Breakthroughs Today

SOMETIMES I cannot believe what medical science and technology have reached today. But surprises are many, perhaps too many to count, or to seek in order to appreciate the exact number. One of these medical surprises is aspirin. Yes, aspirin, or what we know chemically as acetylsalicylic acid. It is originally used as a pain-reliever, a fever-reducer, and an anti-inflammatory. But many decades ago, it came to be used in certain cardiovascular conditions, such as heart attacks, strokes, and blood clotting disorders, because of its anti-platelet effect. It produces a substance called thromboxane, which under normal conditions binds platelet molecules together, making it unavailable to create blood clots that can cause recurrence of heart attack, for instance. Just recently, in its July 23 issue, the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama), published a study involving three researchers—Andrew Chan, Shuji Ogino, and Charles Fuchs. Chan is a gastroenterologist at the Massachuse

IN THE more than 30 years of cancer research, there have been serious efforts in determining the connection between cancer development and calorie intake. But most of those years were spent in laboratory experiments using animal models. We still have to look for a human trial to support their findings. So much, however, has been learned since then. And the stage is set for a Phase 0 Clinical Trial to follow. Phase 0 is a recent addition in the process, designed for first-in-human trials in microdosing (intake in minute doses), and conducted in accordance with the United States Food and Drug Administration’s 2006 Guidance on Exploratory Investigational New Drug Studies. These three decades of research found out that... ( Read more. ) This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu on 15 September 2010. 

SLEEP that knits up the raveled sleave of care The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast. William Shakespeare’s lines from Macbeth hold the common opinion that sleep is very important for recuperation, stress management, and a better condition of life. A multidisciplinary study involving eight researchers in the field of medicine, public health, medical technology, and psychology found that sleep deprivation reduces working memory capacity (WMC), and results to increased math, accuracy and speed errors. Previous studies found no serious impact on fine manual skills (e.g. surgery) an acute fatigue due to a 24 or 30 work-hour day without sleep in a four-day cycle. Of the increased errors observed, those in math... ( Read more . ) This article is published in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 8 September 2010.  

IF YOU happen to believe that chance-happenings take place only to those who are more religious than scientific, then you need to read more into the lives of scientists and inventors. Mark Twain, the father of American literature, believed that the greatest of all inventors is “accident.” Wordsmiths call it “serendipity.” Still, look at anything around you—the bouncy silly putty, the sticky superglue, the transparent cellophane, the antibiotic penicillin—you name it, they all came from happy accidents. Even Viagra came out from an accident... ( Read more .)  This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 1 September 2010.

Using more than 200 samples collected from 17 deepwater sites between May 25 and June 2, scientists led by Terry Hazen reported on 24 August 2010 that they found a dominant microbe in the oil plume which turned out to be a new species, closely related to members of Oceanospirillales . It thrives in cold water, with temperatures in the deep recorded at 5 degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit). Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory noticed this suddenly flourishing bacteria at the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Although still unknown and unnamed, the microbe consumed oil droplets found underwater without significantly depleting oxygen in the water. Oxygen saturation outside the oil plume was 67 percent, while that within the plume was still 59 percent. Oil-eating microbes that consume large amounts of oxygen in the water can potentially create a "dead zone," an area where no oxygen was available, which is dangerous to other life underwater. (Photo by Associated

WILBUR Lincoln Scoville may not be your normal hot guy with his keen interest in chemistry. (Still I haven’t met someone who loved chemistry other than those who are passionate about it. Like mathematics, chemistry is a love it or hate it thing. Few like it in high school and fewer still goes for it in college.) But in the quest for defining minute characteristics of chemicals that means something to ordinary human beings like most of us, Scoville certainly blazes the road he set for future generations. And providing a measure of hotness in chili was only one of many. Well, in 1912, while working for Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company, he devised the test and scale to measure piquancy (hotness) of chili peppers. But for this and his other achievements, he won the 1922 Ebert prize, the 1929 Remington Honor Medal, and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Columbia University in the same year. The test bore Scoville’s name, and he called it then the Scoville Organoleptic Test. Late

I WATCHED Ninja Assassin lately, and I am impressed with the discipline against physical pain that this film talks about. That makes me understand the wisdom in Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa’s words: “We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” The approaches between these two schools of thought, however, differ. The ninjas (in the movie) believe in the stoic way of killing the pain, so the will can gain full control of the body. Miyazawa proposed the opposite—embrace pain and let it become an intense fuel to propel one’s life. Well, in healthcare both physical and mental, pain has its important role, too. Primarily pain warns a person about... ( Read more . )   This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 18 August 2010.