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...factors from reaching a tumor, blocking signals that would otherwise instruct the cell to grow out of control. Others tip the delicate balance that every cell maintains between life and death, driving cancerous cells to self-destruct. Still others block enzymes that cancer cells use to chew openings in normal tissues and give themselves room to expand. And, most famously, the class of compounds known as angiogenesis inhibitors keep tumors from building new blood vessels to supply themselves with food and oxygen. Three years ago, Nobel laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, was quoted as saying...
...Making a drug out of that decoy would prove tricky, since the receptor, like HER2, also shows up on noncancerous cells. Researchers are now learning, however, that normal cells are more adept than cancer cells at finding other growth factors on which to rely when EGFR is blocked. But when Mendelsohn applied for his first grant from the National Cancer Institute in 1983, he was rejected. "Nobody thought it would work," he says. The following year he turned to philanthropic sources for research dollars. Last year he wowed colleagues with a compound called IMC-C225, which proved effective in treating...
...Another reason cancers grow inexorably is that unlike normal cells, which die a natural death after a fixed number of divisions, cancer cells live forever. Scientists have been looking for compounds that will rewire tumor cells so they will know when it's time to go. The research is still in its early stages, but scientists in several labs have started looking at a group of enzymes called caspaces; inhibiting these enzymes disrupts the process of DNA repair that occurs each time a cell divides...
...Even with repeated contact, the signs of mercury poisoning take time to manifest themselves. But some are already suffering. Almost all of the miners Limbong has tested in the past six months have 25 to 30 times the normal levels of mercury. Some are showing symptoms of the poisoning: muscle weakness, blurred vision, breathing difficulties. But getting the miners to agree to be tested and admit that they are sick is very difficult. "They are scared that if they mention this sickness they will have to stop working," Limbong says...
...moment, mercury levels in fish caught in the Manado straits are normal, says Bonny Sompie, who has just taken over as the province's most senior environmental official. Sompie is at pains to play down the mercury problem. His estimates put the amount entering the environment every year at about 15 tons or lower, but he acknowledges the dangers of contamination. "It could turn into a national crisis" if something isn't done, he concedes. But the safari-suited former professor of civil engineering says there is little he can do to stop the flood of mercury...