"The Berlin Patient"; a possible cure for HIV arround the corner.

About 34 million people are infected with HIV; 25 million have died from the disease was discovered, and medicine has not being capable to find a definite cure… or at least it seemed.

Timothy Ray Brown—as known as The Berlin Patient or the man who once had HIV—is the first case of someone who got cured from that disease and this is his story.

In 1995, he was tested positive for HIV. Then, for eleven years he lived struggling with the disease, taking the usual lifetime pills that allowed him to live an almost normal life. In 2006, he was also diagnosed with myeloid leukemia and a marrow bone transplant seemed to be the only option to keep him from death.

After the transplant, there was not be any leukemia cells, but more important than that, the HIV virus had also disappeared. How was that possible?

Dr. Gero Huetter, headmaster of the oncology department at University Hospital of Berlin explained that some people (less than the 1% of worldwide population) have natural immunity against HIV virus. Every cell has a protein called CCR5, which allows the virus to attach to the T-cell, and then infects it. People without that protein are immune, and the marrow bone which Brown was transplanted had that mutation, so he got cured!

Up to now, there is neither leukemia nor HIV trace in his organism, which made me wonder:  are we in front of a definite cure? Do pharmaceutical companies willing to investigate a final cure, considering the highest profits they earn every year selling drugs to keep infected people alive? Will this cure be available for everybody or just for ones who can pay for it?

(See the full articles on http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48338421/ns/today-today_health/t/two-more-men-hiv-now-virus-free-cure/#.UKEvQ4dVmC2 and http://timothyrbrown.com/) 

Daniela Carez & Felipe Gaete OP

NAKED BEFORE YOUR EYES

The current methods to diagnose illnesses and viruses are expensive and not reliable enough since they requiere sophistecated equipments, and specific conditions to be perfom (sample quantity and temperature). A research conducted this year developed a new and revolutionary method that would substituted the conventional test: Plasmonic ELIZA. 

Watch our presentation and be aware of the new developments that this field brings!!!

I need a Charming Prince. Now!

          “I wish I could sleep two weeks in a row…”  I bet everybody has said this in more than one occasion, but for people who suffer the extremely rare Kleine-Levin syndrome, as known as “the sleeping beauty syndrome”, their wish is the opposite.

          The Klene-Levine syndrome is a neurological disorder  which affects the sleeping habits, making sick people sleep over 20 hours per day—being awake just few hours to eating  or going to the bathroom—in   every crisis. Each episode lasts almost two weeks, with a frequency which ranges among weeks, months or even years, depending on each case.  This syndrome affects mostly male adolescents (relation 3:1) who had their first episodes between 10 to 20 years old. About 90% of the patients experienced their first attack as a result of a cold or other type of infection, but it’s also associated with stress, long sleep deprivation periods, excessive use of alcohol, marijuana and other drugs, accident and head traumas. Other scientists sustain that it might be a hereditary genetic predisposition, or it may be the result of an autoimmune disorder. Recent studies also argue that the deficiency of dopamine and striatum could be link to it.

          Due to the lack of other symptoms—apart from the long hours of sleeping—this disease is hard to diagnose, making doctors eliminate others which can present similar symptoms, and there is no definite treatment or cure for it. Patients are treated with stimulants—as amphetamine and methylphenidate—for the sleepiness.  Experiences with lithium and carbamazepine are shown highly results, but it is still in testing process.

          For awaking definitely his princess, the charming prince will be to get off his horse and start to investigate in a lab!

          Finally I left the following questions: Have you heard about this syndrome before? Do you know other rare diseases? 

(http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/10/08/sleeping-beauty-syndrome.html)

It all began with Dolly.

Fifteen years later Dolly sheep's clonation, cell nuclear transfer is back on lab tables.
generally speaking, cell nuclear transfer consists in replacing an embryonal cell's genes which nucleus was removed by the genes of an adult cell. 
Since then, many researches have clonated different animal species such as mice, pigs, horses and cows. equally, there has been scandals for example the case of Woo Suk Hwang who in 2004 announced that he cloned a human embryon, but it turned out to be false and of course there is the ethic dilemma over its use.
Human clonation is supossed to be useful to develop  new healthy cells or tissues and in this way help people treat incurable diseases such as parkinson by using the cellular reprogramming technique which consists in inserting one or more genes within an adult cell, for example the skin in order these elements to be the ones which start reprograming internally that cell with no need to use an embryo or an ovule, leaving behind any possible ethic debate. from this point of view clonation seems absolutely positive, the problem is when human ambition could raise the idea of clonating a whole human being. would this be ethic? would this person be as normal as you and me? some religious people think that cloned humans will have no soul, what do you think about this? would you like to have another you?

In this video there is a cloned cat which glows in the dark, maybe cloned people would have special features too.

Cloudy days are bad for our health

It is common to hear that a constantly exposure to the sunlight is dangerous for our health. What if I told you that scientists have discovered that one reason of lacking vitamin D in our body is because we don’t spend the necessary time under the sun? Surprising? Well, it is true.

The Vitamin D, or so-called sunshine vitamin, is a very important nutrient which our body produces in abundance when we exposed our skin to the sun’s rays. The importance of this vitamin is continually growing because of the several benefits that it can bring to our health, such as preventing us from cancer, and multiple sclerosis.

Nowadays, people try to avoid sunshine covering their bodies, or even worse, staying at home. This strange and modern disease is more and more frequent in children and in teenagers, why? Unlike many years ago, children don’t go out from their houses to play outside; now, they prefer to stay playing video games or using the computer. These situations are leading that many people start to suffer from diseases caused by the vitamin-D deficiency.

The sun’s rays could be very aggressive with our body, but the absence of these is also an imminent problem for our health. Are we willing of having serious diseases instead of going out and enjoy the sun and its benefits? It is time to think about it.

Designing our babies

Could you imagine how life changing would be to get to know how our babies are growing up before they are even born? Or to cure some of the diseases or disorders that our babies could bring?

 Human genetic engineering provides the opportunity to modify babies' genotype before birth. If the baby has any disease, genetic disorders or genetic disease, this technology will definitely help the future parents to give birth to a healthy child, and they will not have to worry that their child could bring any of the diseases that both parents could have. This could be the beginning of something big, and better for our future: healthier humans, with more probabilities of success and better life.

Human genetic engineering can increase the longevity and also enhance some of the genes that the parents would like to improve. Gene modification, also known as Germline Modification, in which genes can be modifies when the baby is still an early embryo, reduces exponentially the fact that the child can develop certain heart diseases, even diabetes, hypertension, or cancer. This technology gives the big opportunity to look forward to a healthy child without complication that could end his/her life since this type of modification is permanent.

Researchers keep on trying to find the cure for genetic diseases, and the human genetic engineering is getting close to that goal. This is the result of science; science that is always trying to find the bright side of the human life, and of course, evolution. 

So, would you like to get yourself into gene therapy so your children would not have to struggle with those diseases? Would you rather choose technology than  having to live with your children's diseases and can't do anything about it?