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Author Topic:   The first Universal Law of the Universe
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
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Message 10 of 39 (849495)
03-11-2019 5:46 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Phat
03-11-2019 3:25 PM


Re: both
Is sickness (cancer) a normal process?
Yes, unfortunate though that may be. How is that a spiritual question?
Do cells normally have these mutations?
Yes, unfortunate though that may be. How is that a spiritual question?
Were mutations inevitable?
Yes, unfortunate though that may be. How is that a spiritual question?
If so, can human intelligence undo a mutation?
Yes, kind of -- at least we are working on it potentially using CRISPR. Maybe this one can finally qualify as a spiritual question, or at least an ethical question raised by the issue of gene editing.
We covered this in our "Science For You" class at OLLI, which was based on Dr. Eric Lander's MIT "Introduction to Biology" class lectures which delved deeply into genetics, which includes the development of the techniques and technology for mapping the genome. The OLLI class' site is at https://docs.google.com/...gZkwtiZ20KJ7KR1TDiIwQLzJ0vzs/edit.
Lecure #23 covered cancer. Dr. Lander started it with a Rube Goldberg machine (RGM) (a humorously over-complex contraption to perform a simple function -- I think that was the inspiration for a kids game, "Mouse Trap", and the titles of the TV show, "Elementary"), because, like many of a cell's internal mechanisms, a cell's processing of growth factors is basically an RGM. That process is a long change of phosphate cycles each of which is controlled by a unique pair of proteins, one to turn it on and cause growth and the other then turns it off. Cancer happens when the second protein mutates and is no longer able to turn off the cell's growth, resulting in the formation of a tumor.
Genome mapping used to take years of tedious work for post-grads (it's been said that the main quality of a PhD is being able to do an enormous amount of work) costing thousands of dollars, but advances in techniques and technology (the subject of some of the lectures) have reduced the time to maybe a few days and less than $1000 (there are catalogs from which you can buy the necessary enzymes for $40 to $80 each; CRISPR CAS-9 can be had for around $150, so you could do gene splicing in your garage).
As a result, you can map the genome of your tumor and compare it to your normal genome (eg, map one of your normal cells) in order to identify the mutation, then create a gene therapy specifically targeted for that particular mutation -- or at least you should be able to; these lectures were from a few years ago. But then a few more years down the road you're likely to get a different mutation (remember that that's a long phosphate chain that's vulnerable to the mutation of a turn-off enzyme at any point) that would need its own specific gene therapy.
Just for fun, check out acapellascience and acapellascience2 on YouTube, in which something science-y is presented set to some popular song, including subtitles and graphics.
In the lecture on the CRISPR system, our class facilitators presented acapellascience's CRISPR-Cas9 ("Mr. Sandman" Parody). The graphics help to demonstrate how CRISPR works. The next week, she apologized for having given us that earwig. HINT: it's not all in black-and-white, so stay tuned.
As I try to fall asleep at night, his Banting's Imparted Years sea shanty about the development of insulin therapy keeps running through my brain. Earwig indeed! But also inspiring ("Nobel them all!").
Some say prayer doesn't help but I believe it sure cant hurt.
Unfortunately, yes it can if prayer is misused.
How many innocent children have been sacrificed to their parents' Christian god because they had chosen prayer instead of medical treatment? And I'm talking about simple bacterial infections (eg, meningitis) that could have been treated effectively with antibiotics.
I would count those cases as prayer hurting.
And of course there's the GOP relying on "thoughts and prayers" to protect our schools against mass killings, yet for some reason "thoughts and prayers" are not enough to protect our southern border from an imaginary and fabricated threat.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Phat, posted 03-11-2019 3:25 PM Phat has not replied

  
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