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Machine That "Uncooks Eggs" Used To Improve Cancer Treatment
hypnosec writes: An Australian invention that gained attention for being able to "unboil" an egg has now been put to use in the treatment of cancer. The device has boosted the potency of a common cancer treatment drug, carboplatino, as much as four-and-a-half-times. ABC.net reports: "Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer director Professor Ross McKinnon said it meant a huge advance for cancer treatment. 'It gives us the promise of offering an alternative where we have more drug being delivered to the tumour and less drug being delivered to the rest of the body,' he said. 'That means less side-effects for the patient and hopefully a much better effect in terms of tumour response. What this group are doing is an example of one drug but we would hope we could extend this to many drugs.' The device can process proteins more efficiently than current methods, with possible big ramifications for the pharmaceuticals industry.
The process involves liquefying the protein-containing material and running it through a fluid vortex that applies strong shear forces to the individual molecules, untangling them and allowing them to refold. This process is likely to be somewhat more detrimental to brain function than the mis-folded proteins were.
In this case, it appears the same shear forces cause the cancer drug to be more likely to get encapsulated in a lipid vesicle, which protects the drug and helps get it past cell membranes. Useful, but not directly applicable to Alzheimer's or prion diseases.
Wonder if "untangling" proteins could help with Alzheimers and "Mad Cow?.
There are two main theories about Alzheimers. The dominant theory is that it's caused by beta-amyloid protein which forms plaques. The minority theory is that it's caused by tau protein which forms long filaments called "tangles"; these tangles gum up the neuron and eventually cause it to burst. http://taurx.com/tau-tangles-i...
My father during his PhD discovered that a common dye, methylene blue, causes those filaments to untangle. He formed a small pharmaceutical company to pursue this idea. They tweaked the chemical a bit, including with heavy duty computer number-crunching to simulate its 3d structure and mode of interaction. They had great results in Phase 2 trials, and their Phase 3 trials are currently underway. Fingers crossed.
That said, Alzheimers disease is a graveyard of pharmaceutical funding. $18+ billion dollars put into drug trials so far (not just "foundational research"), primarily on the beta-amyloid hypothesis, but with nothing yet to show.
The latest hypothesis is that beta-amyloid (and the plaques) is a result of Alzheimer's, rather than a cause.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-30/do-we-all-have-alzhemers-completely-wrong-man-says-yes/
Tat Tvam Asi