Word: precursors
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...Parkinson's is caused by a breakdown of the brain's production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which relays the electrical impulses involved in muscular movement. The last great breakthrough in treatment was in the late 1960s, when the "miracle" drug levadopa, or L-dopa-the chemical precursor of dopamine-was discovered to "unfreeze" patients who for decades had been practically rigid, unable even to produce facial expressions. Though it remains the standard treatment for Parkinson's, there is a serious downside to L-dopa. After a couple of years, during which patients seem to be cured, they start developing...
...Russians. After all, in the realm of the hypothetical, it has to be considered as likely that Moscow could "accidentally" launch 200 missiles as it could "accidentally" launch one. All of which feeds the Russian suspicion that even the proposed limited missile defense scheme is simply the precursor of a Star Wars revival...
...chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee called members to a meeting in hopes of moving John Ashcroft's nomination as U.S. attorney general to the floor of the Senate. Instead, he was stonewalled by Democrats - in what may be the precursor to a drawn-out filibuster...
...gene for which was cloned only in 1999, also provides drug designers with a target. Inside nerve cells it competes with a third enzyme known as alpha secretase, whose activity, some think, may help protect the brain against Alzheimer's disease. When alpha makes the first cut in the precursor protein, gamma secretase makes a second cut that produces not beta amyloid but an innocuous protein fragment known as p3. Elan and Pharmacia, based in Peapack, N.J., among others, are actively working to develop beta secretase inhibitors...
Drugs are bound to play a major role in any new advances based on genetic or tissue engineering as well. For example, doctors hope one day to repair the muscle damage that occurs during heart attacks by transplanting precursor cells called stem cells into the affected areas. However, the stem-cell implants can take hold only if the levels of a number of different enzymes and molecules are boosted--a task that pharmaceuticals are particularly well suited to fill...