Discovering new cancers

Much as we love bringing you news about cures for cancers, this week’s story is a bit more complicated. Instead, scientists have discovered an entirely new cancer, well, a biphenotypic sinonasal sarcoma, to be precise. What are the consequences? And why, when this sounds depressing, is this actually good news? Well first of all, now that researchers have identified the molecular structure of the tumour and genes involved, existing drugs can be used that patients might respond to. However, it may only serve to show just how specialised and complex the cancer-based pharmaceutical world is becoming, as the researchers were al based in the Mayo Clinic, which has been the centre of sarcoma research for decades. The future of cancer drugs has often been suggested to be based on targeted drugs, and it’s important for Medics to understand the basics of this topic. If you’re interested in cell biology, this summary of cancer drugs and research is essential reading – so get stuck in, Natural Science (B), Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences applicants.

In what’s been described as “a once-in-a-space-program opportunity”, a set of twins are helping us understand exactly what effects space travel has on everything from immunity to cognition. Scott and Mark Kelly are both astronauts: Scott is off to the International Space Station in March 2015, whereas Mark is going to stay on Earth. Last week, it was announced that $1.5m has been allocated to ten research proposals – each one a fascinating study on its own. Twins have always been a topic of scientific interest, and the old nature v nurture debate is being tested in a range of studies, such as the famous TEDS study, which has already produced data on how the balance of nature and nurture varies across the UK (they’ve yet to include the International Space Station on their map). If you’re applying for Natural Sciences (B), Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry, Medicine or Psychology – get reading, and you can show you’re up to speed on new experiments on this age old question!

Over the last 20,000 years, human brains have shrunk 10%: that’s a chunk the size of a tennis ball – scary stuff – and that’s before you even consider variations based on age, sex, class and race. Why? Well there are a good few theories. Some say it’s linked to the body size decline that was favoured by the warming trend in the earth’s climate; others believe the advent of agriculture left us chronically malnourished. A different option all together is Geary’s “Idiocracy Theory” that domestication and cultural support has allowed us to live with lower IQs; although others link this domestication to the breeding out of aggressive tendencies, which usually comes with a whole host of genetic consequences. This week, Hood’s entered the debate with his new book, The Domesticated Brain. This is, however, a tricky field, and an equally compelling argument is that put forward by Hawks – we’re actually getting smarter, and our brains are far more efficient now. Everything gets even more complicated, when you look at the bigger picture, as our brain size has actually tripled in the last 2 million years – something also linked to social competition. A topic for all Biologists, Natural Scientists, Arch and Anth students, and Psychologists to wrap their brains around.

So it’s Coeliac Awareness Week, which makes it rather fitting that scientists have just made a breakthrough in understanding the trigger that makes a patient’s body recognise gluten as a foreign substance and launch an immune response. Interestingly, they used a synchrotron to do so to look at the atomic interaction between the surface of the T-cell and the gluten protein. Good news then, not only for the rapidly growing number of people being diagnosed with this complex disease, but equally for the half-million of us who remain undiagnosed! Not that it’s a new disease – recently archaeological remains proved a girl had suffered with coeliac disease over 2,000 years ago. Seems about time you Medics, Biochemists, Biomedical Scientists and Natural Scientists helped with the development of a vaccine or cure. 

Recently, a mother had to make the difficult decision to refuse treatment for one unborn twin to save the other. Difficult choices for expecting couples are likely to become more and more pressing with the advent of a prenatal test for autism considered in the Guardian this week. The cloning and designer baby debates may have been around for a while, and for those of you that haven’t read it yet, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go presents an unsettling image of where cloning could take us. But the ethics of designer babies to save siblings are still as contested as ever, and this article on the ethics of the instrumentalization of the donor child is a good introduction for Philosophers, Lawyers and Medics to the field of medical ethics.  

Is young blood the way to stop aging? This week, Harvard and Stanford scientists have found that blood proteins and plasma taken from young mice repair age-related damage in the brains and muscle tissue of old mice. The special properties of young blood have a long history in folklore: the C16th serial killer Elizabeth Bathory famously bathed in the blood of her young victims to retain her beauty.  The history of vampires is a fascinating tale, and one covered in part by an Optional Subject in the first year of History at Oxford. The vampire phenomenon is a topic for scholars of Psychology, History, English Literature and even for Medics – the medical implications for drinking blood range from haemochromatosis to porphyria. (And look, we didn’t make a single Twilight reference). 

A leap forward in stem cell and skin research has just been made – a lab at King’s College London has made human skin that has the barrier properties of real skin. Scientists have used both skin biopsy samples and stem cells to grow skin before, but this skin’s permeability is far more realistic. Aside from the direct application to skin diseases such as eczema, it offers the possibility of replacing the arguably essential use of laboratory testing on animals. Fortunately the whole article is available free online. Needless to say, it’s caused a stir in the animal testing community – the ethics of which might form tricky interview questions for Medics, Natural Scientists, Biochemists and Philosophers alike.  

A Hepatitis C trial has hit the headlines with a new “cure” for the disease. The reporting in the BBC has come under fire from the NHS, who have analysed the study on the NHS website.  Using a five-drug, interferon-free combination researchers achieved an unprecedented 96% response rate – the entire study has been published free online. Hepatitis C drugs hit the financial headlines this week, proving just how lucrative the pharmaceutical market is and prompting interesting discussions for Economics students as well as all Medics, Biomedical Scientists and Biochemists. 

Artists and civil engineers have teamed up to make the world’s first glow in the dark road markings. The “photo-luminsing” powder charges up in daylight and discharges overnight, but it’s not the first time science has thrown up new ways of lighting our streets – back in 2010 Cambridge undergraduates genetically modified E Coli (with the catchy title “E Glowli”) which got people talking about glowing trees replacing street lamps. An interesting topic to titillate tutors with whether you’re a Natural Scientist, Biologist, Land Economist or Geographer… 

Researchers in Wales have discovered Darwinian forces at work behind the beard trend that gripped 2013 – and why we all breathed a sigh of relief when Paxman shaved his off. Negative frequency-dependent preferences appear to influence such trends, so people find clean shaven men more attractive than bearded men when they’re rarer, and vice versa. What’s underneath is far more complicated, as research into the attractiveness of masculine facial features shows. You might struggle to keep a straight face when you talk about the “peak beard” as the climax of the beard trend, but this should pique the interest of Biologists, Medics and all male students alike…