Virus Cures Cancer

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As some people may know skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. Skin cancer is divided into two types, non-melanoma and melanoma categories. Around two million new cases are diagnosed each year, about 5 percent of these cases are melanoma skin cancer, which is more serious and cause about 75% of skin cancer deaths. But researcher from the Yale University School of Medicine have demonstrated that vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) can actually find, infect, and kill human melanoma cells, without infecting the non-cancerous cells in animal test subjects. The study was done on a mouse, which was implanted with deadly human melanomas. The virus was able to selectively infect the cancer causing cells, and showed little to no infectivity toward the normal healthy cells. The hypothesis is that most normal cells resist viral infections by activating the antiviral process that protects nearby cells, but cancerous cells show a deficient ability to withstand virus infection. Which is why maybe fast acting virus like the VSV would be able to infect and kill cancer cells. “If it works as well in humans, this could confer a substantial benefit on patients afflicted with this deadly disease,” says Anthony van den Pol, a researcher on the study. This could lead to further advancements in the study of not only just skin cancer but also other more sever forms of cancer, and also the development of new treatments. Since melanoma is the most deadly skin cancer and is incurable once they have metastasized into the body it is important to explore ways to combat and prevent it. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130423135710.htm

Ants and Fungus ?

One of the few things that I knew about fungi before coming into this class was that, leaf-cutting ants and fungus had a symbiotic relationship. In this mutually beneficial symbiosis the ants cultivate fungus gardens, which provides a safe home for the fungi and also a food source for the ants. But this symbiotic relationship also includes microbes. And new research has discovered that it can help speed the development of better antibiotics and biofuels.

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Ten years ago Cameron Currie a microbial ecologist at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, was studying the symbiosis relationship between the leaf-cutting ants and the fungus. He discovered that ants carried colonies of actinomycete bacteria on their bodies. These bacteria in turn make an antibiotic that protects the ants’ fungal crop from parasitic fungi such as Escovopsis, which threatens the ants’ food source and is a constant danger for the ants.

Currie and Jon Clardy at the Harvard Medical School and their colleagues also reported that they had isolated one of the antifungals produced by the bacteria. The antifungal slowed the growth of a drug-resistant strain of the fungus Candida albicans, which causes yeast infections in people. With these discoveries the researchers hope that they will learn how to make better antibiotics by studying the bacteria and how they have adapted to fight off the parasites.

Although these discoveries seemed to have much potential it didn’t get much attention or support after that. These studies were from 1999, but no further updates were added, which left me wondering why they didn’t continue. 

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090329/full/458561a.html

Office Bacteria !

It is no secret that women are generally more hygienic than men. For the most part this is true, but a new study has found that men’s offices have more bacteria than woman’s offices. The study looked at 90 offices in three cities, New York, San Francisco, and Tucson. They looked at five types surfaces: chairs desktops, phones, keyboards, and computer mice. The author of the study, Scott Kelley, said, “It could also be that men are less hygienic”. The total bacterial count in men’s offices was anywhere from 10 to 20 percent greater than in women’s offices. Dr. Kelley also said “It was fairly uniform across all of the samples,” meaning that in the there was little difference between the three cities in which the study was conducted. Most of the bacteria found in the offices can actually be traced back to the human mouth and skin, meaning that people are the main source of the bacteria in the offices. Dr. Kelley also emphasizes that the study is not meant to cause alarm and there is no reason to worry, the study was simply done to show us the day-to-day-environment that most of us live in. Although this article was interesting, it was of no real significance. The study was done to simply show us the environments of everyday life. Also the article failed to mention what type of bacteria was found in the office buildings; which further emphasizes that the bacteria are not significant but are only to show that men’s offices contain more bacteria than woman’s. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/science/mens-offices-have-more-bacteria-study-finds.html?ref=science&_r=0

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Climate Changing Bacteria !

Climate change and bacteria are words that I couldn’t have imagined being used in the same sentence. But according to some new research it may be possible that we may be hearing about these two subjects being talked about jointly. The new information discovered was that some genetically engineered bacteria could actually help fight climate change, by capturing CO2 underground with the help of bacteria.

The research from Lawrence Berkley National Laboratories have showed that bacteria could actually be genetically engineered to aide in the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and trapping it underground for millions of years.  This could potentially help fight the current climate changes, because us as humans are warming up the planet at an alarming rate by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The researchers tested this by genetically modifying Caulobacter vibrioides. They inserted a short DNA sequence that coded for a loop of glutamic acids. By doing this the bacteria were able to attract CO2 to form CaCO3 that could be trapped underground, which in turn would fight climate change.

Jenny Cappuccio the lead scientist in this investigation admitted, “results need to be demonstrated in conditions closer to real life”. Meaning that there is still a lot more work to be done to prove that this can actually help fight climate change on a large scale.  

Although this article introduces a very important topic it does not seem likely that we will hearing of the genetically modified bacteria helping fight climate change any time soon.

http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/02/genetically-engineered-bacteria-could-help-fight-climate-change?ref=hp

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