New resolution to antibiotic use??

A problem presented in the medical and microbiology field recently has been bacteria and their resistance to antibiotics. Scientists are closing in on a new "antibiotic". This new method of possibly destroying unwanted infectious bacteria in humans is simply using a polypeptide produced and created specifically for this reason and no other reason. The idea behind this new polypeptide is that it will be used in actually attacking bacteria's cell walls. The way the polypeptide works is that it is able to somehow perforate the cell walls of targeted bacteria, whether they are gram positive or gram negative. With this happening, it seems that the number one thing any bacterium needs is a cell wall to be able to live. When the cell walls are attacked and perforated, it makes it easier for the bacteria to be attacked by other introduced antibiotics being used and the immune system itself can easily attack and rid the human body of the unwanted bacteria. The major problem associated with this idea though has been the way of introducing it into the human body. Since these polypeptides do not interact well with liquid environments, they have created positive charged ions to attach to the polypeptides to keep them protected. Doing this as well helps in being attracted to bacterium because of the bacteria having negatively charged cell walls. Studies are still being done on this method to help narrow it down to only being attracted to bacteria. The only question that I can think of presenting is that of what if there is a bacteria infection that involves bacteria with positively charged cell walls, this poses a possible problem.

Here is the link to the article:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Bacterial hole puncher could be new broad-spectrum antibiotic." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 October 2015. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029102236.htm.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029102236.htm

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, what about it?

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD, is a very rare disease that causes spongiform of the patient's brain. Yes, this disease is extremely rare and is only found in every one in one million people world wide. This disease's symptoms mirror almost of that which is seen in a person who is suffering from dementia, so sometimes this is hard to tell the difference between a spongiform disease caused by prions and that of something like dementia or Alzheimer's. The craziest thing about CJD, is not that it mirrors that of mental deterioration disorders but that it is very elusive and the cause for it still is not confirmed. Scientists have found that this disease is very much related to an infectious form of the prion protein found in our cells. The problem though is that there is no confirmation of whether it is the actual prion that causes this disease or something else. And what brings a question to mind from this article the most to me is that 85% of mot CJD cases are labeled as sporadic CJD, meaning that this disease appears with no genetic mutation or other known risk factors that could cause this disease. The idea of this is scary! Even with a low chance in general of someone developing CJD, it is crazy to think that a large number of the cases presented that are diagnosed with CJD are of unknown origin and how contraction of the disease even occurred. In other words, for sporadic CJD scientists actually have no answer to how this happens. There are only theories, and most of the theories focus on somehow the normal prion protein in our neuronal cells change their conformation into an abnormal or "infectious" conformation that makes these prions dangerous and lead to spongiform of the brain tissues. My main question presented as the result to this article, is if it is possible that the abnormal conformation of the normal prion protein is the result of maybe a damaging chemical ingested by an individual or just a chemical that somehow reaches this prion in any way that may cause it to change its conformation. Sporadic CJD is a large mystery in the world of prions, and more research needs to be done to find the cause.

Here is the article on CJD and sporadic CJD:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/cjd/detail_cjd.htm

THC and Alzheimer's disease

Yes, this topic is random compared to my other postings but I think it is important to note something about THC since it is a controversial topic in society over the last year or so. THC, also known as Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive chemical found in cannabis. The article that I read included a study about how THC might be linked in inhibiting the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The enzyme that Alzheimer's uses is called acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which is an enzyme that produces amyloid β-peptide aggregation. Aggregation of amyloid β-peptide is what results in the progression of Alzheimer's disease. This study was able to confirm that THC was able to inhibit the AChE, which would lead to a decrease in the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer's. There are two other medications being used in treating Alzheimer's, donepezil and tacrine. THC inhibition was shown to work better at inhibiting AChE better than both of these two medications. I'm sure there still needs to be more study done on this psychoactive chemical, but it is very satisfying to hear that there might be a better solution to slowing down Alzheimer's than the drugs that are currently on the market. I hope to see more studies done on THC and what benefits can come from it. But the biggest problem with studies done on this chemical is still how it is under fire from the federal government; more studies won't be available till this blockade on research is lifted.

I'm curious to see what everyone thinks about this study...

Here's the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562334/

New blindness disorder and maybe its cure...

Gene therapy is a fast growing area of research in modern science, and this article definitely shows how useful this technique is. The main study that these scientists were doing was upon the rare disorder that causes blindness during the day called achromatopsia. It seems that the scientists were able to narrow the culprit down to genes that play a key role in phototransduction. First off, this study is being done to help lead to a cure for both dogs and humans. During their study so far, they have only performed experiments on dog genes in gene therapy. What they were able to find was that there is a missense mutation on the CNGA3 gene. What's crazy is how this one mutation causes a different amino acid to be produced which leads to this disorder. The best part about this gene therapy is that they were able to recreate this in vitro and see what this mutation and the other newly discovered mutation can do to the pathway of the phototransducers within the eyes. They will begin study upon humans soon but so far they have discovered many more mutations that are present within the same gene rather than the few that are present within dogs that lead to achromatopsia. I can't wait to hear if their research takes off soon, leading them to be able to find a way to fix this gene in vivo and repair people and dogs' vision that are crippled by this rare disorder.

Here is the article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151001165029.htm

University of Pennsylvania. "Genetic mutations linked to a form of blindness." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 October 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151001165029.htm>.

Viruses in the Tree of Life...

There is a constant argument between scientists today on whether viruses can be considered living or non-living. The small article that I read simply gives "Life" to the idea that viruses might actually be living, and also it shows how much we don't really know about viruses after all. It's proven that there is obviously much more to viruses than we currently know, especially given the fact that at one given time in the past viruses were said to have no action in translation; it has now been proven recently that some bigger viruses have genes that are essential for translation. I am still torn by this idea of whether these organisms are living or non-living, given the information presented in this article has now shed more light upon the stance on identifying viruses as living. More facts about how there are certain bacteria and fungi that live due to a parasitic relationship, just like viruses do, justify another reason for classifying them as living also. My favorite part of this article is probably the part where they were able to identify the related protein folds between viruses and organisms currently present in the tree of life. I can somewhat see where they found that protein folds can help better identify viruses and their relationships in between different viruses and how they possibly could fit into the tree of life, sometime in the near future.

Here is where the article was found:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142658.htm

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "Study adds to evidence that viruses are alive." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 25 September 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142658.htm>.