SYNERGY

Linda and Mitzi take a nap

I like to think that I have a pretty good vocabulary.  When I was a kid my parents subscribed to Reader’s Digest, which often featured a section called “It Pays to Increase your Word Power”.  This consisted of 20 unusual words, each with multiple possible meanings – you were supposed to pick the right ones.  I used to compete at that with my dad; he usually won, but I hung close.

So, even today, I wince whenever I run on a word usage that is unfamiliar.  I ran on two such just now.  The first is “synergy”.  I know what it means – roughly, two or more things working together that produce a result greater than the sum of the individual contributions – but I have to stop and think about it.  The other is “inform”.  To me, to “inform” is to squeal on your class mate who has been firing spit-balls at the back of the teacher’s neck.  However, it also can refer to facts bolstering a proposition, as “the laws of physics inform the proposition that, if I turn suddenly and bump this coffee cup with my elbow it will spill all over the floor.”

Well, the article recommended (below) use both of those words, plus a few medical terms that might be unfamiliar.  It concerns a bright young man who has just received a handsome grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue his study of the synergistic effect of employing low-intensity radiation together with an immunotherapy drug to combat cancer.  How it works is a bit of a mystery to your old blogmeister, but it may go something like this.  Irradiate a tumor with X-rays and you will kill a lot of its cells by disrupting their DNA.  Some will survive, however, but may react as if they have been invaded by a DNA virus, causing them to display on their surfaces a type of protein that hollers out “come and kill me” to the immune system – which responds appropriately.  There also is some synergistic effect involving things called Tregs, which I don’t understand.

All this is informed by previous research performed by this bright young man – his name is Zachary Morris, and he now is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin. 

By the way:  I strongly recommend the NIH  Director’s Blog (which Google), from which this stuff was taken.  You can sign up for automatic delivery to your email account.   It only shows up once/week or so, so it won’t clutter your inbox.

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/04/05/creative-minds-optimizing-radio-immunotherapy/