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I was watching an episode of Nova last night, and an interesting story came up. It wasn't the one I had been watching the program for, but it gave me room for thought...
The start of this began with an experiment with flowers. I don't recall which kind off the top of my head, but the genetic engineer had some really nice purple slowers. In an effort to make them even more purple, he introduced the color gene into the mix again, making it double what it normally was. Result: white flowers, no color. What may have happened was that the RNA instructions had the blueprint for the purple gene combined with a mirror image blueprint of the color gene.
So this was the upshot of all this: apparently, our cells have some sort of RNA sentry that looks for this sort of thing, and already has instructions to destroy those blueprint combinations and anything like them.
So... what does this mean? It means that through RNA viruses that contain this mirror-image blueprint, various ailments could possibly be lessened, if not eradicated.
Case in point: part of the story dealt with an elderly woman who was going blind from macular degeneration, caused by too many blood vessels behind the retina. The RNA treatment she received basically had the RNA sentry destroy any of the instructions to create new blood vessels. Through this, the number of blood vessels decreased, and her vision began to return. Not completely, but she can see better than she could before her treatment.
Scientists believe that this sort of treatment can help those suffering from other ailments, like arthritis, cancer, HIV, and the like.
My question is: would it be able to help someone like me with IBD/colitis?
I hope so.
And I'll be one of the first in line to volunteer for it.
The start of this began with an experiment with flowers. I don't recall which kind off the top of my head, but the genetic engineer had some really nice purple slowers. In an effort to make them even more purple, he introduced the color gene into the mix again, making it double what it normally was. Result: white flowers, no color. What may have happened was that the RNA instructions had the blueprint for the purple gene combined with a mirror image blueprint of the color gene.
So this was the upshot of all this: apparently, our cells have some sort of RNA sentry that looks for this sort of thing, and already has instructions to destroy those blueprint combinations and anything like them.
So... what does this mean? It means that through RNA viruses that contain this mirror-image blueprint, various ailments could possibly be lessened, if not eradicated.
Case in point: part of the story dealt with an elderly woman who was going blind from macular degeneration, caused by too many blood vessels behind the retina. The RNA treatment she received basically had the RNA sentry destroy any of the instructions to create new blood vessels. Through this, the number of blood vessels decreased, and her vision began to return. Not completely, but she can see better than she could before her treatment.
Scientists believe that this sort of treatment can help those suffering from other ailments, like arthritis, cancer, HIV, and the like.
My question is: would it be able to help someone like me with IBD/colitis?
I hope so.
And I'll be one of the first in line to volunteer for it.
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