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Cell Metabolism Artificially Enhanced
NewScientist is reporting that Swiss researchers have shown that a cell's metabolism can be increased without altering the genetic makeup. Small plastic packages of enzymes have been successfully inserted into cells, increasing metabolism. "Meier and colleagues coated their polymer vesicles in a chemical that encouraged human white blood cells called macrophages to engulf them. The small capsules contained enzymes, just like natural organelles. The enzymes chosen produced fluorescent chemicals, signaling they were working without problems inside their new host."
now people can be lazy AND fit... mark one against global warming
I see this as very interesting commentary on the human persona. We consume energy which is of extreme importance and complain of its excessive cost whilst we abuse it. We then expend more precious energy to figure out ways to use more energy in an inefficient manner to trick our bodies into no longer storing the energy for later dire straights.
The fundamental basis of this idea is flawed. I personally don't get it.
However, it is certainly marketable and will cause someone to be filthy rich if they can really force humans to expend more energy without doing anything that actually requires the energy (such as exercise).
But I digress, all that aside, the pure discovery is interesting.
Thank you, researchers. The world really needed a metabolism-enhancing enzyme that turns you green.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
This is /. so I suppose reading the article isn't a given. There are other uses than just for increasing the metabolism. Other uses include targeting cancerous cells specifically, giving lactose intolerant people enzymes in their stomachs, and making your skin do photosynthesis so you don't even have to eat. They're all theories around the new "NanoReactor" they created for delivering their payloads. I'm assuming that increasing the metabolism was the easiest test to perform in a dish.
Now with flavour!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Perhaps he's a fat person who hates himself for being so fat? Judging from the site he's posting on and the hate that he's spewing for no apparent reason, I'm going to guess that he's 25, has the mentality of a 15 year old, lives in his mother's basement and gets told how dirty and sinful he must be to have so much weight.
:D
But those are just guesses. Who knows, maybe I'm being optimistic
This is why someone needs to invent Bachelor Chow already and no substitutions I want exactly how it is in Futurama.
So? It will raise peoples metabolism? For what purpose?
Metabolism is more than just eating food. Increased metabolism could result in increased energy in the cells, used for, oh lets say athletes? It would be virtually impossible to detect using normal meassures. I can certainly see a benefit for some people.
What's funny is that there's plenty of food, the shortfall is mostly due to diverting the food to ethanol and feeding livestock. The biggest obstacle to feeding the poor (arguably the only obstacle) is politics and other, non-food-related problems. Exception being people who really have some form of medical condition which make their metabolism or body not work as intended, but those people are probably very rare, if there even are any Wow. Publicly doubting that there are medical conditions that could make someone fat. What a great, insightful comment you make; you're very rational. Next time you make a comment like this, you might as well just scream about how much you hate fat people and leave the environmentalism and poor people out of it.
So? It will raise peoples metabolism? For what purpose?
Here's some conditions that occur to me that might be improved by suddenly raising metabolism:
1) depression
2) help cure (or recover from) diseases for which the body has an autoimmune response
3) Rapid weight loss (if, for example, you'll be dead within 10 days if you don't lose 30 pounds within 5 days, which I've heard can come up)
4) Blood loss recovery
It should also be noted that pretty much everything that raises metabolism also does something else. Is that something else medically beneficial to someone? Maybe.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The original paper did not increase the metabolism of the macrophage. What the original paper did was encage an enzyme, trypsin, in a "nanometer-sized polymer vesicle". This vesicle was coated with a protein that induce macrophages to engulf the vesicle (which is what macrophages do - they phagocytose). The authors then incubated macrophages which contained the vesicles with a dye (BZiPAR) that fluoresces (emits a wavelength of light - in this case green) when treated with trypsin (trypsin cuts of parts of the BZiPAR that suppress fluorescence).
We already know how to non-genetically introduce proteins to cells, for example using liposomes or the tat-peptide approach. What makes this work interesting is that the polymer vesicle is more stable than liposomes and, unlike the other methods, the vesicles don't release their content into the cell. Instead, the cell's components have to enter into the polymer vesicle.
This is an interesting technical development. It is not, however, everything that Mr. Osborne makes it out to be.
Quite close. I used to be beat up as child, have always been small, am 28, has the mentality of someone much young, live alone, have thought that I was "fat" even thought I wasn't (went down to 54 kg at 173 cm as worst), and kind of still does.
Still valid points thought.
I know how I still feel if I have chocolate nearby, I could easily eat the whole bar but I don't because I know it's a bad idea. Some people don't think so it seems. Most of my food is very boring and I don't feel an urge to eat lots of it, but I try to eat enough because I know I need it.
If I would just eat what I feelt like eating I would lose weight. But as I said most people don't eat because they need to, they eat because.. well.. they have nothing else to do atm and the food is available.
Something like this has been recognized to occur in certain cancers, through Oncosomes. In such cases, the cancerous cells bud off vesicles which fuse with healthy cells, containing oncoproteins that induce a cancer-like phenotype in the target cell, despite no change in the healthy cell's genotype.
Anyway, I find this interesting. While restricted to situations where you could physically make the delivery, it raises the possibility of obtaining (temporarily) effects similar to those of gene-therapy without the gene. By producing your target protein ex vivo you eliminate an entire class of problems revolving around how to introduce and express foreign DNA.
The Swiss Researchers also wish to extend their thanks to the two main sponsors of the research, Major League Baseball and the US Olympic Team.
I stole this Sig