ReadingThinkingAndWriting

Targeted Cancer Therapy; An Intein Modulated Caspase 3 Mutant.

I am proposing an approach that differs from the conventional in three ways: (i) directly targeting of tumor specific or associated antigens within the malignant cells with (ii) an antibody based biological agent (iii) containing a constitutively active apoptosis effector that is inhibited or non-functional until the antibody binds its agonist. Read More…

Chimeric Antigen Receptors: Target ErbB2

The process of tuning cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) to kill cancer cells is undoubtedly a spectacular innovation but it can be precarious. The primary function of a CTL is to bind and kill any cell found bearing the ligand of the CTL’s antigen receptor (the CAR in this case) on its surface…

In stark contrast to the years of safe administration and the cancer clearing success stories of late; recently there were two deaths in CAR based clinical trials. The case I’d like to focus on is one in which an on-target/off-tissue event appears to be the cause of death. Read More…

Directed Evolution: Going From Millions of Years to a Matter of Days

Evolution, in general, functions on a truly massive time scale. For example, between the time the first fish swam during the Cambrian period and the appearance of the first jawed fish in the Devonian approximately 100 million years had passed. And though the slow evolution of complex forms of life such as ourselves from the first combinations of amino acids into small peptides is an awe-inspiring achievement, nature took more than four billion years to make that achievement.

Now imagine the evolution of a new protein function not over millions of years, but rather in just a few days. Read More…

Obama on The Daily Show: Have a look for yourself

One of the adages which I’ve kept out of my continuous, arduous, and at times circular quest for self-improvement is this. Don’t let other people’s interpretations, right, wrong, or indifferent be your first read.

Recently (10/27/2010)  President Obama appeared on the John Stewart’s Daily Show. I wasn’t able to watch the broadcast which meant that I would be greeted with a host of stories and opinions in the media about his appearance before I would get the chance to watch it.   Read More…

The Founders: Death and Taxes

The impetus to form a new government to replace the Confederacy was born, majorly, from the fact that the Continental Congress had no power to levy taxes. There were, no doubt, other reasons that are easily demonstrated, but the one that reverberated with those who served through the Revolutionary War both in arms and in Congress was that of direct revenue. The situation near the end of the war echoes eerily today as the states engaged in a war that The Congress was in want of tax revenue to pay for and the debts incurred to do so, both foreign and domestic, threatened to destroy that which so much blood was spilled to gain.   Read More…