SOME DULL BIOLOGY. Read it anyway.

Heron Island, Maine

2009

HERE are some useful facts:

                Amino acids are organic molecules.  There are 20 different types.  They have names like tyrosine and glutamine.  They all contain a carboxyl group (CO₂^-) and an amino group (NH₂₎).  They differ in what are called “side chains”.

                Proteins are long strings of amino acids.  The sequence of amino acids in a protein determines its shape, which in turn determines its function.

                The amino acids in a protein are held together by something called a peptide bond.  In chemistry, “bonds” stick things together. How it occurs in this particular instance is of no earthly interest to us.

                Because proteins are strings of amino acids held together by peptide bonds, sometimes they are called polypeptides

Polypeptides may have hundreds or thousands of peptide bonds; the ones we are going to discuss have five.

Now, wasn’t that fascinating?

Having written the above, I took the trouble to actually READ the article that inspired it, and guess what?  I needn’t have bothered.  Here, see for yourself:

  http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-03-small-peptides-ovarian-cancer-fronts.html

Here is the gist.  Scientists from Boston, Norway and Cornell have developed a new prospective weapon against ovarian cancer.  Back in 2009 they determined that a protein called prosaposin was effective in blocking angiogenesis (formation of blood vessels) and inflammation in the “microenvironment” of solid tumors.  From this stuff (prosaposin) they extracted a five-amino acid chunk  they call a psaptide.  .  Then they modified this little devil in two different ways, both of which make it more potent. This psaptide works by “stimulating” some substance called thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1), which does the actual work; kill cancer cells

I love these medical words: they drive Spellcheck crazy.

Anyway, many mice have died and the method looks promising.  Make it so!