Category: Germs

A New Look at Biology, Drug Development, Germs, Sleep

Beyond Drugs

Other than surgery, drugs are mainstays of disease therapy. We take chemicals to treat ourselves, but why is that? Why chemical, as opposed to light, ultrasound, electricity, odors, or some other type of intervention? The reason is that plants, from which most of our drugs come, have spent millions of years engaged in medicinal chemistry, and have created some of the most potent biological molecules.

But there are exceptions. For example, one group at Harvard recently published that exposing mice to flashing lights cleared beta amyloid plaque in the brain. This was likely because the flashing light drove gamma oscillations in the brain. Continue reading “Beyond Drugs” →

A New Look at Biology, Germs

Diabetes Drugs for Alzheimer’s Disease?

A recently published paper reported that combination of three diabetes drugs (GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon) improved memory in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s. This is quite remarkable, but not shocking.

There are several competing theories of Alzheimer’s disease. There is the all-but-discredited theory of beta amyloid. I would like to still believe in this theory, having been a proponent of this theory for several years at Elan. It is a compelling theory for several reasons. First, the familial forms of Alzheimer’s disease have mutations that increase beta amyloid. Second, you can cause Alzheimer’s by injecting beta amyloid into the brain. Third, transgenic mouse models targeting beta amyloid can reproduce some of the symptoms of the disease. But unfortunately, data from multiple studies have shown that the theory is incorrect. It is difficult to admit that so much beautiful science (much of it done at Elan) can be so wrong but I think it may be. Continue reading “Diabetes Drugs for Alzheimer’s Disease?” →

A New Look at Biology, Drug Development, Germs, New Discoveries

Colon Cancer and Bacteria

The bacteria called Fusobacterium nucleatum plays an important role in causing gingivitis and periodontal disease. It is also found in the placenta. Gingivitis is an interesting disease, because people who have gingivitis also tend to have higher risk of a number of other problems, such as diabetes and heart disease. It has been a long-running debate whether gingivitis causes these other diseases or whether it’s just a non-causal correlation.

Into that debate drops this bombshell: a paper recently published in Nature just reported that Fusobacterium, which was previously reported to be found in many patients with colon cancer and to induce tumors (in this paper, they show the bacteria recruit immune cells to the tumor, which is very very bad Continue reading “Colon Cancer and Bacteria” →

A New Look at Biology, Drug Development, Germs, New Discoveries

Rosacea and Tiny Mites

Mites scare me.

When I was an undergrad, working on fruit flies (I would sit in a coldroom, which was essentially a big refrigerator, injecting fruit fly eggs with a tiny glass needle I blew myself, making some of the very early transgenic fruit flies), mite infestations would occasionally sweep through the lab, killing hundreds of thousands of fruit flies. Some of the flies represented years of work by students and postdocs.

Which brings us to rosacea. Continue reading “Rosacea and Tiny Mites” →

A New Look at Biology, Aging and (Im)mortality, Germs

Why Do We Age? Because of Parasites. Or, the Red King Theory

So there’s this paper I’ve been trying to get published for a little while. It lays out my hypothesis for why we age. You can see the preprint here on the bioRxiv server. The journal editors really don’t seem to like it, probably because it is completely against the grain of current thinking, although a handful of people who have seen it on bioRxiv seem to like it quite a bit.

In the past, I had never been that interested in aging, because I get depressed when I think about degenerative diseases. I think it comes from when I was training as a doctor and I would see patient after patient with hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. The older doctors taught me that our job was not to cure these patients–that was impossible–but to slow down the inevitable progression of these diseases. I didn’t like that. I like to fix people, I like to fix problems, I like to fix companies.

But my interest was piqued when I read a review article in Science couple of years ago that declared that it was just a matter of time before we could reverse aging. Continue reading “Why Do We Age? Because of Parasites. Or, the Red King Theory” →

A New Look at Biology, Biological Insights, Germs

Hand of God or A Viral Shockwave?

Let’s talk about what happened when Europeans first tried to settle North America. They failed and never came back. The entire Eastern seaboard was covered Native American farms and there was hardly a fertile spot left. And the Native Americans overwhelmed the settlers and drove them out.

I am, of course, talking about the Vikings who tried to settle Newfoundland and failed.

Continue reading “Hand of God or A Viral Shockwave?” →

A New Look at Biology, Biological Insights, Germs

If You Can’t Culture It, It Doesn’t Exist

We were taught in medical school that the bladder was sterile. That’s because urine is sterile. So naturally, so is the bladder, right?

Wrong. It turns out that there are numerous organisms in the bladder, and that probiotics that might change the microbiome in the bladder may enhance effectiveness of chemotherapy for bladder cancer.

The reason we thought bladder was sterile is Continue reading “If You Can’t Culture It, It Doesn’t Exist” →