All posts tagged: cells

Trump Secretly Believes That Diet Coke Kills Cancer Cells Inside the Body

Trump Secretly Believes That Diet Coke Kills Cancer Cells Inside the Body

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech President Donald Trump has an idea about soft drinks that’s pretty fringe even by his own eccentric standards. The president thinks soft drinks can kill cancer cells in the body, and that’s why he constantly guzzles it — with his devotion to fizzy drinks so complete that he had a special button installed in his desk in the White House that summons an aide to bring him Diet Coca Cola whenever he wants. At least, that’s according to celebrity TV doctor and now-administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet “Dr. Oz” Oz, who revealed the eyebrow-raising information on a podcast hosted by Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump, Jr. “Then comes the diet soda pops, which your dad argues that diet soda is good for him because it kills grass [when] it’s poured on grass, so therefore, it must kill cancer cells inside the body,” Oz told Trump Jr. Oz recalled once being on Air Force …

Cells communicate biological messages between each other using newly discovered “courier system”

Cells communicate biological messages between each other using newly discovered “courier system”

Published by skeptic

In a new study, published in Nature Materials, a team based at UCD, led by researchers from the University’s Centre for BioNano Interactions (CBNI), discovered that when certain nanoparticles enter a cell, a small number undergo an unexpected transformation, acquiring a coating known as a “condensate corona”. A dense, stable droplet, this coating is made from the cell’s own proteins and RNA, the molecules that control how cells operate and regulate themselves. Key to the discovery is that this coating carries a small biological programme. As these messaging droplets were released from the cell, researchers were able to capture them in transit, before they delivered their messages to other cells, due to tiny magnets embedded inside them. Because the messages remained intact during capture, it was possible to read and understand how they were transferred. Once inside a new cell, the coating detaches and, crucially, escapes the cell’s degradation system with remarkable efficiency. This allows the carried proteins and RNA to access the new target cell and integrate into its internal processes. The researchers showed that …

Antioxidant in mushrooms may target uterus cells to ease period pain

Antioxidant in mushrooms may target uterus cells to ease period pain

Published by skeptic

Hot water bottles can ease period pain, but some people need stronger relief Carol Yepes/Getty Images An antioxidant that is abundant in some mushrooms has shown promise for easing period pain. A daily dose of a supplement containing L-ergothioneine, which is also in fermented foods, seems to limit the extent of this pain by targeting cells within the uterus, rather than just blocking discomfort that has already taken hold. “Instead of treating the symptom acutely when the pain is already severe, EGT [L-ergothioneine] acts as a nutritional foundational support, potentially reducing the reliance on strong medications and giving women a safer way to reclaim their well-being,” says Guohua Xiao at Gene III Biotechnology Co. in Nanjing, China. Period pain, or dysmenorrhea, is considered one of the most common gynaecological-related issues, but reports of its prevalence vary hugely, from 16 per cent to 91 per cent. It is thought to be caused by the uterus producing higher levels of inflammatory chemicals called prostaglandins, which result in it contracting strongly to shed its lining. This can make …

New discovery helps explain why HIV can return so quickly

New discovery helps explain why HIV can return so quickly

Published by Jenni Sidey

A long-standing belief about HIV has quietly shaped how scientists think about the virus. For decades, researchers described the virus as hiding in a “latent reservoir,” a group of infected cells that stay silent during treatment. New research now challenges that idea, revealing a more active and complex picture inside the body. For people living with human immunodeficiency virus, antiretroviral therapy has transformed the disease. These drugs stop the virus from making new copies, which prevents illness and reduces transmission. Yet even with treatment, HIV does not fully disappear. “But notion that the entirety of the HIV reservoir is latent is actually a misleading description, because some reservoir cells can still be quite active,” said Nadia Roan, PhD, senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes. “Even though antiretroviral therapy keeps full-fledged HIV virus from being made, some of the infected cells continue spitting out viral products.” That activity, though subtle, can have real consequences. Viral fragments remain in the body, which can drive chronic inflammation. Over time, that inflammation can contribute to organ damage and increase the …

New smart drugs precisely target and kill cancer cells

New smart drugs precisely target and kill cancer cells

Published by Jenni Sidey

Cancer treatment has long been haunted by the same problem: how do you strike dangerous cells without hitting healthy ones nearby? A team at the University of Geneva has built a drug-delivery system meant to answer that question with unusual precision. Instead of relying on bulky antibodies alone, the researchers used synthetic DNA strands, small binding proteins called affibodies, and aptamers to create a kind of molecular checkpoint. The treatment activates only when the right combination of markers appears on a cell’s surface. That matters because many cancer drugs still damage healthy tissue along with tumors. Antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, have helped narrow that gap by linking a cancer-seeking antibody to a toxic payload. However, those therapies come with tradeoffs. Antibodies are large, which can make it harder for them to move deep into solid tumors. Most can carry only a limited number of drug molecules. The Geneva group took a different route. General design of DNA-drug conjugates (DDC) for computed delivery. (CREDIT: Nature Biotechnology) Their system uses DNA hairpins, engineered strands that remain inactive …

First-of-a-kind ‘smart’ drugs help fight cancer cells

First-of-a-kind ‘smart’ drugs help fight cancer cells

Published by skeptic

A team from the University of Geneva has designed a molecular system that distinguishes and neutralises cancer cells with unprecedented precision, paving the way for autonomous, self-regulating drugs. Using synthetic DNA strands, the smart system recognises cancer cells with exceptional precision and releases powerful drugs only where they are needed. Beyond cancer treatment, this research paves the way to “smart” medicines and programmable drug delivery. The corresponding article for the research is published in Nature Biotechnology. Directly targeting cancer cells transforms therapy The ability to directly target tumour cells with drugs is transforming cancer therapy, helping preserve healthy tissue and reducing the severe side effects associated with chemotherapy. Amongst the most promising approaches of recent decades are antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), which use monoclonal antibodies to deliver therapeutic agents precisely to cancer cells. Despite their remarkable success, ADCs still face significant limitations, including poor penetration into tumour tissue and limited capacity to carry drug payloads. DNA strands help overcome downfalls In this new system, independent DNA strands carry distinct components, including two different cancer-targeting binders and …

Scientists map millions of cells to decode the biology of aging

Scientists map millions of cells to decode the biology of aging

Published by Jenni Sidey

Aging does not arrive all at once. It builds quietly across years, touching cells long before symptoms appear. Scientists have spent decades studying diseases tied to aging. Now, many want to understand aging itself, hoping to slow its effects at the source. A new study offers one of the clearest views yet. Researchers at The Rockefeller University mapped how aging changes cells across the entire body. They examined nearly 7 million individual cells from mice. These cells came from 21 different tissues and three life stages. “Our goal was to understand not just what changes with aging, but why,” said Junyue Cao, who heads the Laboratory of Single Cell Genomics and Population Dynamics. “By mapping both cellular and molecular changes, we can identify what drives aging. That opens the door to interventions that target the aging process itself.” The findings reveal a body in motion. Aging is not a simple decline. It is a coordinated shift across organs, cell types, and biological systems. Some changes begin earlier than expected, and many differ between males and …

Some cells are super speedy. Here’s how the fastest stack up

Some cells are super speedy. Here’s how the fastest stack up

Published by skeptic

algae: A group of single-celled and multicellular organisms, once considered plants (they aren’t). As aquatic organisms, they grow in water. Like green plants, they depend on sunlight to make their food. annual: Adjective for something that happens every year. bioengineer: Someone who applies engineering to solve problems in biology or in systems that will use living organisms. cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. Most organisms, such as yeasts, molds, bacteria and some algae, are composed of only one cell. cilia: (singular cilium) Small hairlike features that occur on the surface of some cells and larger tissue structures. They can move and their wavelike motion can propel liquids to move in a particular direction. Cilia play an important role in many biological functions throughout the body. data: Facts and/or statistics collected together for analysis …

Protonic ceramic cells for high-temperature electrolysis at scale

Protonic ceramic cells for high-temperature electrolysis at scale

Published by skeptic

The PEPPER project is paving the way for the scale-up of next-generation steam electrolysis technology. As simple as a water splitting reaction can look, the production of green hydrogen by electrolysis remains an electro-intensive process. In this context, high-temperature steam electrolysis technologies appear as the most promising ones, because a significant share of the energy needed to split the water molecule is supplied in the form of heat rather than electricity. This makes high-temperature steam electrolysis especially advantageous when low-cost heat can be used to generate steam, for example by recovering waste heat from industrial processes. The dominance of solid oxide cell technology Today, the landscape for high-temperature technologies is dominated by solid oxide electrolysis technology, relying on the ability of certain oxides — often zirconia-based — to conduct oxygen ions at temperatures typically above 700°C. These transport properties in zirconia-based materials have been known for a long time: at the end of the 19th century, Walther Nernst made use of this feature to use zirconia as glowing rod in an early form of incandescent …

‘Zombie’ cells created by transplanting genomes into dead bacteria

‘Zombie’ cells created by transplanting genomes into dead bacteria

Published by skeptic

Colonies of bacterial cells under a microscope. The blue colony is expressing the synthetic genome; the white colonies are Mycoplasma capricolum cells that survived the mitomycin C treatment Nacyra Assad-Garcia A living, synthetic cell has been made by transplanting a complete genome into a dead bacterium, bringing it back to life. The breakthrough could help synthetic biology live up to its huge, but still distant, promise of engineering organisms to create sustainable fuels, pharmaceuticals and new materials. Synthetic biology involves tweaking biological systems or creating new ones to introduce novel functions, such as rewriting yeast DNA so that the organisms make desirable chemicals. In an effort to make more versatile engineered microbes, in 2010 researchers synthesised a bacterial genome and then transplanted it into a living cell, creating what they called the first synthetic cell. But there was a problem. It was very difficult to be sure whether the cell was truly being governed by the synthetic genome rather than its original genome, because bacteria frequently absorb genetic material from the environment and add it …