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Key Step In Programmed Cell Death Discovered
Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered a dance of proteins that protects certain cells from undergoing apoptosis, also known as programmed cell death. Understanding the fine points of apoptosis is important to researchers seeking ways to control this process. In a series of experiments, St. Jude researchers found that if any one of three molecules is missing, certain cells lose the ability to protect themselves from apoptosis. A report on this work appears in the advance online publication of Nature.
I for one welcome our dancing protein overlords.
so like when the new dancing proteins come out I will have the best internet handle.
You might even call this an *anti*-break dance? Eh? Eh?
I wonder if they could trigger apoptosis in cancer cells? That would be very cool
Do nothing but snarky Bill Hicks-style smackdowns on the crappy pop acts ruining our culture and minds. This is "Falling Towards Apoptosis" with your host, Jollyreaper. Join me with the Christian Coalition -- they'll be smashing the CD's because they're immoral, I'll be smashing them because they suck.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So can I be exposed to these three molecules in such a way that my immune system makes antibodies for them? Would be nice to be immunized against death.
Shh.
probably for only the rich & powerful, us unwashed masses wont get it, and if we do it will be available after i die of old age or some terrible disease...
with over 6 billion people on earth just think if everyone got immortality and everyone making babies soon earth will be standing room only - yowsa!!!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Where is the mod for -1 overfilled crackpipe? That was the biggest load of jibber jabber since time cube.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
When a cell's number is up, an enzyme stops by, checks to see that it only has 512 megs of RAM, and then installs Windows Vista on it. Biology is fascinating.
-1 Offtopic
-1 Troll
Table-ized A.I.
The proteins identified in the paper protect against apoptosis. If you were to inhibit them, your cells would be more susceptible to apoptosis, not more resistant (which they show using a knockout mouse). More importantly though, apoptosis is an essential process in both development and regulation (particularly the immune response). Indiscriminately inhibiting the apoptotic process would be detrimental to the organism as a whole (resulting in death, not the protection from).
Let's say your body produced neutralizing antibodies to the three proteins (or better yet, you inject humanized antibodies that targeted the proteins), the antibodies would still have to penetrate the cell in order to see their target. You would be much better off making a tat-fusion protein of a dominant-negative form of the protein.
Lastly, we've already identified several molecules that are important for apoptosis. One catagory of such proteins is call the Caspases.
The actual abstract and article can be found on Nature's website and is entitled Hax1-mediated processing of HtrA2 by Parl allows survival of lymphocytes and neurons. Essentially what the researchers showed was that the gene Hax1 keeps cells alive when they aren't being stimulated with survival signals. This is interesting, for example, because cancer metastasis cells must survive in very foreign environments where they probably aren't receiving these factors. On the flip side, deficiencies in Hax1 results in blood cells dying early, causing a disease called severe congenital neutropenia.
"A research team elsewhere recently reported that Kostmann's syndrome, a potentially fatal inherited deficiency of granulocytes in children, caused by excessive apoptosis of granulocytes, results from a deficiency in one of the three proteins, called Hax1."
So, basically, this disease occurs because one doesn't have "teh Hax(1)".
On a slightly related note, does it drive anyone else crazy when someone says "theory" when they mean (at best) hypothesis (a falsifiable idea based on the data) or (at worst) conjecture (when they mean "some hair-brained idea without significant support but *maybe* fits my notion of life, the universe, and everything)?
What GPP was saying is NOT a theory. Relativity is a theory. Evolution (well, through mutation and natural selection) is a theory. E=IR is a theory. A theory is well supported by facts, either not yet disproved by facts (evolution, relativity), or, though disproved, accurate enough to work well enough in our frame of reference (Newton's laws of gravity).
I understand the colloquial meaning of "theory" perfectly well, and I reject it, especially in a place like Slashdot. This is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." The language should reflect that. (NB: this rant is targeted at GPP, while voicing my agreement with the parent post)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
There are four general situations where apoptosis is medically interesting. This particular result increases our understanding of apoptsis generally, so is potentially relevant to all of them:
a) Cancer. This is the big one. Your body has a natural defense against cancer - cells that would become cancerous undergo apoptosis and die. Only when this defense fails do you actually get cancer.
b) Viral Infections. Viruses (and a few bacteria, but it's not the same thing) get inside the individual cells of your body and take them over to make viruses. Again, your body defends itself by inducing apoptosis in affected cells - the virus will typically contain genes to try and prevent this.
c) Some degenerative diseases result from apoptosis being triggerred improperly in certain cells (Parkinsons' disease probably works this way.)
d) Aptoptosis plays a major role in normal human development; if this goes wrong, this may cause certain development defects.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
That was the biggest load of jibber jabber since time cube.
Perhaps, once you've become immortal, you'll live long enough to understand the time cube. Foolish mortals!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
That's why I always thought the most successful treatments would be the ones that somehow exerted selective pressure to favor the weaker cells - those most vulnerable to a particular treatment, for example.
Failing that, an "ensemble method" is probably the way to go, since cells that survive that would have to be immune to the intersection of every treatment you're throwing at them.
Another idea that avoids the selectivity problem is to use things that cause cancerous cells to differentiate, rather than killing them off - that's what makes ATRA such a great therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia, for example. Those sorts of things should probably become easier to find with advances in genetics and more targeted therapies. Other things that don't kill cancer cells but render them harmless, like angiogenesis inhibitors or telomerase antagonists, also offer promise, since either the cells are immune but can't complete the steps required for proliferation or they're not immune and are affected by the treatment (the problem is that cells sometimes have more than one way to do these things...).
(Disclaimer: IANAO)
Dr. Chojkier and lead author Martina Buck, Ph.D., of VA, UCSD and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, have described the steps by which tumor necrosis factor (TNF) alpha, an immune-system protein, prevents the production of albumin. Low levels of albumin, a critical protein made in the liver, is a keynote of wasting.
According to Dr. Chojkier, a gastroenterologist and liver specialist, antioxidants such as vitamin E might halt wasting in humans if these supplements were delivered in very high amounts-or even better, if they were targeted to the liver.Read it all here http://iamblogging.net/archives/2008/02/cancer_the_deat.html
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
I don't expect individuals with limited comprehension and study or research time to understand it. It is most certainly not off topic and would seem to indicate that you intentions may be to subdue the thought because it contradicts the fictional story industry would like to hold up as truth, either that or it is simply ignorance and an inability to respond intelligently and articulate something of value as to establish any flawed reasoning.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
Well LSD and crack pipe clichés are really a display of ignorance and laziness and demonstrate a lack of an ability present an intelligent perspective that might help evolve thought and demonstrate flaws in reasoning. Not that it matters the truth eventually becomes self evident.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bcl-2-associated_X_protein
Hax1, Pac1 and that other protein just help sequester this guy.
Is that why life still exists on this planet after several years of GW? whooaaa.
Indeed they are, and after reading your somewhat familiar brain dump I am curious enough to ask you: Is your mental illness of the manic/psychotic persuasion, or is it a type of schizophrenia? Your writing shows lots of high-level understanding of the subject and parts of your cognitive processes are obviously still functional. But you are completely irrational and your gibberish shows that you have lost the ability to filter and discard faulty hypothesis, and as a result you are unable to see where your unique view of reality has diverged from those around you. Medication could really change your life for the better.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Have I got a deal for you...
One step closer to a zombie invasion. Fire up the flame thrower, honey, it's gonna be a long night!
Anything can, could, and will happen.
it looks like we're well on the way to discovering the Stileman Process.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I suppose your right Genius borders on insanity doesn't it.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
No, the flawed reasoning is in the original post. Don't know why I'm wasting time on this but anyway:
"My Proof for Immortality."
If you call that opinion piece a "proof", it's already evident you're not talking the same language as everyone else. I don't know what a "conceptual proof" is. If you mean "proof of concept", that implies you have evidence that the concept holds water.
You compare biology with "data":
"The human body is a data set. This data set is transferred repeatedly throughout life and it is the data representing the body that is persistent."
Explain how data representing the body is persistent? What data, do you mean DNA coding? Actual cells die and get replaced, so it can't be that. DNA is NOT persistent, as it can be damaged. So what data, exactly, is persistent? The entire "proof" revolves around attaching the biology to a concept of "data" ("The human body is a data set.") and if the poster can't be bothered establishing that introductory premise in logic, then you can't blame on us for not bothering to take him/her seriously.
".. because both the female and male genes combine producing a hybrid data set that contains the best features of both that were developed during their life spans genetic modifications."
This is exactly why we dismiss such prattle. Like any good politician or magician, words are used to make things sound feasible where, on anything closer than casual examination, they are revealed as bollocks. eg. Since genetic "defects" (congenital disease etc) are also passed along into this "hybrid data set" as it is so eloquently and technically described, it's hardly a result that anyone would call "the best features of both".
Basically, if even thinking about that post is a way to "evolve" one's mind, you'd best pin it up at the local zoo to get anything out of it.
Then there's this:
"The physical material of the body is not persistent; the data is persistent. A life term is only limited by the ability to replicate the data provided the life force or animation principal persists."
Ok, where does the "data" reside, if not in the physical material of the body? Is it not DNA which codes for the entire material body, aka its "data set"? But wait, DNA is material! So explain then, what you mean by "the data is persistent".
*What is the point* of throwing around a "theory" which:
a) misrepresents established scientific principles (challenging them is ok, misrepresenting them is not),
b) is internally inconsistent, or at the very best, full of large gaping holes in reasoning, and
c) uses technical language for no other purpose than to sound technical.
It's the same age-old approach used by snake oil salesmen and, more recently, "intelligent design".
Yes. And I've found that if you hook up an E-Meter(TM) to your bum (on advice from my brother in the Church(TM) who also happens to be my sister's husband's offspring) and your left nut, then you also start to really appreciate the asymptotic tangent inherent in the sublime existential spirit of the universe; if you embrace this ephemeral confluence of cosmic data, then you too will understand the truth of the sublimation. :P what a fucking plank.
In about 6 months all soft tissue in the body is replaced by new molecules after 3 years all bone matter has been replaced by new molecules. So there will be no physical material currently present in your body that will remain in it three years from now, are no physical remnants that persist, the only thing that persisted was the information representing your body. It is a bit abstract and I guess some can't comprehend it.
When a cell divides the DNA is split and recombined forming two copies this is how the DNA or data is transferred. DNA is really a programming language with 4 bases.
Believe it or not the data on your computer and the images on your screen are all stored as zeros and ones, the words are not actually written on the hard disk platter.
If you looked at the hard disk platter you would even see anything because the data is actually represented by a magnetic field. In DNA there is not a diagram of the heart that cells read and build according to the blue prints. The actual code or routine to create the heart is stored.
They argued about 17 years over light being a wave or a particle before deciding contrary to what one might reason.
Like God science has never seen an atom, the atom is a bit subjective; they have only detected the presence of a concentration of electrons that represent a sort of a signature of an atom and created a fuzzy image using that data.
What scientists can do is measure it's effects, and use math to model and predict the effects of the atom. It is not known what the atom actually is because it cannot be seen. We have simply tried to create an image of it based on it's effects.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
"We" obviously means myself and anyone else who thinks it was unreasonable prattle pretending to be logic. I'm sure you understand that "we" doesn't necessarily mean you, the rest of the world or anyone who wouldn't agree with me. It's pointless picking on it, just assume I don't mean you if it doesn't apply.
;)
What you've said is fine, though I'm not sure who it's directed at. I'd (hesitantly) add that we don't directly perceive the world in any way at all. Things we "see" are just our brains' reactions to incoming light and, combines with the rest of our senses, we surmise what reality actually is. Of course you already know that, but I apologise for using "we" if you don't.
"an infinite player that has lost his finite mind" ~Infinite Play the Movie (it blends with reality)
All the inmates serving "Life-Sentences"....I know and understand this isnt an "immortality" prospect, in all reality, but just say it was, what WOULD we do wiht them at that point...Deny them an immortality prospect or not...I mean when the judgememnt of "life sentence" was issued the judge or jury prolly wasn't taking this into account... In light of that news, I'd have to say that the penal system would have to be reworked due to the fact that we wouldn't want to pay to keep inmates indeffinately in jail...This would maybe either A) boost capital punishment or B)eliminate life terms...And i know this is far fetched and sci-fi esque....pretend that the treatment was a genetic one that was bred into the population through gene manipulation during gestation, and then became a passable trait for future offspring so it was inherently IN the population, there would be no way of reversing it....so what would we do for deathes and such as well? adn what would we do for life inmates?