Cure for radiation sickness found?

Ynet ^ | Ronen Bergman

[Michel12]

Could be a game changer!

[ruination]

My money is on this being overblown hype.

[wastedyears]

A game changer for mostly politicians, as if they’d hand that out to citizens.

[Michel12]

http://www.chattershmatter.com/2008/04/11/experimental-drug-protects-mice-and-monkeys-from-radiation/

[RegulatorCountry]

If this unnamed protein suppresses apoptosis, then recipients of the, what, vaccine, who have diagnosed or undiagnosed cancers are going to experience rapid metastasis.

It’s still quite an advancement, so this is should not discredit the discovery. But, it should give certain people pause.

[Hot Tabasco]

If a nuclear bomb detonates on a city, I was always taught that it would be uninhabitable for hundreds of years. How is it that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today?

[Gondring]

That was my first thought.

[HangnJudge]

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3357448

The drug developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov may affect the future balance of world powers, the paper said, and will offer cancer sufferers better protection as they undergo radiation treatment.

Now that may be a game changer,
in radiation therapy patients

[Errant]

"Could be a game changer!"

NASA is going to want some for the Mars mission!!!

[Michel12]

You have more on it here http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-drug-protects-against-radiation-damage
Previous studies have found that cancerous cells use nuclear factor kappa-beta--a transcription factor, or protein that turns on or off a gene's protein-making ability--to outlive normal cells and grow out of control. But healthy cells in the gut switch on the same transcription factor when they interact with benign and beneficial bacteria that reside there. Specifically, the protein flagellin in some of the microorganisms' whiplike tails (which they use for propulsion) binds with a receptor on the gut cell and triggers the production of the transcription factor. So, in an effort to steel healthy cells against radiation damage, Gudkov, chairman of the cell stress biology department at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., and his colleagues purified a batch of flagellin and injected it into mice 30 minutes before exposing them to lethal doses of radiation. The injection not only protected the mice's cells but also toughened them against the effects of free radicals (molecules that can damage DNA or genetic material inside them) as well as beefed up the animal's immune systems. Mice without the injection died after the radiation treatments. "Never before has a single agent been capable of doing all three things together," Gudkov says.

[Bon mots]

If a nuclear bomb detonates on a city, I was always taught that it would be uninhabitable for hundreds of years. How is it that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today?

That's nothing.
We blew up over 1000 nukes just outside of Las Vegas.

[LiberConservative]

But can this therapy cure of from Delta rays?

[ruination]

There certainly is no conflict of interest here, is there.

My career is in cancer research, and I do consulting for biotechs, so I know how this little corner of the world works. My sense is that this will all be but a memory in 5-10 years. Probably not a fond memory, except possibly for company executives.

[bareford101]

I hope this is true for Israel’s sake..... I’ll keep watching

[Kirkwood]

On the other hand, there is a lot of good science that comes from industry. Plus, university researchers have just as many conflicts of interest as those working in industry; probably more so.

[tbw2]

I wonder if the announcement is intended to dissuade Iran from nuking. Obamacare jokes Obama jokes

[Buddygirl]

This bears indirectly on that promise of God that the Jews would be a blessing to all of mankind.

[HangnJudge]

The process that led up to the medical innovation dates back to 2003, when Professor Gudkov came up with the idea of using protein produced in bacteria found in the intestine to protect cells from radiation.

Hmmm... Maybe it is a varient on this

http://www.pnas.org/content/101/8/2452.abstract

Acute injury to the intestinal mucosa is a major dose-limiting complication of abdominal radiation therapy. We studied the role of the transcription factor NF-κB in protection against radiation-induced apoptosis in the intestinal epithelium in vivo. We use mice in which NF-κB signaling through IκB-kinase (IKK)-β is selectively ablated in intestinal epithelial cells to show that failure to activate epithelial cell NF-κB in vivo results in a significant increase in radiation-induced epithelial cell apoptosis. Furthermore, bacterial lipopolysaccharide, which is normally a radioprotective agent, is radiosensitizing in IKKβ-deficient intestinal epithelial cells. Increased apoptosis in IKKβ-deficient intestinal epithelial cells was accompanied by increased expression and activation of the tumor suppressor p53 and decreased expression of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins. These results demonstrate the physiological importance of the NF-κB system in protection against radiation-induced death in the intestinal epithelium in vivo and identify IKKβ as a key molecular target for radioprotection in the intestine. Selective preactivation of NF-κB through IKKβ in intestinal epithelial cells could provide a therapeutic modality that allows higher doses of radiation to be tolerated during cancer radiotherapy.

[Cheetahcat]

“If a nuclear bomb detonates on a city, I was always taught” that it would be uninhabitable for hundreds of years. How is it that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today?”

We cleaned it up for them.

[Blackhawk]

That was my initial thought as well. The “Cell Suicide Mechanism” is natures way of preventing damaged or abnormal cells from reproducing.