Four major bio-med stories [Purp]

(1)Harvard researchers find a hormone that triggers rapid pancreas beta cell reproduction in diabetic mice. Humans have a similar hormone. This could be it, THE one...

(2)SRI researchers find an anti-body that causes bone marrow stem cells to become brain cells. All sorts of nerve damage repair possibilities here with no rejection issues. This too could be THE one...

(3)SRI researchers discover that natural body produced interferon can BOOST persistent infections (like AIDS, hepatitis and such) by shutting down T-cell response prematurely before the infection is wiped out. This is a very significant and counter intuitive revelation.

... over the longer term a sharp drop in levels of immune-suppressing IL-10, as well as PD-L1, both inducers of T-cell exhaustion, was associated with restoration of antiviral immune response and virus clearance. And although blocking the IFN-I-a-b receptor led to higher bloodstream levels of virus in the first days after infection, it soon brought about a stronger, infection-clearing response...

(4)SRI again -- this time they've discovered a way to treat prion diseases. Interestingly, one of the effective drugs uncovered was an OTC antihistamine withdrawn from the US market some years ago for causing rare cardiac arrhythmia, although its still commonly available overseas. Would you rather get dementia and die from mad cow or have a chirpy heart? I'd say there's no contest. This prion shit has been pretty scary in that there was no known treatments. Now there some hope.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:11 AM

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