case I think this needs further study. I feel sorry for this child.

Vitamin D may be linked to Multiple Sclerosis

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40626/title/Molecular_link_between_vitamin__D_deficiency_and_MS

So if you have a certain gene it increases your likely hood to develop Multiple Sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease in which your body attack the myelin sheath that cover the nerve cells. When this happens it interferes with the nerve impulses that travel through your body. Researchers think this gene has a certain element that prevents Vitamin D from being used properly in the body. Normally if the body finds something foreign it attacks the foreign invader. So this may be the reason why the myelin sheath is being attacked. Post what you think of this article. I found it to be very interesting.

Mitochondria possibly linked to aging, Parkinson, Alzheimer, and Obesity.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/40762/title/Mitochondria_Gone_Bad

Mitochondria is the power plant of our cells. It provide us with the energy to do everything. Apparently Mitochondria is being investigated for being the cause of many debilitating diseases. When Mitochondria is damaged and fail to do its job efficiently it can lead to cell death and the buildup of ROS. ROS is a build up of oxygen radicals which can damage the cells of the body. Mitochondria both produces ROS and protects us from ROS.

It has been discovered for diseases such as Parkinson and Alzheimer typically where they occur you can also find Mitochondria not function properly at those sites. This has lead scientists to suspect Mitochondria to be a major player in the development of theses diseases.

Since Mitochondria plays a major role in our metabolism if it is not properly functioning it could explain why many individuals or obese or more susceptible to Obesity.

Read this article if you are interested. The article explains what Mitochondria is and how it could possibly be linked to many debilitating things that goes on in the human body. I will try to look for a video that shows what Mitochondria do in the body.

Treatments for Diabetes

Incase you didn't know Diabetes is caused by the inability of the cells in the body to absorb glucose. This is because either the pancreas is not producing enough insulin or there is major insulin resistance in the body. Treatments for Diabetes includes pills and insulin shots. The insulin shots takes over for the pancreas which may not be producing enough insulin. You must monitor your blood glucose level so you don't get a condition called hyperglycemia. This is a very dangerous low level of glucose in your body.

There are different pills that type 2 Diabetics can take that can either increase insulin production by the pancreas or reduce the resistance the body may have to Insulin. If Insulin can't get into the cells it can not enable glucose to be absorbed in the cells. This could lead to high glucose levels which could cause strokes and never damage.

This video explains everything I said pretty well. I suggest you subscribe to it on youtube.

An even better Diabetes info video

Its more detailed than my previous post and its explained very easily what diabetes is and how it affects the different parts of the body. I especially enjoyed the animation and the presentation. I would recommended you subscribe to this user.

Here's an easy to understand video about Type 2 Diabetes

After seeing this video I learned insulin help glucose get absorbed into the cells. When your body has a high resistance to insulin the glucose can't get into the cells. This causes you to have a high glucose level in your body. That can lead to serious complications such as strokes, heart attacks and nerve damage.

HIV possibly cured on a German Man

I found this video to be pretty interesting. Since few Europeans have the mutation this limits the availability of this possible cure. But this is getting us one step closer to finally curing this disease.

HIV Life Cycle

Here's a video I came across on youtube which explains what the virus do to host cells. It may take a couple of views to understand what's happening but if you been study a little something about the HIV Virus I think this will make a lot of sense to you.

HIV Immune Cells from Science Central

This is a very easy to understand video about new research into possibly making cells immune to HIV.

Easy Syphilis

This funny video explains Syphilis. Its very easy to understand and I quite enjoy the voice over by the creator of this video

Easy Anthrax

A great video that explain what Anthrax does to the body.