Word: fragment
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...buildup of a protein known as beta amyloid. The chief constituent of the scarlike plaques found in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, beta amyloid is made by nerve cells when beta and gamma secretase execute a one-two snip that cuts a larger precursor protein into a shorter fragment. Sometimes the fragment is 40 units long, sometimes 42. The slightly longer variant, scientists have found, is directly toxic to nerve cells. Among other things, it appears to stimulate the release of oxygen free radicals, thereby setting off in the brain a destructive biochemical cascade...
Other companies are focused on boosting the immune system with vaccines that can direct it to target cancer cells. A vaccine developed at Memorial Sloan-Kettering binds a protein from a limpet to seven different types of sugars and a protein fragment found only on cancer cells, and saponin, a soap-like derivative from a South American tree. This witch’s brew serves to annoy the immune system, revving it up enough to attack cancer cells that are carrying the same sugars and protein fragment...
...things make me say that Lemieux is on an equal plateau with Gretzky. One, Lemieux returned from numerous injuries and even cancer, and was still the best player in the league. Gretzky never went through a fragment of the injuries that Lemieux...
...Some principles are not negotiable: the concept of national unity. If the guerrillas get what they want, it will fragment the country...
That same year, other research teams, including one led by Selkoe, created yet another stir. They zeroed in on the elusive enzymes that snip the beta-amyloid fragment from the precursor protein. "We had the paper, and now we had the scissors," says Selkoe. If he is right, one of those scissors, gamma secretase, may actually be the presenilin-1 protein. Whatever the true identity of gamma secretase turns out to be, pharmaceutical companies are rushing to develop drugs that block it. Bristol-Myers Squibb has already started safety tests of one such compound and hopes to expand its study...