"Paint Coatings"

Only about 50 % of adults survive cancer by undergoing radical (or alternative) treatments but this statistic in itself indicates why cancer is such a dreaded disease, and also partially reveal why it is so difficult to find an adequate (and more importantly, successful) treatment of the disease.

Even though the United States has spent over $ 200 billion over the last fifty years in cancer research, it has seen a mere 5 % decrease in the cancer death rate. One reason for the inability of research to produce results that could be used to treat cancer (in all its forms) as a whole, is because of the complex genetic pathways that each of its ‘variants’ seem to possess.

However, as discouraging as this may sound (not only to cancer patients but to the medical community), a recent development which involved the complete genomic sequencing of a brain cancer cell line (also known as the U87) performed by US scientists might provide further food for thought, and could thus enable researchers to take this to the next level based on their findings.

According to the report that was published in PLoS Genetics, the research took less than a month to be completed and cost just about $ 35,000 (as opposed to the aforementioned figures).What this could mean for patients with brain cancer is that better ways to monitor, test while also preventing overtreatment (with harmful side effects) could become a reality over the next few years.

In the words of the study’s senior author Dr. Stan Nelson, a professor of human genetics and director of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Gene Expression Shared Resource, “This is very exciting because we, as scientists, can now move forward with revealing complete cancer genomes,”

A recent study published on bmj.com states that people who have been diagnosed with early stage lung cancer, stand to increase their chances of survival for over five years if they give up smoking in comparison to those who continue to smoke.

Lung cancer is the most predominantly diagnosed form of cancer in the world. In the United Kingdom, around 39000 cases are diagnosed with lung cancer every year, second only to breast cancer.

In reviewing this study’s results, they were encouraging enough to provide patients smoking cessation treatment for those who were diagnosed with early stage lung cancer.

It is a well-known fact that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer and lifelong smokers have that risk 20 times more than non-smokers do. What was unknown was how much effect does quitting smoking have on patients after being diagnosed with early stage lung cancer.

The researchers at the University of Birmingham wanted to analyze this and combined the results of 10 patients. To minimize the bias they took into account the differences in quality and study design.

The analysis showed that people diagnosed with early stage lung cancer had a significantly higher risk of life when they continued smoking. Continual smoking also helps the progress of cancer while resulting in an increased risk of death. The data also provided evidence that people who quit would live five years or more than those who do not quit. The results also provide strong evidence for doctors to offer smoking cessation treatments to their patients.

Are you finding it hard to quit smoking? Here is one more reason why you should: a study published by the UCLA states that smoking would continue to increase the risk that a person has towards age-related macular degeneration (AMD) even after you turn 80. AMD is one the top causes of blindness in Americans aged over 65.

Dr. Anne Coleman, professor of ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA said, “The take-home message is that it is never too late to quit smoking. We found that even older people’s eyes will benefit from kicking the habit.”
The center of the retina is progressively damaged with the onset of AMD, and is known as the macula. This part of the retina is what lets us see fine details. With the degeneration of the macula, people tend to experience a blurring of their central vision and even darkness. It also renders them unable to read, drive and sometimes even recognize people.

AMD’s top cause is age and then smoking. The study carried out by Coleman looked into finding out if age influenced the effects of smoking on AMD risk. The study was conducted amongst 1,958 women and revealed that women smokers had 11% higher rates of AMD compared to others of the same age. Women who were over 80 years of age and smoked were 5.5 times more prone to develop AMD compared to women the same and who were non-smokers.

“Age is the strongest predictor for AMD, yet most of the research in this field has been conducted in people younger than 75. Compared to those who were previously studied, our population was considerably older. This research provides the first accurate snapshot of how smoking affects AMD risk later in life,” explained Coleman.

An integral part of our bodily functions is the nervous system. Nerve cells are part of the communication process in our body and takes place through vesicles, which have signaling molecules also known as neurotransmitters. The production of new vesicles is important for a good communication process in the nervous system. If any lapses do occur, then it could lead to nerve pain such as phantom pains, which might even lead to amputation.

A deficiency in BAR, a protein domain is one reason behind nerve pain. BAR fuses itself to small membrane vesicles of varied sizes. Stating that the new discovery will be used to counter nerve pain, Dimitrios Stamou, Associate Professor at the Bio-Nanotechnology Laboratory, Nano-Science Center and the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology said, “We have used nanotechnology techniques, which give us the unique opportunity to study the binding of proteins to individual vesicles. Earlier studies have been performed in solutions where you measure a large number of vesicles and proteins at a time. This gives an average value of binding and ‘masks out’ a large amount of important information that we can retrieve by measurements on single vesicles.”

Increasingly, more studies, including this one, indicate that the curvature of the membrane has a lot to do with the fusing of proteins to cell membranes. The fusing of proteins is greater if the curvature of the membrane increases. This insight now sheds more light on the general understanding of how communication takes place between nerve cells and is even more helpful towards developing treatments for diseases.
“To our great surprise we find that BAR binds to the membrane vesicles via small cracks in the vesicle membrane. We had expected that BAR bound to the small round membrane vesicles both because of its banana shaped structure, which fits with the shape of the vesicle, and by means of an attraction between “the banana’s” positive surface and vesicle’s negative surface. But instead, it is the hydrophobic part of BAR that is involved in binding,” explained Mr. Stamou.

Unlike porcelain veneers, dental crowns can be made from a variety of materials. It’s important to understand the benefits of the different materials used before making a decision on which one to use.

Metal crowns include gold crowns and crowns made from other alloys. These are the strongest crowns possible, although they cannot be color matched to adjacent teeth. Because of their strength and relatively poor aesthetic qualities, cosmetic dentists frequently use them for molars that are heavily used in daily chewing but are also out of sight in the back of the mouth.

Porcelain or ceramics are also used in cosmetic dentistry as materials for crowns. In many cases, porcelain crowns are fused to metal roots in order to create a stronger crown. However, these can cause wear on adjacent teeth quicker than when all-porcelain crowns are used. Both all-porcelain and porcelain crowns fused to metal are commonly used for visible front teeth, since the color can be matched to other teeth.