Zachary "ZAQ" RosenMore often than not I’ve written about different things and aspects around town literature wise. It’s worked out pretty well I think so far. But this particular post we’re going to take a complete 180 and talk about the other love in my life.
Chemistry.
Bio-Chemistry.
Okay, so Molecular Bio, but you get the picture!
Now the advent of DNA typing and the ability to isolate specific genomic sequences in a strand of DNA have 
revolutionized medical research and practices. Who’d have thunk a few years back how far we’d come with just the ability to see how our bodies work on the most fundamental level? And with that has also come huge advances in Cancer research.
It’s like looking at the world in tunnel vision, and then drinking a red-bull. Whoah! Hello SoCal?
What is important to note though is the inter-connectivity of DNA to your body. What DNA really does is dictate the exact sequence of Amino Acids that eventually link up to become proteins in our cells. Simple enough. Now also note that proteins are the fundamental building blocks of cells and that cells are the fundamental building blocks of our body and, WHOAH ThERE TURBO. You just realized why DNA affects our every day lives the way it does.
One cell at a time.
Now in terms of cancer that means a lot. Your DNA also encodes how cells divide within your body. It’s like having both the blueprints and demolition plans all conveniently wrapped up in one little package. But when things get screwy with the demo plans (ie: the coding for how the cell is supposed to divide under normal circumstances), Bada-bing, Bada-boom, you’ve got cancer (diagnostically, the uncontrolled and often infectious division of cells in the body.).
The obvious thing to do then is to attack cancer then at its source, the DNA then. Right?
This is where I disagree. Though fixing the DNA strand could be preventative, it seems implausible after cancerous growth has developed and even less so if it has metastasized (spread throughout the body). There is a second option however.
Start looking at the proteins, baby!
So remember back up at the top? The little bit about DNA encoding for proteins? Well some of those proteins control cell division. Now, these proteins also have inherent “On-Off” switches built into them in places known as bonding sites. In these parts of a protein chemicals can bond with the huge chemical orgy known as protein, and change the shape of the mother-prot, turning it on or off. These amazing little buggers capable of causing such huge change in a protein are known as substrates.
Cell division is actually a guided process, where hundreds of proteins are triggered in a long chain of events that inevitably causes the cell to divide. But the trick here is not to turn off all the messengers. Just taking out one or a few should suffice, making administration of such a treatment theoretically easy. All you need is the right substrate and a means of localizing it to a particular region of the body. Such treatments could potentially have the ability to stop the spread of cancerous cells in a tissue, and more importantly, stop it from metastasizing. That’s one quick cut away from getting it the heck out of your body, and potentially for good if you’ve caught it early enough.
Best part, it would work with the chemistry of your body, decreasing the likelihood of ugly side effects like those seen in chemo-patients.
In any case, these are just a few ideas to mull over. Happy Halloween everyone!
