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A.
How Targeted Cancer Therapies Work
Narrator:
This is Science Today. It's been five years since
the Federal Drug Administration approved Herceptin,
a targeted therapy developed to treat breast cancer.
Dr. Hope Rugo, of the University of California,
San Francisco, says such targeted therapies work
by targeting and blocking a known receptor or growth
pathway for a breast cancer cell.
Rugo:
You could think of it as there is a basketball
hoop that a ball has to go through in order to help
the cell to grow, but if you block the entrance
into that hoop with something that's targeted to
that hoop, the shape of that hoop and where it is,
then you're going to block the ball going through
and the cancer can't grow.
Narrator:
Rugo, who co-directs an oncology clinical trials
program at UC San Francisco, says five years after
Herceptin was approved, they're still testing the
drug in early stage breast cancer.
Rugo:
Our goal in the future is to find useful agents
and move them into the earlier treatment of breast
cancer much more quickly.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
One Step Beyond 'Smart Bomb Therapy'
Narrator:
This is Science Today. For roughly a century, one
of the goals in medicine had been to use radioactivity
to target and irradiate tumors. It's only been recently
that the FDA approved a cancer therapy that uses this
technique, which is called smart bomb therapy. Claude
Meares, a professor of chemistry at the University
of California, Davis explains how it works.
Meares:
If you want to deliver radiotherapy to a cancer and
not to normal a very nice way to do that is to use
an antibody, load that antibody up with something
that will deliver radiation and allow it to float
through the body until it finds a cancer cell and
stick there and irradiate the cell.
Narrator:
Meares is working on a technique that goes a step
beyond this concept.
Meares:
What we do is use antibodies, but we don't load them
up with radiation. We load them up with a receptor
molecule that is not radioactive and doesn't irradiate
any normal tissue.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Alternatives
to a Proposed FAA Child Seat Regulation
Narrator:
This is Science Today. If child restraining seats
were required on commercial airlines for children
under the age of two, it would not only be costly,
but would cause more deaths than it prevents. Epidemiologist
Thomas Newman of the University of California, San
Francisco says that's because people may opt to drive
instead. Newman adds there are many other safety interventions
that would save more lives for the money spent for
an airline child seat regulation.
Newman:
I think this one comes out the most expensive, if
there is any benefit at all, and we estimate there
probably wouldn't be because of the increase in road
deaths.
Narrator:
Newman says a better approach would have the airlines
accommodating the parents who opt to have their infant
in a restraint seat.
Newman:
A
much lower cost and safer option would be instead
of requiring every family to buy a seat for their
child, to require the airlines to make the last seats
sold on any flights be those next to parents of children
under two.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Measuring Social Status and Disease
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Physical and emotional health
are known to be affected by social relationships,
but a University of California, San Francisco psychologist
has found that more specifically, there's an important
link between one's perceived social status and their
health. Nancy Adler helped develop a tool designed
to measure how people perceive their social status.
Adler:
What we've created was literally a social ladder.
We showed people a ladder with ten rungs and said
- imagine everyone in US society is somewhere on this
ladder, that people at the top are the best off. They
have the most income, the best jobs, most education.
People at the bottom are the worst off - where would
you place yourself?
Narrator:
Where people placed themselves correlated to a number
of physical and mental health indicators, including
susceptibility to the common cold. Adler also used
this scale to link adolescents' perception of their
social status to obesity and depression.
Adler:
So the question of how early on this gets socialized
and how you can help kids develop a better sense of
themselves.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Searching the Great Plains for Pristine Soil
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Soil scientist Ronald Amundson
of the University of California, Berkeley has been
searching the Great Plains for virgin soils. Amidst
an expanse of corn and soybean farms, he found that
the only undisturbed tracts of tall grass prairie
left lie next to the graves of the first settlers.
Amundson:
When we conducted a study of natural soils in the
Great Plains, in many cases we were restricted to
working in corners of cemeteries that were established
in the 1800s when the whole area was indeed a prairie.
Narrator:
According
to Amundson these small patches of undisturbed natural
ecosystem are invaluable for understanding the historical
record of the Great Plains.
Amundson:
So it's somewhat ironic that the settlers who
sort of spearheaded the development of the Great Plains,
by their death they actually preserved or set aside
small tracts that still remain today, so we were able
to take advantage of that in our research.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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