Cancers 'Death Star' Is Elimiated

 How Scientists Shot Down Cancer’s ‘Death Star’

    Can scientists really shoot down cancer's death star? According to an article in The New York Times written by Gina Kolata, it could be a possibility. During a long 40 years of hard work and effort, teachers were able to succeed in defeating one of the most common cancer-causing mutations in the human body. By finding this genetic mutation scientists believe that patients with lung or colorectal cancer have a better chance of living a longer life. Scientists also believe that finding this mutation will help lead to better drugs o reduce the spread of cancer in all patients. 

    It is hard to believe that this is a real scientific finding and hits close to home. Back in 2010, my brother was diagnosed with Burkitt's Leukemia, and shortly after that my best friend's sister and my uncle were both diagnosed with severe brain tumors. Although they did not have lung or colorectal cancer I wonder how this scientific discovery would have affected their treatment. A way that scientists were able to find an in to help block the growth of cancer is by the KRAS mutation. KARS is a protein that fluctuates from the on to off position thousands of times per second but researchers were more interested in how to get that protein to stay turned off to stop the growth. One doctor named David Reese even described this "death star" as being so smooth like there was no point of entry. Dr. Shokat and his team of researchers scanned over 500 molecules until they found the one that did the trick. Although they do not name the molecule in this article they do let the readers know that Johnson and Johnson along with eight other companies are working on a drug to take down this death star.

 

Article : How Scientists Shot Down Cancer’s ‘Death Star’

About KRAS mutation: Mutations in Human Cancers Through the Lens of KRAS

Covid Code Unlocked

  Unlocking the Covid Code

    The New York Times recently published an article about how scientists can now sequence an entire genome overnight and how they think this is the secret key they have been looking for in solving the COVID-19 pandemic. The scientists that have been conducting this research think that this will be very useful when tracking and identifying different strands of the coronavirus. Early in January, a scientist in Australia named Edward Holmes reached out to a scientist in China named Yong-Zhen Zhang. On the phone, they were talking about how Yong-Zhen Zhang has sequenced a genome of corona that was affecting the people in Wuhan.

    Since Yong-Zhen Zhang was able to isolate the genetic makeup of this strand and published it around the world many doctors were able to get their hands on it to help come up with the perfect pharmaceutical mixture to help cure the strain. They did not view the genetic sequence as an illness; they looked at it as a computer code. Something that had to be played around with and changed up to help unlock it to make people healthy again. Throughout this article written in The New York Times by Jon Gertner, he goes into even more depth about how genetically isolating things is going to be a huge step forward in the medical field.

Article : Unlocking the Covid Code

How Genetic Sequencing is Like Computer Problems: Computer Science behind DNA Sequencing