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A.
A Quality of Life Study of Younger Women after Breast
Cancer
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Younger women diagnosed with
breast cancer may be more likely than older women
to have lower quality of life years after diagnosis.
Dr. Patricia Ganz of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center,
led a multi-ethnic study of nearly six hundred women
who were age fifty or younger when they were first
diagnosed with breast cancer.
Ganz:
While physical functioning was very good and
normal across all of the subgroups in terms of youngest
to oldest, for emotional functioning, the youngest
women - that is women who were 25 to 34 at their
diagnosis - there was still a substantial amount
of ongoing distress.
Narrator:
Ganz says that's probably because many such young
women feel invulnerable to such a serious, life-threatening
illness in the prime of their lives. Ganz says this
study may help doctors.
Ganz:
Instead of just saying, oh, you should be
better, you're just not taking things well. I think
this kind of data puts things in perspective that
this is a pretty common finding and she's not unusual.
.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Brain Transportation System Defect Linked to Huntington's
Disease
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Researchers at the University
of California, San Diego have linked a defective protein
in Huntington's Disease to gridlock in the transportation
system that moves vital protein cargoes within the
brain, eventually leading to neuron cell death. Professor
Lawrence Goldstein led the study.
Goldstein: With respect to the
question of what is the normal function of the Huntington
protein as it is called, that protein is required
for normal transport in neuronal transport pathways.
So that when you remove that protein, you have a lot
of cargoes that stall or stop on their way to the
correct location.
Narrator: This so-called traffic jam
can cause Huntington's Disease patients to suffer
from psychiatric changes, cognitive difficulties,
and uncontrolled movements.
Goldstein:
And so it's
desperately important that we broaden our understanding
of how things malfunction in these diseases and then
try to capitalize on that knowledge to develop therapies.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
The Function of the Blood-Brain Barrier in Bacterial
Meningitis
Narrator:
This is Science Today. In the first comprehensive
analysis of the response of the blood-brain barrier
to a bacterial pathogen, Dr. Victor Nizet of the University
of California, San Diego, exposed an experimental
blood-brain barrier to the pathogen Group B streptococcus,
which is the leading cause of bacterial meningitis
in newborn infants.
Nizet:
We found that on exposure to Group B Strep, a
very small subset, about 80 genes, were turned on
in response to the bacterial pathogen. And this pattern
of gene activation helped us to explain how the blood-brain
barrier provides a first line of defense against bacterial
infection, because when the blood-brain barrier recognizes
the presence of the bacteria, it activates a coordinated
set of genes, which all work together to recruit white
blood cells to the site of infection and to stimulate
the marrow to produce more white blood cells.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
The Continuing, Deadly Threat of Tuberculosis
Narrator:
This is Science Today. It's estimated that a third
of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis
- and that figure includes about 15 million Americans
with a latent form of the bacterium. Joel Ernst, an
infectious disease specialist at the University of
California, San Francisco, says for years TB was thought
to have been conquered.
Ernst:
It certainly fell from the American consciousness,
at least most of American's consciousness, after about
the 1950s or so. Tuberculosis sanitaria were closed
because they weren't necessary anymore. Anti-tuberculosis
treatment was given as an outpatient and most people
with tuberculosis who received those drugs were cured.
Narrator:
Today however, stealthy strains of the microbe that
causes TB have brought the disease back to pre-antibiotic
days in many parts of the world, including New York
and other parts of this country.
Ernst:
The best chance of defeating it is going to be
through the development of a more effective vaccine.
Narrator:
Public health officials are also calling for better
education about the disease. For Science Today, I'm
Larissa Branin.
E.
Non-invasive Methods Gauge How Substance Abuse Affects
the Brain
Narrator:
This
is Science Today. Magnetic resonance imaging and another
method called magnetic resonance spectroscopy have
been helping researchers non-invasively study the
brain to better understand its functioning in a variety
of circumstances. Dieter Meyerhoff, a radiologist
at the University of California, San Francisco, has
been using these methods to study how the brain is
affected by alcohol abuse and recovery from alcohol.
Meyerhoff:
We're also looking at how alcohol itself interacts
with the damage that is done by either HIV infection
or substance abuse.
Narrator:
Overall, Meyerhoff says the big question they're asking
is how substance abuse affects the brain and how does
it interact with other problems.
Meyerhoff:
And that is a big problem doing what we call pure
alcohol research - finding patients who have abused
nothing else than alcohol. There is a lot of other
abuse occurring at the same time and very often, there
are many other disorders that we need to rule out
if we want to look at the pure effects of alcohol.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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