Lifeboat Foundation

This device could save thousands of lives from heart failure.

Nano-particles to treat Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

A new therapeutic strategy for treating Acute Myeloid Leukaemia could involve using nano-particles to deliver a genetic molecule to fight the disease.

The nanoparticles carrying microRNA miR-22, (a small non-coding RNA molecule that regulates gene expression), showed therapeutic potential in mouse models of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

Continue reading “Nanoparticles may help treat blood cancer” »

Could we use this for colon scopes? I know many who would like to stop drining the speciality milk shake from their local drug stores prior to the date with the GI.

A minimally invasive screening for ulcerative colitis, a debilitating gastrointestinal tract disorder, using emerging infrared technology could be a rapid and cost-effective method for detecting disease that eliminates the need for biopsies and intrusive testing of the human body, according to researchers at Georgia State University.

The technique involves testing serum, the clear liquid that can be separated from clotted blood, for the increased presence of mannose, a sugar that is a marker for colitis, using Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. This technology is sensitive to vibrations in the chemical bonds of the serum sample’s molecules and requires minimal sample preparation, making it a rapid diagnostic alternative.

Continue reading “Minimally invasive colitis screening using infrared technology could offer fast, simple test” »

Experts say listing cannabis among the world’s deadliest drugs ignores decades of scientific and medical data. But attempts to delist it have met with decades of bureaucratic inertia and political distortion.

By David Downs on April 19, 2016.

Lesson in Vitamin D.

Low levels of vitamin D in black teens correlates with low activity of a major mechanism for controlling gene expression that may increase their risk of cancer and other disease, researchers report.

Their study measured vitamin D levels as well as levels of global DNA methylation in 454 healthy individuals age 14–18. In this group, 99 percent of the white teens had adequate vitamin D levels, 66 percent of the black teens were vitamin D-deficient and all the black teens had lower levels of methylation compared to their white peers, said Dr. Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

Continue reading “Low levels of vitamin D, methylation in black teens may increase cancer risk” »

After today’s news from India about HPV; I did some research online about Cold Sores and HPV possible tie and came across the following article that seems to highlight a possible tie. Granted more research is needed; however, one doctor seems to believe there is a tie.

Sister Mary Ryan thought she had a simple, but painful, canker sore in her mouth that would not heal when she went to her dentist in 1998.

She was surprised to find out it was a cancerous tumor under her tongue, and even more surprised at how quickly it had developed.

Continue reading “Sister offers warning about an increasing kind of cancer” »

BOSTON: In an intriguing approach to the fight against cancer, researchers for the first time have used light to prevent and reverse tumors using a technique called optogenetics to manipulate electrical signaling in cells.

Scientists at Tufts University performed optogenetics experiments on frogs, often used in basic research into cancer because of the biological similarities in their tumors to those in mammals, to test whether this method already used in brain and nervous system research could be applied to cancer.

“We call this whole research program cracking the bioelectric code,” said biologist Michael Levin, who heads the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology.

Continue reading “Researchers use light to battle cancer” »

Hmmm; I do know for many there is a set of genetic mutations that seem to sit dormat and eventually triggered by environment conditions.

(Reuters Health) — The risk of some childhood cancers might vary depending on where a child’s mother was born, a new study suggests.

For example, some brain and kidney cancers occurred less often in children whose Hispanic mothers were born outside the U.S. than in youngsters whose Hispanic or white mothers were born in the U.S., researchers found.

Continue reading “Kids’ cancer risk might be tied to where mom was born” »

University of Leicester. (2016, April 25). Researchers shed light on the role of inositol phosphate molecules in gene regulatory complexes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 26, 2016 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160425112511.htm