Adenovirus disrupts cancer cells !!!! or they HOPE

Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

Ok, so we know that our precious p53 (which is a tumor suppressor protein) is involved in preventing cancer. So p53 generally eliminates abnormal cells from the body ( or any virus-infected cells). Similar to tumor cells adenoviruses (main cause of upper respiratory infections) multiply better when p53 is not around.

According to Dr. O'Shea, adenoviruses do not inactivate p53 directly. Instead, they target the genome itself. Adenovirus brings in E1B-55K (a protein encoded by the E1B genomic region of Adenovirus), which binds to and degrades p53... and thus inhibiting apoptosis in the infected cells. So if adenovirus didn't have E1B-55K, it wouldn't be able to inactivate p53, and would only be able to replicated in tumor cells that are p53-deficient. So then, each time it ruptures the host cell to release viral progenies, the next generation of viruses leave normal cells unharmed while seeking out the remaining cancer cells. And According to Dr. O'Shea,

"This makes adenovirus a perfect candidate for oncolytic cancer therapy."

Dr. Conrado Soria, notes that "the inability of the E1B-55K-mutant virus to replicate in normal cells was not because the virus failed to degrade p53."

Due to rapid degradation, p53 is found to be at low levels in normal and unstressed cells. However, if there is DNA damage, activation of oncogenes or infection, degradation of p53 is stopped and thus its levels accumulate. This accumulation stop the cell cycle or induce apoptosis by activating p53 target genes. As Dr. Soria predicted, normal cells that had been infected with adenovirus that LACKED E1B-55K, p53 accumulated but target genes were still able to be turned on ... making apoptosis possible. This is because of another protein in the adenovirus ! YAY ! The E4-ORF3 ... this protein is a beast ! It modifies chromatin, so that parts of chromosomes condenses into heterochromatin, so that the regulatory regions of p53 target genes somewhere thats inaccessible. Therefore, the tumor suppressor cant bind to its target genes anymore, p53 becomes useless and apoptosis no longer occurs.

What does all this mean? it means that Dr. O'Shea "HOPES" to understand how high levels of wild type p53 may be inactivated in cancer ! He says, "our study really changes the longstanding definition of how p53 is inactivated in adenovirus-infected cells and will finally allow us to develop true p53 tumor selective oncolytic therapies."

I cant believe people study this random crap...and get paid for it....

How a hard chair creates a hard heart:

A bunch of yale-led psychologists did a study to show that our sense of touch affects how we view the world. They interviewed job applicants- those who were holding heavier clipboards to fill out their application, took their job more serious than their counterparts. In a different study, they found that if people were sitting on hard, cushionless chairs were less likely to compromise in price negotiations than those who were sitting on soft comfortable chairs.

In a different study, L. Williams found that in an encounter, people judged others to be more generious IF they were having a warm cup of coffee, as oppose to a cold drink.

A. Bargh explains that infants first develop physical contacts such as roughness, hardness and warmth. He argues that this is critical in how they view "abstract concepts" about people and relationships (ex. detecting a warm smile).

Nerdy Post

I am obsessed with reading random science related news ! I came across this today:

Gay men's bilateral brains better at remembering faces: York U study

According to this study, gay men, like females, use both sides of their brains and thus are able to recall familiar faces better than heterosexual men (who use their right hemisphere for recalling familiar faces).

Yay York University for actually publishing an article ! lol

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And now for pure randomness:

So researchers at some university (BGU) developed a geeky software program that is capable of detecting depression in bloggers !! Oh yes my dear friends... I can NOT wait... until this program "reads" my blog. lol

Professor Yair Neuman claims that the software has been designed to find "hidden content" that is indicative of depression.

Here is an example: the program picks up words that express emotions ( could even be colour) so in the article they used the colour black. The program then combines the word "black" with other terms that describes symptoms of depression (so first it picks up emotions, then symptoms) such as "sleep deprivation" or "loneliness" - This will then be recognized as a "depressive" text.

People get paid to do this... wow...

"Insomniacs have different brains"

Dr. Ellemarjie Altena discovered that insomniac patients have a reduced grey matter density in certain regions of their brains- in particular the orbitofrontal cortex.

hm... I wonder if I have reduced grey matter ?