Ferroptosis is your friend…

Your new buddy is a type of  cell death  associated with iron dependence.   Its recent discovery has generated a lot of excitement because of its potential in treating cancer.   Washington State University researchers have demonstrated that the fatty acid known as dihomogamma-linolenic acid (DGLA) kills human cancer cells upon exposure.   That is a first-class reason for interest,  since if you could deliver DGLA to a cancer cell,  you might kill it.   The science is rather complicated,  but it certainly offers hope for a number of patients who currently have only limited options.

 

 

Ageing switch…

Scientists  have found  an ageing switch in worms.   Turns out we humans have the same genetic switch.   Basically,  cells in worms start to deteriorate when reproductive maturity is reached,  and the theory is that it works the same way for homo sapiens.

That seems logical to me, but I think we are still quite a long way from eternal youthfulness.   That should give us sufficient time to decide whether it’s something to be desired,  isn’t it?

Second language of DNA…

Scientists have discovered that  DNA has a second  language stacked atop the one they knew about.   We’ve known for 40 years that DNA code was used to write information about proteins,  but the news is that the second,  hidden code instructs the cell on how genes are controlled.   This could drastically change our understanding of diseases and their potential cures.