Researchers Find Off Protein For Immune System 103
canning writes "A team of Canadian scientists has discovered the "Holy Grail" of the signalling process
the human body uses to control its immune system, a finding that could one day halt
the development of cancer, diabetes, arthritis and heart disease.
This article explains what Dr. Penninger's team plans to accomplish with such a discovery and gives a brief history of this highly successful group of researchers."
Re:Diabetes? (Score:1)
Re:Someone signal PETA (Score:1)
And if you haven't, well, have fun. [absurdgallery.com]
-lee
It's Funny! Mod it up! (Score:1)
stupid troll filter... bah...
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:2)
Cancer is when the chemicals in your body that regulate things go haywire and start telling things to start doing things that they should not do. If you know what those chemicals are you have a big edge in treating the cancer.
And if Saddam wants a bomb to threaten the USA he would be better off with Anthrax or TB.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:2)
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:Diabetes? (Score:3)
Also if you could selectivly turn off parts of the immune system it would make transplants much easer.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:2)
We'll run their skinny asses over with our SUVs.
We'll shoot them with our concealed-carry handguns.
We'll clog their arteries with McDonald's cheeseburgers.
We'll poison their minds with kiddie pr0n from the internet.
We'll despoil their women with breast implants.
We'll get them hooked on bad pop music and flashy special-effects movies, then control their access with copy-protection schemes and have them paying $8 per viewing per episode of Friends.
We'll darken their eyes with rolling blackouts.
Americans are much more well-adapted to survival in this environment. The average Somali wouldn't last 2 weeks.
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:2)
Re:Turning off the big switch... (Score:1)
Seriously, the "switch" thing is just a journalistic metaphor.
Re:What is a "Junk Character post" anyway? (Score:1)
Re:Research should be opensourced ;-) (Score:2)
Researchers get their status and thus their grant money from the number of publications and the number of times their publications are quoted by other publications, so it is in their best interest to make publications as easily obtainable as possible
For example, check out the arXiv preprint archive [lanl.gov], which contains a large proportion of all publications in physics (at least for my field, soft condensed matter physics), in postscript and LaTeX source (!).
Of course, commercial journal publisher (like Elsevier) use this to obtain full copyright on articles, and publishing them in journals which cost 10s of thousands of dollars for a subscription. A good university or institute can't do without them, because they have a natural monopoly on what's published.
Sander
Someone signal PETA (Score:1)
Poor widdle mice. Mean old, nasty researchers.
Seriously, has anybody every heard of a piece of lab gear called a "mouse homogenizer"? Not for the faint of heart...
So they might be able to turn immunity OFF - seems like this might shed some light on AIDS research, and how to turn it ON.
Cure for Cancer Completed! (Score:2)
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:1)
Are you asserting that if our government cuts off funds for this research, then no one in the world is ever going to make inroads along these lines?
Or are you merely stating that the government should take a hand in what people it funds, in terms of restricting the nationalities of whom these research facilities employ?
Or are you requesting that these sorts of discoveries not be publicized in the media, for fear of researchers being kidnapped by enemy nations, so that their discoveries can be used for destructive goals?
In any case, all new technologies are bound to have evil potential purposes to match the good ones. I feel that ignorance is never the right answer. I don't know when "temperance of discovery/research" crosses into hiding from the truth...
-Felix
Re:Research should be opensourced ;-) (Score:2)
Funny? Not really, though your title was stated humorously, I feel that your points are quite serious.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Diabetes? (Score:4)
Arthritis (more specifically rheumatoid arthritis) is caused by the body's immune system attacking the cartiledge layers in between your joints. Under attack the cartiledge layers become inflamed, causing the characteristic joint swelling and immobility.
Heart Disease is a common term to describe medical conditions that cause damage to the heart. These can be physical conditions (such as obstructions to the blood supply to the heart), viral/bacterial infections, or auto-immune responses.
More information on Diabetes can be found at the American Diabetes Association [diabetes.org]. Information on Rheumatoid Arthritis can be found at the Arthritis Foundation [arthritis.org]
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Re:I can see this one already... (Score:1)
This isn't the destruction of Darwin's theories, the fittest still survive - you just have to look at what fittest actually means. Survival of the fittest is not about physical fitness, but about how well your adaptation fits the ecological niche. Consider examples like sickle cell anemia - it leaves the sufferers unfit by normal standards but protects them from malaria. The benefits of being less fit are bigger than the panalties. In this case, it reinforces the view that the next step in evolution will be mental rather than physical. If the benefits of being smarter (or richer, in this society) outweigh the costs then they will survive because they fit the environment better.
The Cult will never die! (Score:1)
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:1)
Just going by what the article says, the study found no new "stuff" that could be injected to disable the immune system© On the contrary:
So, I don't see the weapon potential© The protein keeps the immune system from overreacting© Anyway, we already know of an agent for disabling the immune system: HIV infection©
The article mentioned nothing about anything airborne©
Re:Diabetes? (Score:1)
There are several animal models used in immunology, which are characterized as being prone to develop autoimmune deseases. For example, NOD mice develop auto-immune diabetes in certain (clean) conditions at some period of life.
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:2)
Americans are getting fatter, lazier and dumber, they will eventually be wiped out by the tougher, craftier Somalis.
Providing the Somalis evolve an immunity to cruise missiles.....
Selection criteria these days are more likely to be based on governmental economic know-how than tougness or craftiness.
+++++
targeted drug delivery (Score:2)
Re:Cure for Cancer Completed! (Score:1)
Invicta{HOG}
Re:More like a decent cup of coffee than a Holy Gr (Score:1)
I suppose, though, that an antagonist to this receptor might be useful for revving up the immune system in pancytopenic states. In that way, I think that this receptor could be a big help.
The real work lies in identifying ways to turn off individual lineages.
Invicta{HOG}
Endogenous ligands to the cd45 not needed (Score:2)
Invicta{HOG}
The scary part... (Score:1)
Re:Someone signal PETA (Score:1)
http://absurdgallery.com/polytron.html [absurdgallery.com]
Re:I can see this one already... (Score:1)
It's a pragmatic and straightforward approach that works well.
Nothing makes this that much more dangerous than other medical treatment. Even Caffeinne has the potential to kill you in the right dose.
As for your Darwin's point, unlike most of your responders I'm willing to agree that we are screwing with natural selection as describes "fitness", and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
A point I will make is that "only the fittest survive" is a misnomer. It should read "only the fittest reproduce". Evolution stops caring about you the moment you stop reproducing. It's like an event horizon, it can't see past your last child. So if life extension technology keeps millionaires living to 150, it will have no effect on evolution unless they keep cranking out kids. But they likely won't, the wealthy rarely have many children.
So if you count the wealthy as the fittest in our society, natural selection is going in the opposite direction. And this isn't an armchair hypothesis either, rather it's been brought up before in stastitical analyses of reproduction patterns.
You still cannot escape natural selection (Score:1)
I didn't assert, I asked. Admittedly I assumed that on average, a society's sucesses would have more viable offspring than it's failures (if nothing else, death rates would be higher among the homeless). If it is the other way around, there's still selection.
> It is a known fact that as populations get wealthier, their birthrate goes down.
You may have a point... *shug* Then there is selection in favour of Africans like me. The real point is that there is *always* selection, all you need is differences in rates of reproduction.
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:1)
physical selective pressures that result from individual physical problems that may not match the environment (disease, deformity, etc)
But that's just the point. For instance, people like me who would be very short sighted without corrective measures, Now do match the environment, because we have those corective measures.
and allowing people who would not normally be able to reproduce the chance to do so.
Define normal, in the context of human beings. Normal and "natural" are slippery, and next to impossible to define. Sure, if we had a big world war & bombed the world back inot the stone age, people with heridatry short-sightedness or worse would rapidy fall by the wayside, but all that is is a change in selectiion criteria, it is no more or less normal.
Re:So he has worded his concern bad, but he is rig (Score:2)
Given the definition of "bad" as "would be detrimental to survival without medical intervention", which a a normal human point of view, that is a good point.
> and don't tell me that "no gene is bad,
Ah, the intersection of the evolutionary and personal human viewpoints. In one sense, no gene is bad. It is a collection of atoms. It just is. In another, it is less fit for most environments than others, and is therfor bad.
> As I use to say, the religions that refuse medical treatment at all are not as zany as they seem to be.
Yup, it's that good of the individual vs. good of the species thing again.
You cannot escape natural selection (Score:5)
A common misconception. Darwin's use of the word "fittest" *does not* mean "most healthy", it means "best fit to the environment". All that's happened is that the environmental selection criteria have changed. Our environment, for instance, is no longer so unfriendly towards short-sighted people.
> Now everyone makes it,
Do they? Do homeless people have as many children as
You cannot escape natural selection. Ever.
Anyway, for 80% of the earth's population, the selection criteria are the same as they ever where. Which is why whilst Americans are getting fatter, lazier and dumber, they will eventually be wiped out by the tougher, craftier Somalis. This IMHO a good thing - the good of the individual is not the good of the species.
Re:you know what you win... (Score:1)
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:2)
That is another common misconception. 'Fittest' does not mean either of those things. It means ability to produce viable offspring who then produce more viable offspring. A creature who can outfight, outforage others of it's species, blends in perfectly with the environment and has no natural predators but is also sterile is the least fit.
What the first poster meant to say (I think) is that we are bringing the fitness level (the ability to produce viable offspring) of every human up to a certain 'level', a lower status bar. Just look at the movement for mandatory healthcare, the idea that there should be a lower limit to healthcare for humans. The result is a negation of the physical selective pressures that result from individual physical problems that may not match the environment (disease, deformity, etc) and allowing people who would not normally be able to reproduce the chance to do so.
There are still social, economical and some natural selective pressures to be sure but as medical science increases it's understanding of the physical condition the emphasis on natural selective pressures decreases and the emphasis on social and economical pressures increases.
Doctor Doom (/. still needs a science editor)
Re:Is nothing sacred?--READ THE ARTICLE (Score:1)
Nowhere in the article does it say this. I read through a few extra times to make sure, but it's just not there. Your comments would be stronger if you refrained from fabricating facts.
You guys are missing the point. (Score:1)
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:2)
-- Albert Einstein
Not the Holy Grail, but a Good Find (Score:1)
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Re:Well America does lead the world (Score:1)
Except keeping your power on, or maybe electing a leader.
Time for... (Score:1)
Prevention is and always will be the best medicine (Score:1)
A non-smoker, non-druggie, non-drinker on a low-fat, high-fiber properly planned vegan diet who has moderate excercise has practically given himself immunity to most degenerative diseases. Nearly all of the diseases that plague our elederly are attributed to poor diet and lack of excercise and a bad lifestyle. You would be very surprised to find out how much less heredity has to do with disease.
Don't wait for a magic pill. Take action to prevent it with the most genius machine ever created-your own body. You alone have the power to prevent disease. Don't commit yourself to a slow suicide.
Make the cause now and live to see all the many days ahead.
Some resources:
http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq
http://www.meatstinks.com
http://www.notmilk.com
http://www.milksucks.com
Also check out "Diet For a New America" by John Robbins and "The McDougall Plan" and "The McDougall Program" by Dr. McDougall.
Re:Well America does lead the world (Score:1)
Did I really just see you warn the slashdot readership of the danger of giving away the fruits of their labors? I feel I should remind you that you are in the midst of the nets' greatest concentration of people who believe that information should be free for all and frequently do give away their work. How many times have you seen "information wants to be free" here? The irony astounds me.
Re:Well America does lead the world (Score:1)
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Re:Which is better (Score:2)
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:3)
But you assertion that homeless people have less children than billionaires is a bit far from the truth. It is a known fact that as populations get wealthier, their birthrate goes down.
The "wiping out" of Americans by Somalis is simply the effect of numbers. The fraction of Americans, as well as Europeans, of the world population is a dwindling number. This has nothing to do with laziness, fatness or dumbness.
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:2)
But the tomato acts indirectly and this new knowledge will be applied directly and explicitely. Big deal, didn't you hear, the cancer growth could be stopped with this in cancer patients. I don't think they would mind.
Re:Diabetes? (Score:1)
Type I diabetes mellitus and rheumatoid arthritis are regarded as autoimmune diseases. Atherosclerosis, the building up of junk in the walls of blood vessels, is largely dependent on immune system white blood cells called monocytes leaving the bloodstream and differentiating into cells called macrophages. Although it is probably not an autoimmune disease in the sense of some host protein being mistaken for foreign, it is an immune system process gone awry, and the best approaches for fighting it are ones that interfere with the improper functioning of the immune system.
Crohn's Disease? (Score:1)
Getting off Prednisone permanently would be a plus, too.
-Tyler
"If you had a choice between being God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?"
Re:The scary part... um.. no (Score:1)
----------------------------
Re:Overpopulation (Score:1)
While the average lifespan of h. sapiens has more than doubled during the past few thousand years, the maximum lifespan hasn't really seemed to change much. People will still die, but with this discovery their last years might be a little more pleasant. If anything comes of this there would be a population boom, but probably not even of the magnitude antibiotics brought after WW2.
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Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:1)
Darwin's theory is alive and well... :-)
Re:Turning off the big switch... (Score:1)
As a writer, I'm certainly familiar with the concept of metaphor, but I still have to express some discontent with the propensity of the press to release these awful pop science stories - particularly when the science behind them is so darn interesting.
Still, a big switch on my head sounds like a good idea. Imagine how something similar could replace Viagra...
Turning off the big switch... (Score:2)
...could, of course, have some interesting repercussions. It surprises me that the enthusiasm of the press always seems to outweigh their analytical capabilities, especially in the area of health reporting.
Why doesn't anyone mention that this really needs to be a tightly controlled manipulation of CD45, rather than just a big, system wide shutdown? Sort of like blocking the sun to stop the rampaging robot agents? =)
Still, way cool.
Re:Overpopulation (Score:1)
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cure for cancer? (Score:1)
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:1)
We'll darken their hearts with violent video games.
Re:The scary part... (Score:2)
The key here is that some of the mice had been genetically engineered without the ability to produce CD45. The mice were then infected with the virus, and their immune systems responded.
Now comes the interesting part. What happens when their bodies successfully stave off the infection? The normal mice use CD45 to subdue their immune response, but the altered mice's bodies keep attacking cells. The article doesn't go into enough detail about this, but I suspect it gave them something like cancer. Or lupus. Both of these can be seen as a sort of out-of-control immune response. CD45 might give people with these diseases the ability to bring their immune system back in control.
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a complex organism with simple requirements (Score:2)
Yep, the "delicate balance" of human body has certainly been affected, why else would so many suffer from heart attacks, cancer, arithitis, allergies and so on?
We are fighting against this "imbalance" in our bodies with precision drugs. Medical science has been going fast forward for some time now, but how many degenerative diseases have been cured?
Take a look at how our environment (foods eaten, exercise, air quality, intake of various chemicals, stress level) has changed from the time we evolved.
Do you see a system incompability issue?
Good luck debugging!
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:3)
The fact is, virtually any kind of research has it's dangers. But claiming that we shouldn't do this kind of research, simply because there's potentially evil uses for the knowledge? That's plain ridiculous.
Re:Overpopulation (Score:1)
Don't you think your generation and mine can come up with a solution to support more people?
Every generation has looked at things that seemed insurmountable and has always far exceeded their own known limits on solving problems.
Granted thinking that bitching about it is going to make people procreate less isn't a bad idea entirely but every generation is handed a set of problems to deal with from the previous. This is one we're going to get as well as pass on.
If you discount extremely poor and disorganized third world countries and their simple problem of starvation (solution: tell them that sex creates babies and spend the $ to give them contraceptives) I can't think of any time that man has struggled against large problems and lost the battle.
Smallpox, the plague, two world wars, President Clinton, whining vote stealing Democrats, the Bay of Pigs, Richard Nixon, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, overreaching British rulers, the list goes on... Ohhh... I know why you don't want more people... You think prairie grass was here first and deserves free reign over the plains and nobody should get to sled down that hill in the neighborhood because there used to be prairie grass there and that's more important than the good that comes from recreation and comraderie and human well being... Hmm?
Research should be opensourced ;-) (Score:3)
"People weren't interested in it any more, because everyone thought they knew what it was doing. We only found this because we wanted to revisit an old finding." "This, I found scientifically exciting. There we were thinking we had figured out this thing and then we had a completely new function which we had missed for the last 10 years. This was definitely a Eureka moment."
I can see this one already... (Score:3)
I think that this could be a good development, but I'm curious as to how they're going to test this without making anybody croak.
One more thing: we're slowly destroying Darwin's theory - the fittest no longer survive. Now everyone makes it, even if they have some genetic disease that gives them no chance in life. It's just another view to consider...
My karma's bigger than yours!
More like a decent cup of coffee than a Holy Grail (Score:1)
Immune response is more subtle and complicated than "on" or "off" states. The real power of immune response is a highly targeted destruction of bad cells while neighboring good cells are allowed to grow and proliferate. A system like this is surely not controlled by the master switch of a single protein. Any therapy based on a master switch would probably have similar downsides to treatments we have now, where immune suppression is traded for higher risk of infection in other areas.
The immune "Holy Grail" won't be found in a single protein, but understanding the entirety of a much more complex system. CD45 is a good step in that direction, but not the final prize.
Well America does lead the world (Score:2)
Are you asserting that if our government cuts off funds for this research, then no one in the world is ever going to make inroads along these lines?
No, I'm sure that other countries could manage to develop these things sooner or later, it's just that because America leads the world in terms of free market capitalism it has a much higher amount of money placed into research and development than socialist economies like England or France.
Or are you merely stating that the government should take a hand in what people it funds, in terms of restricting the nationalities of whom these research facilities employ?
Well I suppose only employing American nationals would cut down on security risks, but that wasn't what I meant at all.
Or are you requesting that these sorts of discoveries not be publicized in the media, for fear of researchers being kidnapped by enemy nations, so that their discoveries can be used for destructive goals?
Not kidnapping, no, do you think this is some Third World dictatorship? But if knowledge like this is placed into the public domain we are basically giving away the fruits of our labors, and this is in no way consistent with the sensible capitalist policies that has seen our nation outstrip the rest of the world in every way that counts.
Of course you could make a bomb (Score:2)
This is not a national Security risk, you could not make bomb of this stuff, you would need to inject it personaly.
How naive. Genetic engineering is done via means of a tailored virus that inserts the modified DNA into someone's chromosomes, this could, with some research, the made into an aitborn virus which spread CD45 blockers throughout a population relatively easily.
And if Saddam wants a bomb to threaten the USA he would be better off with Anthrax or TB.
Both of which are quite difficult to get hold of and not nearly as deadly.
Is nothing sacred? (Score:3)
Although I've kept a concerned eye on the risks of biotech as a whole, this advance in the state of scientific knowledge is quite incredibly worrying for anyone considering the wider ramifications of biotechnology. I mean, it's one thing to make a tomato that stays juicy for longer, it's a different thing entirely to play around with the chemical that regulates the immune system!
I mean come on folks, this is getting to the point where there are immense risks to the health of millions. As the article says, mice which couldn't make the protein CD45 died very quickly from cancers and auto-immune diseases. This sounds like a perfect opportunity for nefarious rogue states to develop biological weapons for use against Western targets. I'm sure Saddamn would like to have a "cancer bomb" with which to threaten the US.
Although scientific openness has got us this far, I think that when it comes to developments that are inherently dangerous we need to have a little less self-promotion and a lot more respect for the potential consequences. Government bodies that fund these projects should be a lot stricter about the conditions for which they grant research funds to ensure national security in the face of a world increasingly anatagonistic to our rich culture.
you know what you win... (Score:2)
Don't play with Mother Nature to counterpart the effects of some (mostly) human problem.
If this CD45 can just help regulate immunity, won't there be another molecul that would prefer that we don't play with it?
I bet I'd prefer to keep my sane life instead of taking one more drug.
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Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:1)
Actually, you've got the motivations reversed; the use of rockets for space exploration/ launching satellites was predated by the use of rockets as weapon delivery systems. Sputnik said to the world that if the USSR could put a basketball into space, they could send a nuclear bomb (a slightly larger device) to the US.
Interestingly, in the late 40s and 50s, the US paid more attention to making their nukes smaller and lighter, rather than making their rockets more powerful. The Soviets did the opposite, meaning that they had a big advantage over the US when trying to orbit satellites, then people.
Darwin Awards (Score:1)
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Clap on clap off... (Score:2)
Cell turns on, cell turns off...
Seriously though - it's nice to see that some of the mechanisms in the human body at the cellular level are starting to come together.
I won't be holding my breath for miracle cures in the next year or two, but in 10 years, I think we could expect directed control over some normally rampant disorders.
Keep in mind the source (Score:1)
Re:Keep in mind the source (Score:1)
PC police (Score:1)
What did I do wrong ? I know, I should have written "started living differently" instead of "died" - sorry for that.
Immune systems (Score:2)
CD45 actually works on the cell side of the immune systems, causing cell death when receiving a certain chemical messenger. Locating CD45 only helps scientists to know which genetic switch to target, but finding the brain's chemical messenger that turns CD45 on or off will actually lead to the cure to cancel.
Don't expect actual treatments for a loooong time (Score:1)
On the concept of "Cure Alls" and Breakthroughs (Score:1)
I am going to wait until I see more convincing results than these before I pop the champaign corks.
Re:The scary part... (Score:1)
History repeats itself. (Score:1)
What scares me about this is that in the 1930's and 1940's, radium was touted as the cure for many similar diseases. Unfortunately, radiation poisoning proved them all wrong.
I just want these scientists and doctors to sign a contract with the world stating that they won't genetically manipulate apes.
Re:You don't understand. (Score:1)
here is.... (Score:2)
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:2)
Umm....because it's harder to understand, or somehow scarier to imagine us in control our own bodies as opposed to those of tomato plants? Or is it a simple matter of keeping up with the latest Frankentech, and GA tomatoes are sooo last week?
I mean come on folks, this is getting to the point where there are immense risks to the health of millions. As the article says, mice which couldn't make the protein CD45 died very quickly from cancers and auto-immune diseases. This sounds like a perfect opportunity for nefarious rogue states to develop biological weapons for use against Western targets. I'm sure Saddamn would like to have a "cancer bomb" with which to threaten the US.
The last thing we'd want is some crackpot technology that might allow us to reverse the effects of such a terrorist attack.
Is nothing sacred?
Actually, lots of things are sacred. Heck, Jesus' [wwwjesusdance.com] crown of thorns is just down the road [paris.org] a ways from me; I'm told that it is sacred. If you want "only scientific research which I can understand and personally approve as being safe" to be sacred, well, I'm afraid that's probably a bit less likely to happen.
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Overpopulation Again (Score:1)
Virg
Understanding (Score:1)
Virg
Which is better (Score:1)
Virg
Re:A big whopping can-o-RAID (Score:1)
Virg
The Real Story (Score:1)
You should be more careful before you assume he's a sloppy scientist just because he's prolific.
Virg
Know what you're talking about (Score:1)
> won't there be another molecul that would prefer
> that we don't play with it ?
>
Molecules don't prefer anything. Preference implies sentience.
> I bet I'd prefer to keep my sane life instead
> of taking one more drug.
>
That's most likely because you're not dying from anything immuno-related. Would your preferences change if you had six very painful months left to live?
I'd truly like to know by what reasoning you think that diabetes (or multiple sclerosis) is a mostly human problem.
Virg
Hurry ap please (Score:1)
] My freind has a sever case of arthritis and even though this kind of news gives me joy it also brings a certain kind of sadness , because perhaps by the time they are thruogh with their research and offer a remedy it may be too late .
Diabetes? (Score:1)
Diabetes isn't related to the immune system, is it? For that matter, neither is arthritis or hear "disease".
The immune system deals with foreign matter in the body. Diabetes is just malfunctioning insulin (either missing or ineffective). Arthritis is a simple mechanical problem of the joints (although maybe the mechanical problem is caused by something the immune system is related to--or even by the immune system itself). And heart "disease" is just junk building up in the arteries and such, isn't it?
--
MailOne [openone.com]
Re:Is nothing sacred? (Score:1)
Almost all drugs affect the immune system one way or another. ASPRIN affects the immune system.
What these guys have done is isolate the chemical which moderates the inflamation response. If you can interrupt inflamation you can basically stop things like arthritis, ecsema, asthma, etc.
This is a GOOD THING, not a danger to humanity.
Get it? Health good, disease bad. Moron!
Re:Someone signal PETA (Score:1)
From the article:
"People understand very much how you turn on a cell but people have had not much idea about how the master off switch works. Everyone was looking for it. Finding this out is kind of like the ultimate prize in this field."
The Universe will destroyed from Long Island (Score:1)
Survival of the truth? DOA (Score:3)
But what about those networks.... In short others will provide resources to those who cannot provide for themselves. Humans aren't the only animals that do this, but we are certainly the only ones that do it on the scale of millions, and our effectiveness in this endevour is difficult for the animal kingdom to match. (Note that examples of bees, ants etc, and any animal raising young don't apply as they're genetically related.) We use our network sort of like karma. We constantly put a little good karma in the bank and know that if we need to make a withdrawl the bank will be there even if we need to take out more than we've put in. Hell, our taxes and FEMA help buy new houses for people who live on rivers that flood every damn year, yet who for some reason didn't think to buy flood insurance. The farther someone is from me the less responsibility I have. If someone has a heart attack in front of me, I have the obligation to at least call 911 and perform CPR if I can. Farther away? I might just contribute some of my tax dollars. Another country? Foreign aid programs, buying habbits, charity. Other social networks in other countries will work in similar fashions, but they might not be as rich and powerful as the one I enjoy. If people can choose which network to be in why wouldn't they choose the best? They will, they do. Sometimes they pay smugglers a lot of money to pack them into a shipping container for a trip they might not survive. Or maybe they're smart, or beautiful.
In short, our social network insulates us from enviromental pressures. It does however create new pressures. But Darwin's theory only applied to enviromental pressures, should one apply the hypothesis to social pressures one must draw different conclusions. People aren't rich because they're better people, they're rich because they're fortunate to be rich in the vast majority of cases. Poor people aren't poor because they deserve it. Strict application of Darwin's ideas to our social structure leads to some fairly stupid expectations. At this point in time, our only real enviromental pressures are global warming (if you believe in bad science), or a celestial object striking the earth.
Lemme pose a question: Which is better being beautiful, or smart? I'd say beautiful. If you're smart you can create opportunity, but if you're beautiful other people do that for you.
Re:You cannot escape natural selection (Score:1)
I dunno...I can't think of too many stupid ways to reproduce. Nearly all the ways I can think of are pretty fun.
I AM CANDIAN (Score:1)
No longer about Human adaptation (Score:1)
Though, as humans we are quickly escaping our need to adapt to the environment because we are adapting our environment to fit us.
Overpopulation (Score:1)
Re:bah! (Score:1)
Re:Someone signal PETA (Score:1)
Re:Someone signal PETA (Score:1)