Disqus - Latest Comments for Joyce_Gramza

Re: Highlighting Cancer

Joyce_Gramza — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:03:50 -0000

Hey Hemlock, thanks for the question. Here's the answer in "English": They use "modular" fluorophores that consist of a NIR fluorescing part linked to a targeting part that attaches to a certain molecule or structure specific to the cell or tissue. Both parts can be modified. Frangioni and others are designing families of modular fluorophores in which all the family members are tuned to the same NIR wavelength, but each member targets a different type of cell or tissue. Hope that makes sense!

Re: Green Gasoline

Joyce_Gramza — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:03:13 -0000

Thanks for the questions Mike! I asked Jim Dumesic & here's his reply complete with a link:
"The Department of Energy has estimated that the U.S. can produce on a
sustainable basis 1 billion tons of biomass per year, without affecting the
ability of the U.S. to continue to produce food for people and animals.
This vision is presented in the document at the following web-site:
http://www.ecs.umass.edu/bi...

This amount of biomass is not sufficient to replace all of the petroleum
that we currently use. For example, it might be possible to supply about 50%
of the fuel that we use in the transportation sector. Importantly, we will
definitely have to combine the production of biofuels with improvements in
fuel economy, for example by employing more fuel efficient hybrid vehicles.
In this respect, each liter of liquid fuel that we produce must be utilized
in the most efficient manner."

Re: Genetic Geography

Joyce_Gramza — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:02:46 -0000

They say they are working on an algorithm to tease out more complex origins. This map was just the first.

Re: HIV-immune Cells

Joyce_Gramza — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:05:04 -0000

Hi all-- Here's an email response to some of your questions from the researcher:

1) Is this gene therapy safe for women wishing to be pregnant someday?
If
you think about it, this is a pertinent question...
Answer: The principal aim of our Phase 1 trial will be to test the
safety of this procedure in subjects with HIV infections. However, we
have tried to make this as safe as we can. The procedure is designed to
disrupt the CCR5 gene in immune system cells from the blood that are
taken from the subject and exposed to the ZFNs outside the body. Before
being reinfused back into the subject the cells will be checked to
ensure that only the intended changes have been made. At that point we
also expect that the ZFNs will have been degraded and so they will not
be introduced into the subject and should not have future consequences
for the subject.

2) When is this method is going to be acessible por everybody? If we
want to
try it, were can we do it?

The first clinical trial of this therapeutic will be run by Dr. June and
his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. We
hope to get this into the clinic as soon as possible.

Best
Liz