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A.
Researchers Use Saliva to Detect Head and Neck Cancer
Narrator: This is Science Today. For the first time, researchers at UCLA were able to detect head and neck cancer by looking at saliva – a finding that may soon lead to new, non-invasive diagnostic and detection tools. Dr. David Wong, director of UCLA's School of Dentistry and a cancer researcher, says like blood, saliva is a good diagnostic fluid, but the informative molecules in spittle are present at lower levels than in blood.
Wong: The methodology didn't exist until five years ago, where engineering colleagues here at UCLA and elsewhere came out with these really creative nanotechnology-based biosensors that can practically detect anything at any level in any medium.
Narrator: Wong and his colleagues were able to differentiate between healthy patients and those with head and neck cancer by detecting particular RNA biomarkers in the saliva.
Wong: Our goal at UCLA is, by year 2007, to identify ten high impact, systemic diseases that reflects itself diagnostically in saliva.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
A Link Between Intermittent Fasting and Cancer Reduction?
Narrator: This is Science Today. University of California, Berkeley nutritionist Marc Hellerstein has discovered that lab mice fed less food on an intermittent basis experienced significantly less cell proliferation. Until now the rate of cell proliferation, which is linked to cancer, was thought to be reduced only by a greater reduction in calories.
Hellerstein: With this idea that intermittent fasting may be a benefit, one could propose to look at a fairly realistic plan, let's say two or three times a week, a person would eat, instead of maybe eating 2500 calories, they may need 1000 calories on those two or three days a week. Then on other days, they eat what they want, just catch up.
Narrator: Hellerstein says this type of plan is more appealing than depriving oneself everyday. Their next step is to see if the results found in mice, translates in humans.
Narrator: We are trying to put together a project whereby we would feed people intermittently and try to find the dose that works. Maybe it doesn't take that much reduction or maybe you don't have to do it every other day. Exactly what is the dose that does the job? And then once we find out using these sensitive methods, we could do a longer-term study.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
UCLA Launches a New Stem Cell Institute
Narrator: This is Science Today. UCLA has launched a twenty million dollar stem cell institute that will draw together experts in fields as diverse as bioengineering, oncology, ethics, cellular biology and more. Dr. Judith Gasson, co-director of the new Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, says the initial focus will be in the areas of cancer and HIV/AIDS.
Gasson: The reason for that is that adult stem cells are already being used to treat those diseases. So we think that those would be diseases in which stem cells might be used sooner rather than later.
Narrator: UCLA has the advantage of being the first public university in California to have an approved, up and running Good Manufacturing Practice suite, which is critical for the safe growth and manipulation of stem cell lines. These highly controlled, high-tech labs meet standards set by the federal government.
Gasson: We have very detailed protocols, we gave compliance officers, we have training programs – nobody's allowed access to the suite unless they've passed three training classes and a written exam.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
New Discovery May Lead to Better Treatments for Bacterial Infections
Narrator: This is Science Today. About one quarter of all the toxins that bacterial pathogens make are what are called pore-forming toxins, which cause a variety of bacterial diseases, including staph and strep infections. Raffi Aroian, an associate professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, questioned if cells have natural defenses against pore-forming toxins – a question that surprisingly, had never been addressed before.
Aroian: What we discovered is in fact, the cells do have a defense against this and our lab is looking more and more into this.
Narrator: Specifically, Aroian and his colleagues discovered that two genes in a pathway linked to a range of processes, including immunity, were activated in response to the toxins.
Aroian: If you have them, you can handle a low chronic dose of pore-forming toxin. If you don't have them, you can't. This is actually the first evidence in the literature that we know of that animal cells have a defense against a pore-forming toxin.
Narrator: This discovery may eventually pave the way for the development of effective, new treatments for bacterial infections. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Studying Climate Change at Yellowstone National Park
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley are trying to understand how climate change is affecting the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park. Environmental Scientist Chris Wilmers, who led the study, says in the last 55 years, Yellowstone's climate has changed.
Wilmers: Climate has been changing, mostly due to warming, and the effect of that is winters are getting shorter, as measured by the number of days with snow on the ground.
Narrator: Shorter winters and the reintroduction of gray wolves at Yellowstone in 1995, has changed how scavengers like coyotes, eagles and ravens search for food during winter months.
Wilmers: With wolves in the system, because the availability of carrion is less dependent on winter conditions, and more on wolves, wolves sort of buffer the effect of climate change on these scavengers during the winter time. 10:33 And so now we're trying to understand, how climate will continue to change in the future, and how that's likely to impact the system.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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