Word: proteins
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...body's works, however, there may now be a way to get things unstuck. Investigators at the Picower Institute for Medical Research in New York are working on a drug that acts as an AGES solvent. Known as pimagedine, the medication dissolves the connections between the AGES protein and the proteins that cluster around it. In one study, 18 patients taking pimagedine showed reduced blood levels of lipoproteins, the substances that act as precursors of artery-clogging cholesterol. In another, rats taking pimagedine did not exhibit any signs of heart disease...
Other researchers favor a more direct approach. Rather than target the T cells that get the ball rolling, they say, it's better to focus on the compounds that actually do the damage: the killer proteins produced by the macrophages. These proteins attack the cartilage and cause inflammation. One company, Immunex of Seattle, has focused on one such protein, called tumor necrosis factor. Immunex's treatment, which worked so effectively for Lindagail Dixon, consists of genetically engineered proteins that sop up excess tnf, interrupting the cycle of destruction. A third tactic, being developed by Amgen of Thousand Oaks, California, targets...
Doherty and Zinkernagel showed that the white blood cells of the immune system look for changes in a key marker called the self protein, which identifies cells as belonging to one's own body. Any alterations in this protein--such as those that occur when a cell is invaded by a virus--tag the cell for destruction. Doherty and Zinkernagel's research, which won this year's Physiology or Medicine Nobel, could lead to new kinds of vaccines against cancer, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders...
Spartan as Mir is, its science facilities are first rate, and Lucid, a biochemist, spent much of her time aloft studying how the space environment affects living tissue and how protein crystals grow in zero gravity. Like others who have tried to live and work in space, however, she found that the living part doesn't always go as well as the working part...
...treatment is to restore the damaged skin that is the body's first line of defense against microbes. To lessen the need for taking extensive skin grafts from other areas of a burn patient's already weakened body, several biotechnology companies have developed grafts made from collagen, a fibrous protein that is a natural component of skin and other tissues. The laboratory-grown collagen serves as a permanent scaffolding, above, in areas in which both the upper epidermis and deeper dermal layers of skin have been burned. Once grafted, new skin cells and blood vessels grow around the template within...