Stop Abusing Earth
Japan & Radioactive Pollution. It’s a Shame…
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In July, a 6,8 magnitude earthquake in central Japan damaged the huge nuclear power plant at Kashiwazaki, causing 50 malfunctions, including a fire ina reactor and the leaking of 264 gallons of water containing radioactive material into the sea! Still, Japan is currently building more nuclear plants, despite the country’s past experience of nuclear damage and its vulnerability to earthquakes! What does it take to make mankind come to their right minds?
Post contributed by Nicollette Voloudaki.
They are Trying to Burn Greece
I live in Greece. During the last four days arsonists are trying to burn my country. Up to now 63 people have died. 1/3 of the Peloponnese Peninsula is destroyed. Some speak of terrorism acts. It feels a bit like 9/11. We are under a state of emergency. The pictures that follow need no comments…
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Cancer Research - Is It Truly So Hard To Find The Cure?
I was invited to the Cancer Research Blog Carnival to blog about cancer research. Although I am a molecular biologist actively involved in cancer research I would like to go a step backwards and try to look at the big picture.
Overpopulation
The United Nations states that:
Most of the population growth will take place in the less developed regions. Today’s 5.3 billion population of underdeveloped countries is expected to increase to 7.8 billion in 2050.
World population is currently growing by approximately 75 million people per year.
Global life expectancy has risen from 46 years in 1950-1955 to 65 years in 2000-2005 and is expected to keep rising to reach 75 years in 2045-2050. In the more developed regions, the projected increase is from 75 years today to 82 years by mid-century.
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| Population of the world and its regions (in millions). Data from http://esa.un.org/unpp/ Solid line: medium variant. Shaded region: low to high variant. Dashed line: constant-fertility variant. |
For more information check out the Wikipedia article titled: Overpopulation.
Some Stats on Cancer
According the the 2006 Cancer Facts & Figures Report by the American Cancer Society, about 1,399,790 new cancer cases were expected to be diagnosed in 2006. Please bear in mind that all these statistics refer only to the US. The numbers in global scale are much larger. According to this report 564,830 Americans were expected to die of cancer in 2006, which would be more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer in the US accounts for 1 in every 4 deaths.
According to the same report the direct medical costs for cancer in 2005 were estimated to $74.0 billion. This figure indicates that the cancer issue is quite a strong market.
How do Pharmaceutical industries look at the issue of disease?
Although all the pharma giants state that their ultimate mission is the improvement of the quality of life, things are not actually that bright. According to an article titled “The Vaccine Conundrum” published in the April 2007 issue of The Scientist, if a vaccine’s or drug’s ROI (Return on Investment) is below the threshold of $500 million per year, it is not considered as a viable product to develop.
My questions
1. If you were the master of the planet, and say you had a vaccine that would prevent most of the cancer incidents globally, would you give it to the public? In other words would you give up on one of your population control agents “disposing” 1,500 human in the US only?
2. If you were the CEO of a pharmaceutical industry giant and your R&D team came up to you one day and said “We have the perfect anti-cancer vaccine and we can get rid of cancer once and for all”, would you give this vaccine to the public? In other words would you give up on a $75 billion/year market in the US only?
Some people asked the same thing on Yahoo! Answers. Do you know what they got for an answer?
It is illegal when someone hurts you. It is not illegal when someone does not help you even if he could.
Sure it is not illegal, but it is definitely inhumane.
Technorati Tags: cancer, drug discovery, overpopulation, pharmaceutical industriesA new Online Masters in Bioethics
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The other day as I was skimming through the April 2007 issue of The Scientist, a short article by Glenn McGee came to my attention. Professor McGee is the director of the Alden March Bioethics Institue at Albany Medical College and his article was about how he, along with others, one lovely day at the Googleplex decided that the time to start an online masters degree on bioethics had come. Although skeptical in the beginning Professor McGee found himself working day and night on this project which start its first year having already established exciting partnerships with Apple and iTunes University to provide accessible and innovative courses and resources online.
I would like to wish them all the best. Socrates would be very proud of you guys…
Sphere: Related Content
Gene control is not exactly as we thought
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MIT scientists, have discovered an element of the gene control mechanism that changes our viewpoint on the subject. They found that most of the human genes actually “hover” between the “on” and “off” states.
In other words, a gene which is inactive (meaning that no protein is produced) actually undergoes transcription which at some point is terminated prematurely. The incomplete transcripts cannot produce proteins.
This model contradicts the simple on/off switch model which has been considered to be the mechanism of gene control.
Professor Richard Young (group leader) states that about one-third of our genes, including all regulators of cell identity behave in such a manner but data in the paper suggest that 75% of our genes probably belong to this new class.
The professor believes that this new model could bring us a step closer to reprogramming cells is a controlled fashion, which has important applications for regenerative medicine.
This new discovery undoubtedly contributes to our understanding of gene control but also rises the following question. If most of our genes are transcriptionaly active what on earth do we expect to discover using the DNA Microarray Technology which actually screens for gene transcriptional activity? I am asking this because huge amounts of money and effort have been invested on this technology over the past 10 years. Is there a chance that we should reconsider?
The study appears in Cell on July 12.
Sphere: Related Content
Google into Genetic Research
The other day a rather spooky video came to my attention. Most of you have probably seen it but for those who haven’t it is definitely worth checking out. It is about Google’s constantly increasing power which comes from gathering and storing all the available information on the web. The video producers imply that Google is actually violating our privacy in many different ways. Right at the end of the video they mention that Google is doing research on molecular biology and genetic engineering, the ultimate goal being gathering genetic sequence data from every single one of us. (that is spooky…)
I did some research on google and genetics and this is what I found. There is a newly established biotechnology company called 23andMe.
This is what they state on their homepage
23andMe is a privately held company developing new ways to help you make sense of your own genetic information.
Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you’ve likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.
Toward this goal, we are building on recent advances in DNA analysis technologies to enable broad, secure, and private access to trustworthy and accurate individual genetic information. Combined with educational and scientific resources with which to interpret and understand it, your genome will soon become personal in a whole new way.
Now you ‘ll wonder what does 23andMe has got to do with Google. Well, here it comes. One the founders of 23andMe is Anne Wojcicki who actually is Sergey Brin’s wife (yes that’s right, Google’s Sergey Brin). I read somewhere that Google invested around $3 million in 23andMe and that Sergey Brin provided for an additional $2.6 million.
What do you think? Where do we go from here?
Technorati Tags: genetic research, genetics, google, Odds & Ends, privacy
