Ace of Spades HQ

April 26, 2013

Four major bio-med stories [Purp]
— Open Blogger

(1)Harvard researchers find a hormone that triggers rapid pancreas beta cell reproduction in diabetic mice. Humans have a similar hormone. This could be it, THE one...

(2)SRI researchers find an anti-body that causes bone marrow stem cells to become brain cells. All sorts of nerve damage repair possibilities here with no rejection issues. This too could be THE one...

(3)SRI researchers discover that natural body produced interferon can BOOST persistent infections (like AIDS, hepatitis and such) by shutting down T-cell response prematurely before the infection is wiped out. This is a very significant and counter intuitive revelation.

... over the longer term a sharp drop in levels of immune-suppressing IL-10, as well as PD-L1, both inducers of T-cell exhaustion, was associated with restoration of antiviral immune response and virus clearance. And although blocking the IFN-I-a-b receptor led to higher bloodstream levels of virus in the first days after infection, it soon brought about a stronger, infection-clearing response...

(4)SRI again -- this time they've discovered a way to treat prion diseases. Interestingly, one of the effective drugs uncovered was an OTC antihistamine withdrawn from the US market some years ago for causing rare cardiac arrhythmia, although its still commonly available overseas. Would you rather get dementia and die from mad cow or have a chirpy heart? I'd say there's no contest. This prion shit has been pretty scary in that there was no known treatments. Now there some hope.

Let's hope the new age of
discovery isn't cut short...
...by the new dark ages

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:11 AM | Comments (57)
Post contains 260 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Where is everybody? But I heard that these projects could be doomed by the sequestration?

Posted by: Taiwan_Joe at April 26, 2013 01:21 AM (O7aw+)

2 Early thread!

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 01:28 AM (53z96)

3 Purp, on the cutting edge again. Glad you were given (had forced upon you?) the keys to the blog.

Posted by: teej at April 26, 2013 01:30 AM (QbKVX)

4 As for all these new medical advances I am leery of these types of announcements. Too often we have been promised all kinds of major breakthroughs and then they do not pan out.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 01:30 AM (53z96)

5 Vic- That is true but medicine in general has made miraculous advances in my lifetime. This stuff is hopeful.

The madcow medicine has implications for Alzheimers and other brain disease. Very cool if it works out.

Posted by: typo dynamofo at April 26, 2013 01:35 AM (WVMUQ)

6 Vic, the prion one seems like a slam dunk -- it works on the chemical/molecule level and won't be subject to genetic differences and such between species.

That prion shit has been freaking scary. They're not alive like bacteria, and not even as sophisticated as a virus that packs DNA. Prions are just a bent freaking molecule - a chemical substance there was no defense against.

Posted by: @PurpAv at April 26, 2013 01:41 AM (/gHaE)

7 Well we can pray that they work out. And yes, there have been some breakthroughs in my lifetime. Hell, I remember when polio was common. It was not unusual to see people in braces and in an iron lung.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 01:47 AM (53z96)

8 A friend of mine had polio as a kid and was sent to a convent where they cared for polio victims. She said she would always remember the Nuns dancing around, laughing and smiling about the finding of the vaccine.

Posted by: typo dynamofo at April 26, 2013 01:51 AM (WVMUQ)

9 This is all good, but more money needs to be spent on teaching African men how to wash their penis.

Posted by: African Tribesman [/i] at April 26, 2013 01:56 AM (feFL6)

10 My little brother spent a year in an iron lung but the only way you would know he had polio is if he showed you his trach scar. Prayer and good medicine. He was very fortunate. My buddy Scott has a twisted spine. Polio and nuclear war made the 50's a scary time.

Posted by: Mr. Dave at April 26, 2013 02:02 AM (hcNX8)

11 Medical discoveries. You didn't build that.

Posted by: tony redenzo at April 26, 2013 02:07 AM (Vodnq)

12 Barring the end of civilization due to terrorism/debt/nuclear war, we're on the cusp of a golden age in medicine. Then, the SINGULARITY

Posted by: zeera at April 26, 2013 02:07 AM (JeTjJ)

13 Wifey is going down to the beach today for an overnight with MIL and friends from their bridge club. Is it Party time at the Vic house?

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:09 AM (53z96)

14 Sounds like the wife is doing well, Vic. That is something to rejoice in.

Don't fall asleep to early.

Posted by: typo dynamofo at April 26, 2013 02:10 AM (WVMUQ)

15 Thread has been up for an hour and only 13 comments? Are all the Morons late sleepers?

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:10 AM (53z96)

16 Sounds like the wife is doing well, Vic. That is something to rejoice in.

Yeah she is doing pretty good. I'd like for her to pick up some more weight but she says she likes being thin again. But I will rejoice when we can get rid of the feeding tube.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:11 AM (53z96)

17 Is it Party time at the Vic house? All those people standing out on the driveway because thay have to keep off the lawn and there's only one rocker on the porch, should be a great time if it isn't raining.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 02:14 AM (rZ5RE)

18 Is it Party time at the Vic house? All those people standing out on the driveway because thay have to keep off the lawn and there's only one rocker on the porch, should be a great time if it isn't raining.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 06:14 AM (rZ5RE)

Now how do you know there is only one rocker on the porch? Are you watching my house?

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:15 AM (53z96)

19 Hard to pick up weight on a feeding tube. When that comes out, she will get back closer to the healthy weight you are hoping for.

Posted by: typo dynamofo at April 26, 2013 02:17 AM (WVMUQ)

20 Now how do you know there is only one rocker on the porch? Are you watching my house? Those rather large May flies you've seen lately? Listen real close and you can hear the little electric motor.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 02:18 AM (rZ5RE)

21 I broke the ONT and am reluctant to comment, but this early post is exciting news. Thanks Open Blogger.

I am seventy-five and well remember summers when public swimming pools were closed because, polio.

Posted by: Random Lurker at April 26, 2013 02:18 AM (yDWX4)

22 On a serious note, glad to hear the wife is doing metter.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 02:19 AM (rZ5RE)

23 Those rather large May flies you've seen lately? Listen real close and you can hear the little electric motor.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 06:18 AM (rZ5RE)

Horse flies can carry bigger and better cameras.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:20 AM (53z96)

24 Hard to pick up weight on a feeding tube.

Yeah, hard to become interested in eating with that arrangement.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:21 AM (53z96)

25 I am seventy-five and well remember summers when public swimming pools were closed because, polio.

Posted by: Random Lurker at April 26, 2013 06:18 AM (yDWX4)

I don't think they ever closed the pool in my old home town for polio. They did ultimately close it for other reasons though. IIANM liability insurance shut it down.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:22 AM (53z96)

26 I remember the closed pools also, also remember going to school one day and the nurse was handing out sugarcubes with the vaccine in them. Wouldn't be able to do that type of innoculation today, especially in New York City.

Posted by: Panhandler at April 26, 2013 02:22 AM (rZ5RE)

27 So the long-honored "X on X Theorem" (one X good, two Xs better, where X = beer, for example) isn't true in all instances? Color me crushed... I would be remiss not to point out that the "X on Y Theorem" (put enough X on Y and soon Y will only taste like X, where X = ketchup and Y = anything) has not yet been overturned.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at April 26, 2013 02:24 AM (NokrH)

28 I remember the closed pools also, also remember going to school one day and the nurse was handing out sugarcubes with the vaccine in them.

We had to go by the county health office for that. And if I remember correctly we got a shot, not a sugar cube. But that may have been for something else. That has been a long time ago.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:24 AM (53z96)

29 Gonna tie a weather record today; latest date for first 60 degree temps...

Posted by: zeera at April 26, 2013 02:26 AM (JeTjJ)

30 Well, I woke up, and the JEF is still in office. Probably gonna rain this weekend too..

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at April 26, 2013 02:27 AM (ZQNhv)

31 Temps here are running about 5Â° below normal still. But at least we are getting our Spring this week.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:27 AM (53z96)

32 As I recall, the sugar cubes had a pinkish dot on them, where (I assume) that dot contained the polio vaccine itself. That was the Sabin (oral) vaccine; the Salk vaccine was the shot. One couldn't administer the sugar cubes today for fear of the wrath of Mooch and the galloping stupidity of Mika B. regarding the evils of sugar...

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at April 26, 2013 02:33 AM (QTKGF)

33 Morning, everyone.

Nice to hear the good news about Mrs. Vic.

And nice to hear the stories about escaping "the worst" about polio. I remember my mother on the phone with my aunt with auntie describing symptoms her three boys were displaying and the horrified look on my mother's face. Turned out they were right and all three cousins had polio. Fortunately only one was more than a mild case and even his was mild compared to the horror stories then making the rounds. He came through it with a limp you can still notice if you know to look for it. There was no hesitation about making us all take the vaccine when it came out and I remember lining up in school for it. Got it on a couple of sugar cubes.

Posted by: Retread at April 26, 2013 02:34 AM (zxitI)

34 So Vic, I'm curious how you rapid-fire the morning news. Queue them up in notepad then copy/paste?

Posted by: zeera at April 26, 2013 02:39 AM (JeTjJ)

35 I recall the sugar cube, with a dollop of red color, being given in a little paper cup. My younger brother was just a toddler, and I remember them giving him the shot in the back of his thigh, and him screaming. The relief all parents must have felt is almost unimaginable to me.

Posted by: Mark at April 26, 2013 02:40 AM (FhTw9)

36 In my teen years, I worked for three summers at a camp for handicapped youths in Upper Michigan that had originally been founded for victims of polio. I was only a counselor - someone who worked directly with the children - for the third and final year. Both my sister and one of my two brothers also worked there.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at April 26, 2013 02:40 AM (QTKGF)

37 So Vic, I'm curious how you rapid-fire the morning news. Queue them up in notepad then copy/paste?

Posted by: zeera at April 26, 2013 06:39 AM (JeTjJ)

I put them all together in a Word document early in the morning, then transfer it to a notepad doc. Then when the morning thread opens I copy and paste them to there.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:43 AM (53z96)

38 Falling asleep at the wheel here. Better get some zzzzzzzzzzzs.

Happy Friday, all.

Posted by: Random Lurker at April 26, 2013 02:45 AM (yDWX4)

39 Two local men, Max Reynolds and Lowell Reynolds, developed a wooden lung in response to the polio outbreak in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1940. Apparently, the region had the highest per capita incidence of the disease in the country during that year. http://www.mgh.org/respiratory/woodenLung.pdf

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at April 26, 2013 02:47 AM (C26bh)

40 it would be wonderful to see t1dm cured.

Posted by: Morris at April 26, 2013 02:48 AM (+/6DM)

41 Yeah, hard to become interested in eating with that arrangement. I have issues with eating. Sometimes I work myself to the bone, physical stuff, and don't wanna eat. Then I either fry up some bacon or pan fry some fresh garlic cloves. I actually need some smell in the air to get hungry. The sense of smell is something we gradually lose as we get older. Hope your wife recovers.

Posted by: Regular Moron [/i] at April 26, 2013 02:50 AM (feFL6)

42 Thanks, she is slowly but surely getting there.

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:51 AM (53z96)

43 News up

Posted by: Vic at April 26, 2013 02:51 AM (53z96)

44 But where's the damn flying cars? I was promised flying cars!

Posted by: rickb223 at April 26, 2013 02:51 AM (d0Dmj)

45 New study reveals that 11% of men lie... Porn Use Has Small Effect on Sexual Behavior, Study Finds Most of the participants who said they used porn -- 89 percent of the men and 70 percent of the women -- relied on the Internet within the past year to get it. Even though access to the Internet is so much greater than a few years ago, there has not really been a spike in risky sexual behaviors, Tortolero said. http://tinyurl.com/d9mmevx

Posted by: Regular Moron [/i] at April 26, 2013 02:54 AM (feFL6)

46 I think the sugar cube was Salk vaccine and the shot was Sabin vaccine. A lot of us got gammagobbin (sp?) for being in close proximity to a polio case. Brother got it even though he had gotten the Salk.

Posted by: Mr. Dave at April 26, 2013 03:27 AM (hcNX8)

47 SRI researchers find an anti-body that causes bone marrow stem cells to become brain cells. All sorts of nerve damage repair possibilities here with no rejection issues. This too could be THE one...

So, there's no fetal stem cell angle, right? No story here.

Posted by: The MFM at April 26, 2013 03:53 AM (7xeJQ)

48 There was a lot of politicking when the vaccines came out. The initial Sabin test group got polio, and the nation was sick with crushed hope. The people down the street decided they'd wait until the whole thing was sorted out, and so their daughter became the last case of polio in these parts. Leg brace, about as bitter about it as you'd expect, and married to a shootin' buddy of mine.

There's a TV ad running that shows people picking up the paper on the front porch, with a "Japs Quit"size headline that says "Cancer Cured." It's schmaltzy and cheesy and I can't remember what it's for (that's the kiss of death in PR), but to anyone who was around in the million years of polio, it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck and tears come to the eyes. That's probably a symptom of something, too.

Wilford Brimley saying "We won't ever get any older, and we'll never die."

Posted by: comatus at April 26, 2013 04:13 AM (qaVK+)

49 The most well-known of the misfolded protein prion diseases is the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can be described as the naturally occurring human equivalent of mad cow disease. ** From a internationally recognized dairy science specialist in nutrition/production, Mad Cow Disease (BSE) occurs when these herbivores are fed meat (by products), business motivation being to bulk up for sale, and insidiously not "waste" the waste from slaughter houses that include infested carcasses. But for an ounce of prevention for the pound of cure... If C-J disease is "the naturally occurring human equivalent", take care of your dietary intake, including "pharmaceutical grade" drugs. This big pharma instance in repackaging poison production is nothing new. Hey, gotta pay for research and production. Board Members gotta have their billions of dollars bonuses. As if consumers aren't already paying in spades. Big pharma industry is run by the same globalist corporatist conglomerates of the investment/banking/scandal world of elitists whose incestuous "investments" also manage the media and advertising. Consider well. When the commercial spends more words warning of fatal and dire consequences of partaking of the "forbidden fruit" including the grossly increased negative side effects of the very symptoms you wish to "cure", beware. Perhaps the knowledge between good v. evil means to be subjugated to the evil, the detrimental, the suffering and cruelty. How else does one "learn" knowledge than through personal experience? And a fool will learn by no other than his own mistakes. Not everything that "hurts" should be induced into a stupor through drugs, especially when dealing with emotions that are dealt with more effectively via counseling than pharmaceuticals. Westerners in general are on too many mind altering drugs, whether or not on a prescription for mood enhancers or "anti-depressants". Every chemical introduced into an organism has more than one affect. When the fine print only reveals the tip of the negative side effect iceberg, consider well. Everything affects everything else.

Posted by: panzernashorn at April 26, 2013 04:21 AM (MhA4j)

50 gammagobbin (sp?) Gamma globulin immunoglobulins (lgs) /"globulin" sounds like a cartoon creature

Posted by: panzernashorn at April 26, 2013 04:26 AM (MhA4j)

51 A subject close to my heart- my mother died of polio at the age of 25 in 1955. My dad, a doctor, had to give the gamma-globulin shots to my sister, who was a baby, and me. A cousin in east Texas was wheel-chair bound the rest of his life. One of my best friends in high school wore a leg brace. Do not start with that anti-vaccination/ it causes autism nonsense around me, young moms. You have no idea what fear in the communicable disease area is.

Posted by: Sal at April 26, 2013 04:31 AM (P4UK2)

52 That hormone might fix a damaged pancreas, but it doesn't deal with what killed the pancreas in the first place, insulin resistance.

Posted by: Kristophr at April 26, 2013 05:11 AM (wYVte)

53 I wonder if the effect in #3 was a mechanism to prevent auto-immune disorders that was then exploited in the evolutionary arms race.

Posted by: epobirs at April 26, 2013 05:12 AM (kcfmt)

54 Alzheimer's Disease: Return of the Prion Hypothesis http://preview.alturl.com/i2rvs I've seen what Alzheimer's can do. AN OTC antihistamine? I've got family in Europe - its never too early to try it...

Posted by: Brendan at April 26, 2013 05:13 AM (8YVZT)

55 #52

Yes but that can be treated separately. Often it comes down to dietary restrictions for those who certain genes. But all too often the pancreas is too far gone before disease is properly diagnosed. This opens up a lot of new potential for saving lives and restoring function.

Posted by: epobirs at April 26, 2013 05:16 AM (kcfmt)

56 Type 1 is a wrecked pancreas; Type 2 is insulin resistance. Different diseases. Pancreas repair is for Type 1.

(Type 1 is less common but it's a bitch to deal with, much more demanding than the average case of Type 2.)

Posted by: jaed at April 26, 2013 06:43 AM (x4Wnv)

57 I love the Kinks, thanks Open Blogger.

Plus good news on the science front. Happy Friday everyone!!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at April 26, 2013 09:06 AM (HVff2)

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