Category Archives: Science Communication

Cancer Therapy – Breakthroughs in Cancer Cell Research and Treatment

Posted on February 7, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Imagine this:

You’re living your life but suddenly you lose the urge to eat. Not a big deal, maybe it’s just a phase.

A week passes and you notice that those juicy arms you’ve worked so hard to grow seem to start looking like sticks. You face seems a bit discoloured, somewhere on the paler side. You weigh yourself, and you’re down 10 pounds. You start feeling a bit concerned but maybe it’s the keto diet that you started.

A few more weeks pass and you feel a small bump on your lower back. Now you’re freaking out and head to the hospital. After a diagnosis, the doctor says the three dreaded words: “you have cancer.”

What is cancer?

In the most general sense, cancer is a disease which causes cells to rapidly divide and grow uncontrollably and spread to different parts of the body. Cancer cells can also aggregate in certain areas and disrupt bodily functions, also known as tumours.

Current treatments for cancer:

Currently, there are three main types of treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. As surgery suggests, it is the physical removal of a tumour. Chemotherapy uses drugs to target to rapidly growing cells, even healthy cells such as hair. Finally, radiation uses x-rays, particles, or radioactive seeds to kill cancer cells. Of course there are other types of treatment such as targeted therapy but it is less used in the medical industry.

Example of Cancer Treatment (Chemotherapy) – Image by VeryWell

A newer type of treatment, car t-cell therapy:

Chimera antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a newer type of treatment that was tested back in 2010. Essentially, T-cells from a patient are extracted, genetically modified with CAR, and reintroduced into the patient. These modified T-cells are more adept at targeting only cancer cells. In a 2022 study by Melenhorst et al., it was found that two patients suffering from lymphocytic leukaemia entered remission right after treatment and after a decade, still continues to be in remission and even contains detectable CAR T-cells. This study shows that CAR T-cell therapy has it’s merits as being a legitimate treatment.

CAR T-cell Therapy Cycle – Image by Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Side effects of treatment:

Like all types of cancer treatments, there are some side effects associated. In a 2022 New York Times article by Gina Kolata, some side effects include high fevers, comas, and dangerously low blood pressure. However, some of these symptoms were resolved given time.

Overall takeaways:

Recent studies showing the results of CAR T-cell therapy has given it a chance to display the potential of it being a legitimate cancer treatment. Although some nasty side effects are associated with treatment, we cannot deny the positive effects it has shown. However, further research and testing would be crucial in  developing this medical knowledge.

– Jimmy Huang

 

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Science Communication, Science in the News

The Future of Milk May Be Spoiled

Posted on January 31, 2022 by | 1 comment

Has anyone else noticed that humans are the only species to drink milk after their initial infant stage or to drink the milk from another species? Well, it seems that more people are gravitating away from milk lately and milk substitutes seem to have taken over. Popular milk alternatives include: oat milk, soy milk, almond milk & etc.  It’s has been common to cut out dairy milk from one’s diet. Studies show that the percentage of adults drinking milk in the United States decreased about 20% from 2003 to 2014. But why are people drinking less milk now?

Milk from Chaney and other farms is stocked alongside dairy alternatives at IGA grocery store in Bowling Green. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/style/milk-dairy-marketing.html

Side effects of Milk

While growing up many parents preached the consumption of milk by claiming it would make kids stronger and healthier. Milk has healthy components such as protein, B12, and calcium. However, it also brings its share of health complications. Dairy is the top source of saturated fat. As we get older, we can’t easily break down the lactose and sugar from milk as we could as infants. About 70% of the world’s population has lactose intolerance. Some common side effects of this are an upset stomach and gas problems. Milk is also known to cause acne because of all the hormones it contains and can lead to weight gain. Moreover, all of the calcium from milk that’s supposed to help our bones grow stronger actually does the opposite. This is because animal proteins produce acid when they are broken down and calcium neutralizes acid. Therefore, calcium from our bones is getting extracted to neutralize the protein from cow’s milk. Moreover, cow’s milk causes three times more greenhouse gas emissions than any other alternative.

Milk alternatives

Navigating around milk substitutes can be challenging because there are so many options. This might make some wonder, what is the best milk substitute? Soy milk has been the most popular for years because its nutrients are the closest to actual milk and it has the most protein. Oat milk has become the crowd favourite lately since it mixes well into cooking and is sustainable. There are even new substitutes that I’ve never heard about until now like quinoa milk and macadamia milk. In short, no, there isn’t one milk beverage that can be considered “the best” because everyone has vastly different dietary goals. For example, Individuals with nut allergies may want to try rice milk because it’s the least allergenic. Whereas rice milk is absorbed quickly in the gut and raises blood sugar levels rapidly which is not ideal for people with diabetes.

Is Oat Milk Healthier Than Cow’s Milk? | Northwestern Medicine Source: https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/nutrition/is-oat-milk-healthier-than-cows-milk

While regular milk works well for some, it’s nice to have other options especially since cow’s milk may not be as great as we once thought. I expect to see a decrease in other animal products due to the popularity of  Vegan and Vegetarian lifestyles.

-Shilpa Shrestha

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Science Communication, Science in the News

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New UBC Research Could Provide A Cure For Spinal Cord Injuries

Posted on January 31, 2022 by | Leave a comment

Currently, 27 million people worldwide are affected by a spinal cord injury (SCI). In Canada, an SCI will cost $1.5 to 5 million per person over their lifetime. With the significant amount of SCI’s and the cost associated with this traumatic event has researchers eager to find a cure, but there has not been a successful solution so far. However, UBC researchers think they may have found a potential solution.

What is a Spinal Cord Injury?

The spinal cord is a column of nerves that runs down the middle of your back. It functions to carry sensory information from your body to your brain, motor signals from your brain to your body and controls one’s reflex responses. The spinal cord is an essential part of the human body and allows us to sense and interact with our surrounding environment. Therefore, it can have profound implications when the spinal cord gets injured. The most common cause for SCI’s is from trauma to the back, with the most common being motor vehicle accidents for younger individuals in the USA, and falls are the most common cause for individuals over 65 years. Over 50% of spinal cord injuries occur in individuals between the ages of 16-30 years, and most are males. 

Description: Statistics associated with spinal cord injuries Source: https://mendthegap.ubc.ca/approach/

Exciting New UBC Research

Description/Source: Project Video By UBC Applied Science 

UBC researchers just received a $24 million grant for their “Mend the Gap” project working on spinal cord regeneration. The research aims to use a soft gel containing small magnetic filaments that will help guide and reconnect or regrowth the nerves damaged in the spinal cord. “Mend the Gap” has had success doing this in a petri dish and is now working on how this concept can be applied to the human body in a non-invasive way. With the gel being soft, it can mend to different sizes and shapes of gaps in the spinal cord in a non-invasive way preventing further damage to the spinal cord. This gel will also contain medication that can help reduce scar tissue that will help with the regeneration process. The UBC scientist Dr. John Madden leads this project and works with engineers and researchers from Canada, the United States, Europe and Australia. Within Canada, ICORD, UBC, the University of Alberta, the University of Western Ontario, McGill University and the University of Toronto are all involved. The projects have 32 researchers from many disciplines, including electrical engineers, material chemists, microbiologists, neurobiologists, and neurosurgeons. “Mend the Gap” is hoping the project will be complete in 7 years from now. Dr. Madden hopes that their research will provide hope for SCI’s and potentially a cure.

The proposed method for spinal cord repair      Source: https://mendthegap.ubc.ca/approach/

Ultimately, SCI’s have many consequences that affect many aspects of an individual’s life. UBC researchers’ new approach to fixing injured spinal cords can hopefully help people with spinal cord injuries gain independence. In the meantime, this research provides hope for the future of spinal cord injury research.

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Science Communication, Science in the News

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The tiny but mighty solution to antibiotic resistance

Posted on January 29, 2022 by | 2 comments

So picture this… It’s the year 1928 and penicillin has just been discovered. Penicillin revolutionized modern medicine and with other antibiotics to come, it would go on to treat the untreatable and save millions of lives. Now, let’s flash forward to a more grim version of the future. It’s the year 2022. Antibiotics were supposed to be our precious resource but every time we misused them or overused them, we gave bacteria a chance to evolve and become resistant, and at the same time our scientists were unable to bring new antibiotics to the market. The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling antibiotic resistance “one of the biggest threats to global health today” so in recent years scientists have been looking for new multi-dimensional strategies to combat this issue. One of those is the use of light-activated quantum dots.

Over-prescription and patient non-compliance exacerbate the issue of antibiotic resistance. Getty Images/Joe Raedle

What are quantum dots?

Quantum dots are tiny particles made of semiconducting material, meaning they partly conduct electrical current. They are only a few nanometres in size and can be engineered in terms of shape, size, and material. The way these quantum dots kill bacteria is not all that complicated. Basically, when our bodies are infected with bacteria, they naturally produce what scientists call Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in our immune cells to kill bacteria, and what light-activated quantum dots do is that they essentially mimic this natural killing process of the body by producing ROS of their own.

How is the killing initiated?

Now you may be thinking, how do we ensure that the cells that are not infected with bacteria, don’t end up getting killed? Well, the answer is quite simple. In application, quantum dots are specifically injected at the site of bacterial infection in the human body, so as to not affect other tissues, and when they receive an input of light of sufficient energy in a process called photoactivation, their electrons (particles with a negative charge of electricity) jump from a region of space with lower energy called the valence band to a region of space with higher energy called the conduction band. The energy difference between these two is referred to as the “bandgap” and when the electrons relax back to their ground level (i.e. the valence band), a photon of light is released that provides the energy needed for producing the killer Reactive Oxygen Species.

An input of light causes electrons of the quantum dots to move around, energy is released, and the killer ROS come to life! Adapted from Redox-Active Therapeutics

What are the consequences?

The killer ROS will break down bacterial biofilms (self-contained bacterial communities), damage the bacterial cell wall and cell membrane and inactivate enzymes needed for bacterial survival. And because the ROS are killing these microbes through all these different non-specific ways, the microbes can no longer develop resistance!

Quantum Dots and their many ways of killing bacteria! Adapted from McCollum et
al. and Imlay

One for the future?

It is abundantly clear that quantum dot technology shows great promise in combating the widespread issue of antibiotic resistance. Although the clinical use of the technology is a long way off, the strategy is an intriguing new approach at a time when the rate of drug development is much slower than the rate of antibiotic development and the pharmaceutical industry is lagging behind.

Student research on the applications of quantum dots at The University of Colorado. Materials Research Society

 

 

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