Tag Archives: cure

Bee Stings Could Help Save People’s Lives!

Most people that have been stung by a bee would agree that it is a very painful and uncomfortable experience that they would not want to experience again. The pain takes days to go away, and the scar that a bee sting leaves may last weeks. Now though, it looks like a bee sting may not be as bad as it seems. Researchers at the Washington University School of medicine have found that a chemical found in the venom of a bee sting can destroy the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). What is extremely important is the fact that even though the chemical can kill the HIV virus, regular cells are immune to this chemical and are not affected by it in any way.

Image showing bee injecting venom. Taken from google images creative commons

Researchers believe that their findings will help them develop a vaginal gel that may help prevent the spreading of the HIV virus and be used for therapy. Although they don’t think that the gel may cure the disease completely, it may be used as a preventative measure in areas where HIV is particularly common. The active chemical that researchers believe is causing the observed effects is called melittin. This chemical works by poking holes in the nuclear envelope of the virus, causing large amounts of damage that cannot be easily repaired.

To obtain their findings, researchers loaded melittin into nanoparticles and administered them to patients. These kinds of particles have been found to very effectively treat tumors, so the scientists decided to test them to see if they would be affective in treating other types of diseases. The researchers saw that when the nanoparticles came into contact with HIV infected cells they were destroyed, while the nanoparticles simply “bounced off” the normal cells, which are much larger in size.

Nanoparticle incapsulating a chemical in the middle. This is the kind of mechanism the researchers used. Image from flicker user IBM Research

This is a major breakthrough in the world of science and medicine because HIV has been very hard to treat and prevent in the past. Also, HIV is a relatively common disease and many people suffer from it. It is approximated that about 36.1 million people around the world currently suffer from HIV. Furthermore, 21% of those that are infected in North America don’t even know that they are carriers of the deadly virus. Also, since the melittin loaded nanoparticles are so versatile, the researchers believe that this discovery could lead to the development of treatments for patients suffering from Hepatitis B and C.

Below is a short news report on this groundbreaking discovery:

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So the next time you get stung by a bee and are panicking, calm down and just remember that the venom that the bee just injected you with is being used right now to potentially save millions of lives around the world.

Gagandeep Gill

Could Peptides Be The Cure For Depression?

For the first time ever, scientists at the UCLA have measured the release of the peptides hypocretin and melanin concentrating hormone (MCH) within humans. Hypocretin’s release is increased when the person is happy, but minimal when they are upset. MCH levels are maximized when the subject is asleep, but those levels diminished awake.

“The current findings explain the sleepiness of narcolepsy, as well as the depression that frequently accompanies this disorder” explains Jerome Siegel, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at UCLA. The measurable changes of these peptides’ release will eventually allow researchers to develop medications that target the changes in brain chemistry.

In 2000, Siegel was the first to show a biological cause of narcolepsy when he found that people who suffer from the illness had 95 percent less hypocretin nerve cells for in their brain than people who don’t have narcolepsy. Due to the strong affiliation between depression and narcolepsy, Siegel expanded his study by researching how hypocretin could be connected to depression.

Image Source: micah.sparacio.org

Siegel retrieved information on hypocretin and MCH levels from the patients who had intracranial depth electrodes implanted in their brains. The patient’s actions were recorded while they ate, fell asleep, woke up, were social with other patients, and watched television. Every 15 minutes, the patients’ activity was recorded along with the release levels of the peptides. Each waking hour, the patient filled out a questionnaire where they rated with mood and attitudes.

Siegel found that positive emotions, social interactions, and the act of waking up had higher hypocretin levels, while the levels of MCH were at their highest when the patient was falling asleep and were at their lowest when the patient wasn’t being social. “These results suggest a previously unappreciated emotional specificity in the activation of arousal and sleep in humans” Siegel explained. “The findings suggest that abnormalities in the pattern of activation of these systems may contribute to a number of psychiatric disorders”

Siegel mentioned that several drug companies are in the process of developing hypocretin antagonists to be used as sleeping pills, but this study means that not only will these drugs induce sleep, but they will also influence the person’s mood.

Recent studies have suggested that depression-fighting drugs, like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may have the same effect as a placebo as they are not based on the changes in neurotransmitter levels. Because as many as 10% of the US population suffers from depression, I think this study is a breakthrough in our knowledge on depression and I hope that this will lead to the production of a drug that can balance the release of these neurotransmitters.

Kathleen Leask

An Unlikely Hero is the Key to Killing the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

Each day, almost 7,000 people contract HIV around the world.  Many scientists have dedicated their entire lives to finding a cure for this virus and it seems that we have come one step closer to finding that cure. With a historical discovery coming out of Washington University, that number could soon be reduced to zero.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that bee venom can effectively poke holes in the envelope surrounding the HIV virus and kill it. The potent toxin contained within bee venom is called melittin.

Nanoparticles, when infused with the toxin, can filter HIV through it’s surface and destroy it, while leaving normal cells unharmed due to their much larger size. When nanoparticles come into contact with normal cells, they simply bounce off. Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD, explained, “The melittin forms little pore-like attack complexes and ruptures the envelope, stripping it off the virus.” The virus has to have a protective coat and there is no way for the virus to adapt when its essential physical property is under attack.

Image displays nanoparticles (purple) infused with melittin (green), with molecular bumpers (small red ovals) allowing them to bounce off of normal body cells. Fuse with HIV (small spiked circles) and destroy their envelope.
Photo credit: Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD.

The following video by the Huffington Post further explains this topic.

Video source: Huffington Post

There is promising evidence that HIV infection in children will be eliminated. A baby born with HIV in Mississippi has apparently been cured. Its mother was diagnosed with HIV during labor, and the baby received intense care just after 30 hours of birth. This child shows no sign of the virus today.

Most anti-HIV drugs inhibit the virus’s ability to replicate, while doing nothing to stop initial infection. The development of a vaginal gel is the new revelation to prevent the spread of HIV, and in addition, an intravenous treatment to help those already infected and clear HIV from the blood stream.

An Antidote For Alcohol?

I’m sure at one point or another, most people have gone out to a bar or a house party, lost track of time and realized “Shoot, my 8am class starts in a couple hours” or “I’ll get fired if I show up to work with a hangover again”. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just take a pill and sober up almost immediately and hangover free?

A variety of oriental raisin tree has been the basis of a hangover cure for 500 years. Scientists have recently extracted a chemical from this tree called dihydromyricetin (DHM) which was tested on drunken rats with interesting results. The lead researcher, Jin Liang, claims “DHM will reduce the degree of drunkenness for the amount of alcohol drunk and will definitely reduce the hangover symptoms, in time it will reduce [an alcoholic’s] desire for alcohol”.

The effects of DHM have yet to be tested on humans, but when tested on rats, there were positive results. Liang found that a dose of DHM helped an intoxicated rat’s coordination return over 10 times faster than without it. When the rats had hangovers induced by alcohol injections, they were found to hide in the corners or a maze. Within minutes of being given a dose of DHM the rats were curiously exploring the maze as if they never had a hangover.

drinkingrats

Photo Source: beachpackagingdesign.com

With a pill that causes sobriety, it is logical that alcoholics are a target audience for this drug. Over a span of three months, rats were injected with alcohol and were given a choice between sweetened water or a sweetened alcohol solution. At the end of this period, it was noted that the rats treated with DHM drank 75% less of the alcohol solution than the rats without treatment did.

This chemical seems to be the cure for drunkenness, hangovers and alcoholism, but it isn’t the first alcohol antidote that has been discovered. Several years ago a similar compound called Ro15-4513 was created. Many believed this was the cure for alcoholism, but complications including a short half life (meaning many doses would be required for complete sobriety) as well as negative side effects in the case of an overdose, caused the development of Ro15-4513 to be deserted.

As useful as this drug would be to use from time to time, there would still be legal issues for some uses of it as DHM blocks the effects of alcohol but it would still remain in your bloodstream. Would you trust someone to drive a car after taking DHM? They would be acting sober, but what if the effects of DHM run out before the alcohol has left their body? I believe that if patented, this drug should only be available for use of alcoholics to cure their addiction otherwise it could lead to increased drinking and dependence on DHM.

Kathleen Leask