The Ed's Up #104
How to Cure The Diseases That Nobel-Winning Drugs Cannot
"In the 1970s, William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura discovered a class of drugs called avermectins that have helped to control two of the world’s most debilitating tropical diseases: lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis. For their efforts, they were jointly awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine this week. But even while the duo are being justly lauded for their work, the diseases they have helped to control still affect more than 150 million people around the world. And the drugs they discovered have arguably reached the limits of their abilities, thanks to a critical limitation that other scientists are now trying to get around." This piece is an adapted excerpt from my book, which comes out next year. So if you want a sneak preview, read this! (Image: CDC)
When a Genetic ID Card Is the Difference Between Life and Death
“In its milder forms, this condition is called Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS). If more than a third of a person's skin peels off, it becomes known as toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Either way, “it's the worst thing I’ve seen in 30 years in clinical medicine,” says Teri Manolio at the National Human Genome Research Institute. SJS/TEN is a disease of devastating irony. Most cases happen when people take drugs that are meant to improve their health and their bodies revolt in catastrophic fashion. These hypersensitivity reactions are rare. They are only triggered by certain drugs, and only in people with specific genetic variants in a cluster of immunity genes. And over the past decade, scientists have identified many of these ruinous drug-gene combinations. Which means that SJS/TEN should be almost entirely preventable.” (Image: Wasun Chantratita)
'What Happens Here Will Decide the Fate of Millions'
This week, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou received a Nobel prize for her contribution to discovering artemisinin, a wonder drug that saved many lives from malaria. Last year, I told the story of the drug’s rise in a long feature that covers how it was discovered, how it arrived in the midst of a losing war against drug-resistant malarial parasites, and how scientists working in South-East Asia are now frantically working to stop the next generation of resistant parasites from spreading around the world and rendering this most precious of weapons obsolete. (Image: Ian Teh)
The Rise of the Jaw-Slingers
"Thousands of fish species can sling their jaws forward, and some can do it up to a quarter of their body length. This ability allows them to snatch prey from inaccessible crevices, to launch ballistic ambushes, and to close those final critical millimetres on targets that are threatening to escape. David Bellwood from James Cook University describes these “protrusible jaws” as the “one of the most important innovations in vertebrate feeding over the last 400 million years”, and he has now charted their evolution over the last 100 million of those." (Image: Matthieu Sontag)
More good reads
- A good profile of "Planetary Protection Officer" Catherine Conley, by Kenneth Chang
- This is a superb op/ed about the folly of big science prizes, like the Nobels. By Vinay Prasad
- This plant exploits dung beetles by making nuts that look like poo. Isn’t nature beautiful? By Elif Batuman
- What If Everything Your Doctor Told You About Breast Cancer Was Wrong? Essential piece from Christie Aschwanden on why mammograms are largely ineffective
- Ebola panic a year later: Why the worst predictions didn’t come true. By Tara Smith.
- Two pieces by the peerless Carl Zimmer: one on the first ancient human genome from Africa and another on why elephants rarely get cancer
More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science.
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And that's it! Thanks for reading.
-Ed