Mars Lander Safely touches Down

Cancer vaccine target pinpointed

Cancer vaccine target pinpointed

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7415423.stm
Dendritic cell
Dendritic cells tell the immune system what to attack

Scientists may be one step closer to producing a specific targeted vaccine for killing cancer cells.

UK researchers have pinpointed a protein on immune cells which they hope will help them harness the body's defences to attack a tumour.

A vaccine designed to "home in" on the protein would deliver a message to the immune system to attack the invading cancer, they said.

The research is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The protein is unique to a type of immune cell called a dendritic cell, which is responsible for triggering the body's defence system.


The results of this research are an important step towards understanding how to create targeted cancer vaccines in the future
Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK

Its job is to present pathogens or foreign molecules to other cells of the immune system, which in turn eliminate them.

The team at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute said scientists have been searching for proteins or "tags" on dendritic cells for over 30 years.

In theory a vaccine carrying a foreign molecule from a cancer cell could be targeted to the dendritic cells, which would then prompt the immune system to attack the "invading" cancer. The same approach could be used for treating HIV or malaria, the researchers said.

T cell army

Study leader Dr Caetano Reis e Sousa said the team had found a unique protein called DNGR-1, which could be used to deliver such a vaccine to the door of the dendritic cell.

"Vaccines work by triggering an army of immune cells, called T cells, to attack potentially dangerous foreign molecules, like those found on pathogens.

"Dendritic cells are the messengers, telling the T cells who to attack.

"Vaccines will carry a sample of the offending molecule and deliver it to DNGR-1 on the dendritic cells, which in turn will present the molecule to the armies of T cells and instruct them to attack."

Cancer Research UK's director of cancer information, Dr Lesley Walker, said: "Developing treatments that accurately target cancer and have few serious side-effects is one of Cancer Research UK's top goals.

"The results of this research are an important step towards understanding how to create targeted cancer vaccines in the future."

How secondhand smoking affects your family and environment!

Passive Smoking Effects
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http://www.chantixhome.com/passive_smoking_effects.html

How secondhand smoking affects your family and environment!








Passive smoking means the smoke in the ambience exhaled from the lungs of the smoker or the smoke that comes from a person’s burning end of cigarette, cigar or pipe and that inhaled by others. This is also known as involuntary smoking, secondhand smoking and Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS).

There are 4000 chemicals in tobacco having 100 identified poisons and 63 components that cause cancer. When the smokers are directly taking these poisons in, they are, at the same time, polluting the environment with the dangerous chemicals. Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) causes death of an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans per year due to lung cancer and 300,000 children undergo lower respiratory tract infections.

Worldwide research institutes have established the facts of short term and long term effects of environmental tobacco smoke. Let us understand these one by one;

Short Term Effects: It depends upon the susceptibility of a person to nicotine. Some can stay in a room with smokers for quite a long time apparently without being effected. Others may feel ill within a few minutes or an hour of exposure to environmental smoke.

* Asthma patients may experience attacks due to ETS exposure.
* Allergy patients experience all types of allergic symptoms like stuffy nose, watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, wheezing etc.
* Coughing
* Headache
* Nausea
* Lethargy
* People who are trying to quit feel cravings for a smoke

Long Term Effects: There are quite a number of dangerous long term effects of environmental smoke depending upon the frequency of exposure to involuntery smoking. The likelihood of below mentioned diseases are increased by frequent exposure to passive smoking.

* Risk of lung cancer
* Risk of heart disease
* Risk of miscarriages and birth defects
* Risk of developing asthma in children and adults
* Risk of ear infections
* Aggravated asthma, allergies, and other conditions
* Learning difficulty in children
* Risk of lung infection

California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) identify the consequences of passive smoking

r e a d m o r e and
s p r e a d this
m e s s a g e.
AVOID BEING FACE TO FACE WITH CHRONIC SMOKERS
AT DISTANCES LESS THAN 12 INCHES.
SEND A MESSAGE THROUGH BODY LANGUAGE THAT YOU WANT THEM TO SAVE LIVES OF NON-SMOKERS
ONLY BY QUITTING SMOKING.
YES.
WHEN YOU QUIT SMOKING, YOU SAVE NOT YOUR LIFE ALONE
BUT SAVE THE LUNGS OF OTHERS TOO !!