newscientist.com— Antibodies made entirely from plastic have saved the lives of mice injected with bee venom – the first time such a strategy has worked in live animals.
Jun 13, 2010View in Crawl 4
he's really short sited thats all. if he was in a different part in history, he would have been one of those 'oh this new penicillin is interesting but has limited uses. the body likely wont absorb it and it wont provide any protection to infection, but might be good use as a sterilizer for utensils."
"short sited". Right. I thought I explained how I thought this new technique could be adapted and expanded in the future - see the entire second paragraph of my post. My point was that it's limited right now (like any new technology) but has the potential to become far more useful in the future. And jesusfreak, it can create an antidote for toxins which obviously could be very helpful in some situations. However toxins are generally brought into the bloodstream via a sting/bite/ingestion, or (more commonly) continually released by bacteria as part of an infection. What I was saying is that although this might be useful for toxins that are introduced to the body in a single event, it is far less helpful for treatment of bacterial infections and so really (at this stage) has only a limited application for treating animal bites or stings instead of a wider range of toxic diseases. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, I'm just trying to be realistic about the current limitations of a new discovery. That's not to say this can't develop into something far more useful in the future.
limited? just being an antidote to many toxins has huge applications. the technology could be adapted to trigger/attach to viruses, or attach to cancer cells allowing other treatments to pinpoint and destroy them. it possibly has applications in diabetes and alzheimers as well. Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
enterresJun 13, 2010
A long solar minimum with a high chance of solar flares powerful enough to cause blackouts, at least.
jantikJun 14, 2010
If we could encapsulate fat this way we could pee away our obesity problem.
autokadJun 14, 2010
they prolly cured every known ailment possible to mice by now, sucks eh :P
autokadJun 14, 2010
he's really short sited thats all. if he was in a different part in history, he would have been one of those 'oh this new penicillin is interesting but has limited uses. the body likely wont absorb it and it wont provide any protection to infection, but might be good use as a sterilizer for utensils."
c106Jun 14, 2010
"short sited". Right. I thought I explained how I thought this new technique could be adapted and expanded in the future - see the entire second paragraph of my post. My point was that it's limited right now (like any new technology) but has the potential to become far more useful in the future. And jesusfreak, it can create an antidote for toxins which obviously could be very helpful in some situations. However toxins are generally brought into the bloodstream via a sting/bite/ingestion, or (more commonly) continually released by bacteria as part of an infection. What I was saying is that although this might be useful for toxins that are introduced to the body in a single event, it is far less helpful for treatment of bacterial infections and so really (at this stage) has only a limited application for treating animal bites or stings instead of a wider range of toxic diseases. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, I'm just trying to be realistic about the current limitations of a new discovery. That's not to say this can't develop into something far more useful in the future.
autokadJun 14, 2010
the lolcats will not be pleased
ddraigJun 14, 2010
My question is what is the liver function on these mice? Inject plastic into my body on purpose? I don't think so.
autokadJun 14, 2010
limited? just being an antidote to many toxins has huge applications. the technology could be adapted to trigger/attach to viruses, or attach to cancer cells allowing other treatments to pinpoint and destroy them. it possibly has applications in diabetes and alzheimers as well. Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.