THE MURINE CHRONICLES

Linda pretending to be snookered on our Norwegian cruise, 2004

Sometimes I think that the name for this blog ought to be “The Murine Chronicles”, not “Myrl’sBlog”.  Sure, it is written by Myrl, but much of the time it’s about things we humans do to mice and rats.  This posting is strong to rats.

There is a gene known as RAS which is complicit in many kinds of cancer.  When not mutated it produces a protein (RAS), which serves as a signal within cells, telling them when not to divide.  If mutated, RAS can’t do its job and the cell multiplies like sin to produce, in some cases, cancer.  RAS, therefore, is a “proto-onco gene”, one of the worst.  Clearly, if we could develop a drug to prevent screwed-up RAS proteins from doing damage, we’d be way ahead. 

Oh, maybe here is where I should tell you where the name RAS comes from.  Rat sarcoma.  RAS was discovered by abusing our friend, the brown rat.

Well, all this has been common knowledge for more than a decade, and majestic piles of money, effort – and rats – have been expended on developing a drug to counter the malign effect of mutated RAS, to little effect.  Odd though it seems, drugs like this work by “binding” to the subject bad-acting molecule.  Binding requires a precise shape; your missile of death has to fit precisely into some irregularity on the surface of its target.  And not just any old irregularity; as I understand it, it should be the misshapen hole that is causing the trouble!

Hell, I am in way over my head.  Read this link; it is short, relatively easy to understand, and informative. 

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/02/13/kras-targeted-cancer-strategy-shows-early-promise/

And thank God for your little murine friends.