Heart failure

Heart failure is a disease which reduces heart contractility. This in turn reduces the amount of blood transporting nutrients.

Heart failure is caused by: blockages of coronary artery, reduced intracellular calcium and impaired energy production and utilisation. The major effects include: pulmonary or peripheral oedema and excessive heart activity.

Is there a faster way of detecting heart failure? why don't we make a nanobot that will be able to diagnose and detect heart problems? or something linked to the baroreceptors?

Why aren't the causes of heart failure targeted?

Autism

I recently found out that autistic people had a problem with identifying faces. This lies in the fact that, it is difficult for them to integrate the different structures of the face i.e. nose, eyes etc.
This is an interesting phenomenon where I think that it lies in the neuronal tracts in the visual system.

According to Jianling Chen et al., Autism is linked to genetic mutation of synapse-forming proteins, such as neurexin etc. Mutations with these proteins creates a problem in the cell-to-cell communication of neuronal cells. This might explain the inability to recognise face.

Limitation: There is no way of reversing genetic mutations, and there might be other mutated genes also involved in Autism.

Is there a way of recovering or reverse the effect of genetic mutations? If so, when is the right time to do so? and there are ethical implications regarding this?

How are the medications taking into account the genetic mutation, if there is any medication?

Investigations in this aspect might involve trying to reverse genetic mutations induced by ENU mutagenesis.

Reference: 
Chen et al. 2014. Synaptic proteins and receptors defects in autism spectrum disorders. Front Cell Neuroscience, 11;8:276. 

regeneration of the heart

Zebra fish, have the capacity to regenerate its heart, if 20% is cut off. if we all have the same conserved molecular pathways, then there might be a way of recovering the pathway that the zebra fish uses for heart regeneration...

Reducing drug elimination

We know that, drugs adhere to albumin [in the blood] and fat tissue. Therefore, dug doses have been calculated to fit these anomalies. It can lead to an overdose is a second drug enters the body and displaces the first drug, therefore increasing the concentration of it,1st drug, in the body.

Here is a thought:
Why don't we place the drug in a viral capsule or a viral-like capsule, that has specific proteins expressed on the surface. The proteins should be specific enough that they activate a receptor mediated endocytosis process. This would increase the specificity of drugs. However, I am not sure whether it will avoid the problem of drugs forming non-specific binding to albumin and fat.

will answer that in the coming posts!

Reducing the drug discovery and validation phase

Well, today I attended a lecture that talked about the drug discovery process. What boggled me, so much, was the amount of time and money wasted in order to clinically test and develop drugs. its mind BOGGLING! I don't understand how a better way to develop these drugs hasn't been uncovered!

Problems associated with phases

• target validation: finding the right target, how do you know whether it is the right one?
• toxicology: in the body, metabolism, 
• animal models: differs from humans, not an entirely accurate projection
• long-term effect: it takes time! 

I still don't understand why it takes away a lot of our resources... gonna research and update this post

Memory

What is memory exactly?
I often wonder, if different regions of the brains are responsible for specific information, how is it that we can vividly recall that scary scenario?

and where does our mind go when we daydream? How come we can imagine something with our eyes open? where is it that we see these images? isn't it odd? you try it, its like you are in between two dimensions...

Imagine is we could project our thoughts, our memory and ideas. it would bring empathy and more credible eye witnesses. However, in order to do that, we need to understand how we are able to picture and recall information! why is memory intangible? Are the things we see actually real, or is it just some skewed form of consciousness????

I apologize, I will answer the previous questions.

Detecting Cancer

Cancer is the uncontrolled division of cells. We know that more cells means more blood supply.

Therefore, any place in the body that undergoes division, also undergoes angiogenesis.

To detect cancer, we might need to detect areas in the body that undergo angiogenesis.

How do we detect angiogenesis? [1] Maybe it's areas that have high stem cell activation, or areas that express FGFs.

There was a TED talk, that mentioned muscles cells might have molecules that significantly reduces their chances of developing or getting cancer. they must have molecules that aids them [2].

Morphogens

Morphogens are signalling molecules found [and formed in cells]. It goes down a concentration gradient across cells. the different concentration morphogen exposed to cells, changes its cell fate.

In the future, why don't we just have a blob of specialized tissue, where, with the use of morphogens, we can manipulate it to becomes any thing. I am aware that this technique is used to create neuronal cells; however, it can be used to grow bones, or muscles or skin, why not paper?

Magic Bullet

Now, You know type of lecture I've been to :p [psst, its a pharmacology lecture :)]

What I still don't understand is; why haven't we just synthesised molecule that perfectly fits to a specific receptor? what else do we need to know in order to make a magic bullet?

We can now obtain a perfect picture of receptors, we already know their structures and where the ligand binds to. Although I am not sure whether we have figured where exactly the ligand needs to bind to in order to create a conformational change [1]. 

I wonder how small molecules are made? [2] Because if it is synthesised, then specific ligand molecules can be made. 

I remember there was an atomic 'story' of "The boy and the ball" [need to recheck this]; it was formed through manipulation of single atoms[don't know which ones exactly]. But, this same principle can be applied to the formation of more accurate drugs.

Problem with drugs:

1. administration --> it [sometimes] cannot directly get into the target tissue or organ. Therefore, it will need to take a round-about route [ex. blood system]. the effect: time, binds to other receptors, reduces the efficacy

2. side-effects --> because most receptors come from the same family

3. homeostasis--> the body's mechanism is to control for any change in body function, therefore, if a drug is introduced, the body will try and compensate for it

Solution

- something that is easy to administer, has little side effect and doesn't affect homeostasis!

OR maybe there is no Magic bullet, maybe the solution to our health problems lies in an area completely untouched by human mind...and what area would that be?

Footnote:

There will be answers to enquiries from previous posts. 

The Blog

Curiosity.

The reason that this Blog exists.

Whenever I hear stories about Elizabeth Holmes or Eva Vertes, it gets me thinking that there is an untouched possibilities of ideas, just waiting to be uncovered!

We all have an untapped potential in our minds. There is a reason we were put in this earth for, something that (for me personally) interlinks religion and giving back to the society.

I still haven't yet figured out what it is, but, I've still got time.

For the time being, I will just let my curiosity be my guide...

Challenge:

To come up with an invention every day of the week until 20th December 2014.