Biology

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    Antifungals

    There are several antifungals in the market and it is difficult to understand how many more are needed since there are quite a few in the market. One major use is for treatment of Athelete’s foot. Fungi contain cell wall made up of beta-1-3-glucan, other glucans and gylcoprotein. Below the cell wall there is a…

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    Biotech companies

    Small Biotechs: Diagonal Tx: Clustering antibodies that mimic the action of the ligand and bypass the need for the ligand and receptor. This mutation that is created makes standard AI models not useful and so need a new method. This restores new ALK1 signaling in Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia. It also treates LoF mutations in ALK1…

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    ALS and TDP43

    Almost 90% of ALS is thought to be sporadic. The reasons are not well understood and thought to be oxidative stress, damaged endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, cytoskeleton or misregulation of RNA pathways. One protein implicated is TDP43 which sits as a junction of ALS pathogenic path by binding to RNA modulation synthesis, splicing, stability and transport….

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    Bile duct cancer

    Bile duct cancer or cholangiocarcinoma, (CCA) is a rare cancer with an incidence of ~3 cases per 100,000 with 10,000 new case diagnosed annually. It is about 10-20% of liver cancers. Interestingly, in Thailand, and some south east asian countries, the incidence is nearly 10 fold higher due to liver fluke infections (Opisthorchis viverrini and…

  • Morphological length

    In alligator length estimation, the snout-eye-length is an approximation of length used for some species and speaks about proportionality of growth. For example, each inch length from the eye of the crocodile to the end of the snout equals the length of the alligator. For example 3 inches of snout-eye-length implies that the alligator is…

  • Vitamin K2

    It has been traditionally thought that for bone health, sufficient calcium is required. However, it is just not calcium. A vitamin called Vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) and K2 (menaquinone) in combination with Vitamin D2 and calcium is important for activating a protein called osteocalcin which binds to calcium to build bones. Osteocalcin is also involved in…

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    Bisphenol A

    There is lot of information on BPA on wikipedia that talks about its use in plastics especially polycarbonates that are used in water bottle manufacturing. Polycarbonate bottles are transparent and can contain 90% BPA by mass It is not a plasticizer. The concern for its use comes from its effect as a weak xenoestrogen disrupting…