Word: melanin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...birds are not the only things to suffer. Says Dr. Douglas Puppin, chairman of the dermatology department at the Federal University of Espirito Santo: "Ninety percent of the people I examine from that area have skin cancer or precancerous lesions." The reason: the light-skinned Pomeranians have far less melanin, a protective pigment, than most other, darker-skinned Brazilians. With the trees gone, says Puppin, "children are constantly in the sun. We try to warn them, but you can't expect kids to walk around in hats and long sleeves in the midday heat...
...dopa is the starting material for the synthesis of melanin, a pigment commonly found in skin cells affected by melanoma, a form of skin cancer. In the brain cells affected by neuroblastoma, another form of cancer, L-dopa serves as a starting material for the manufacture of norepinephrine, a chemical signal in the nervous system...