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A.
Filter Paper Used to Test for 'Boy in the Bubble' Disease
Narrator: This is Science Today. ‘Boy in the Bubble' disease refers to a rare, but profound immune deficiency in which infants are born without antibodies and cellular immunity. Dr. E. Richard Stiehm, a professor of pediatrics at UCLA, says if these infants are not given a bone marrow transplant by age 6 or 12 months, they will die because they don't have cellular immunity.
Stiehm: The reason they don't is that they don't have lymphocytes, which are the most important cell for the cellular or the T-cell system and we and others are devising a way to take the core blood cells, in which every infant gets a sample of his blood on filter paper and eluding some of that blood off of that filter paper and we can identify whether these babies make lymphocytes or not.
Narrator: By identifying these infants before they get ill, Stiehm says they can be cured with bone marrow transplants or core blood transplants.
Stiehm: It's a fairly uncommon disease. However, we think that it may actually be more common because many of these patients die before they're diagnosed.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Anti-cancer Effects Discovered in Drug for Skin Infections
Narrator: This is Science Today. Researchers at the University of California , Santa Barbara have found that a drug previously used to treat skin infections has been shown to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Leslie Wilson, a professor of biochemistry and pharmacology, says the anti-fungal drug is called griseofulvin.
Wilson: The work that we've done on griseofulvin points to the possibility that this drug, which has been used for a long time in humans to treat fungal cell diseases in skin – could be potentially useful in combination therapy or as an adjuvant for treating cancer.
Narrator: Wilson, who stresses their work is basic science and has yet to be tested in clinical trial, says griseofulvin's anti-cancer effects are similar to, but much weaker than, the potent anti-cancer drug Taxol.
Wilson : The big plus here is that if it can be shown in clinical trials to be useful and to continue to have the low toxicity associated with it, it could be quite valuable.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
Searching for a Biomarker for Parkinson's Disease
Narrator: This is Science Today. Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disorder that results from the degeneration of neurons in a region of the brain that controls movement. Tony Fink, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California , Santa Cruz , is studying the molecular basis of the disease – how it arises and the various factors that may be involved.
Fink: There are two or three aspects to cure. The first would be to prevent any further progression of the disease. If the disease is identified early enough, patients would in fact be able to live a fairly normal life and if there was no further progression, they'd be basically fine.
Narrator: So, researchers are searching for a biomarker for Parkinson's disease.
Fink: There's significant evidence to suggest that the damage that leads to Parkinson's goes on for a period of years before it becomes apparent there's symptoms. So, if we had a readily available biomarker, we could probably identify potential patients before they have any symptoms.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Striving to Better Understand the Opiate Receptor Pathway
Narrator: This is Science Today. According to pain care specialist, Pamela Pierce Palmer of the University of California , San Francisco , physicians are becoming more aware of the psychosocial dynamic of pain management, but she says there needs to be more awareness of the molecular issues underlying it.
Palmer: More people need to really focus on what is occurring at a more physiologically and cellular and molecular level, so that we can in turn, give better medications to patients in pain.
Narrator: In a rat study, Palmer looked into the effects that age had on tolerance to morphine. Younger rats would become tolerant within days; older rats, it took weeks. This is the case with humans, too. So, Palmer's goal is to understand more about the opiate receptor pathway.
Palmer: And the more that's known about that pathway, the more we can analyze it with respect to race, gender, age, etc. and maybe find target molecules that we can target to allow these opiates to work better and work longer.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
Using Synthetic DNA to Treat Colitis?
Narrator: This is Science Today. When it comes to bacterial compounds in the body, certain organs respond differently than others. Eyal Raz, a professor of medicine at the University of California , San Diego , explains that the spleen for instance is geared to react to bacteria in a ‘me' versus ‘you' fashion.
Raz: Whereas in the colon, we respond to the bacteria more in effect that it's me and you, so there is room for you, there is room for us. And this type of partnership is called in biology ‘symbiosis'. Or, especially in the gut, we call this bacteria commensal.
Narrator: These bacteria are meant to live with us and not cause problems because if they did, the consequence of responding to any bacteria in the gut would be chronic inflammation of the colon. That's what happens to those who suffer from Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Raz: So we identified a mechanism by which bacterial product inhibit the host response towards inflammation – that you can take bacterial DNA or synthetic DNA that we make and treat colitis with that. We are preparing to do clinical trial in the near future.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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