Posts Tagged ‘alzheimer's’
New Brain-Protecting Compound Works in Rats; Could Make Alzheimer’s a Distant Memory
Memories are made possible by a process called neurogenesis, which spawns and maintains neurons in the brain's hippocampus region (specifically in the dentate gyrus). These particular neurons are delicate, and even in young healthy brains a 10 percent survival rate is pretty good. Introduce Alzheimer's into the equation, and that survival rate plummets to nearly zero, causing an inability to produce and maintain memories.
But one of the compounds the TSMC researchers found, dubbed P7C3, was found to protect those valuable cells from the ravages of Alzheimer's, strengthening their defenses and keeping them around long enough to become players in the memory production process. The team first tested the compound on rats engineered to have memory problems, then on aging rats whose memory problems had developed naturally. In both cases, P7C3 somehow steeled those memory-forming neurons against memory loss.
P7C3 is also quite easy to administer; it can be taken orally and has no problem crossing the blood-brain barrier that trips up some drugs. That's all great news, but it gets even better. A derivative compound of P7C3 -- called A20 -- seems to be even better at protecting neurons in the hippocampus than its parent compound. More study is obviously needed, but P7C3 and its derivatives might just be the jumping off point for researchers seeking to finally make Alzheimer's little more than a memory.
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Tiny Buckyballs Could Put Fast-Spreading Cancer Cells into Suspended Animation
But their effect in normal cells may prove toxic for the body
This is a first-time finding for buckyballs, which are nanoparticles the size of a virus and consist of 60 carbon atoms each. But experts have been warning about the possible already found in many consumer products and types of research.
Toxicologists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico exposed human skin cells to several types of buckyballs. One tris configuration of buckyballs had three molecular branches coming off the main structural body in one hemisphere, a hexa configuration had six branches arranged in a symmetrical pattern, and the last was a plain buckyball.
The cells exposed to the tris buckyballs entered the suspended animation state, which could lead to problems with normal organ development and possibly disease in a living organism. The tris configuration may also interfere with the body's normal immune response against viruses.
That lead the researchers to suggest that any nanomaterials using buckyballs should use the non-toxic hexa configuration. But they're excited about possibly turning the tris buckyballs into a weapon for halting the spread of cancer cells or delaying the onset of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's in nerve cells.
It's all some heavy stuff to consider for such small nanoparticles. You can put yourself into a cheerier state of mind with this video by artist Alyce Santoro showing how to make a large buckyball replica out of ice cream cones.