Word: fibrinogen
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...sleep habits--including how long it took them to fall asleep, how many hours they had slumbered in the past month, whether they slept through the night and if they felt drowsy during the day. Then he recorded their levels of cholesterol, insulin, glucose, a clotting agent known as fibrinogen, inflammatory proteins that contribute to heart disease, and insulin resistance (the precursor to diabetes). Since emotional factors can affect sleep as well, he also assessed each subject's levels of depression, hostility and anger, using standard psychological questionnaires...
Early on, the researchers rejected the simplest method--suspending the cells in solution and injecting them into the eye--because cells handled in this fashion did not grow particularly well. The team found that it obtained much better results when it attached the cells to a sticky substrate like fibrinogen, a protein involved in blood clotting. "And then," says Ernest, "we made a serendipitous discovery." Dr. Karine Gabrielian, a physician on the team, had been struggling to fashion the thinnest possible slivers of fibrinogen. Checking on her samples one morning, she found that some of the slivers had curled...
Upon further experimentation, Michaelson injected the rat livers with turpentine, a toxic substance. He found that he could thereby select for fibrinogen-producing cells, which fight the poison...
What the team found was that early in their development, tumors secrete three powerful chemicals that promote formation of a protective shield of fibrin gel around them. One substance encourages nearby blood vessels to leak plasma; another turns fibrinogen, a plasma constitutent, into fibrin; the third diverts immune cells away from the growing shield. Dvorak speculates that the tumor's chemical weaponry is so sophisticated that the fibrin itself encourages growth of blood vessels in the vicinity of the tumor, providing the malignant cells with a nourishing blood supply. As it enlarges, the tumor appears to secrete a fourth...
Clotting Factor. To explain the higher blood viscosity of Raynaud's victims, the Walder group now indicts an excess of fibrinogen, one of the several substances involved in the blood-clotting mechanism, and a major factor in blood sludging. On this theory, the surgeons are treating 40 patients with intravenous drips of blood thinners ("plasma expanders") and anti-clotting drugs. The researchers claim no dramatic effects, but report cautiously that these treatments have improved the patients' peripheral circulation, "at least temporarily." In the more serious cases, they say, the treatments "were of considerable value...