Recently scientists realize that the precise molecular arrangement within natural pathways in organisms have been highly tuned for specific processes.  Compounds can be exploited directly and vital information over how new products can be synthesized by mimicking the biochemical process.  The bright future for research and development of natural products will soon be discussed by the European Science Foundation.  Some compounds investigated have shown to be effective against the HIV virus in laboratories.

Source:
http://www.esf.org/research-areas/physical-and-engineering-sciences/news/ext-news-singleview/article/nature-inspires-new-highly-specific-drugs-and-organic-products-481.html

      The future of medicine has begun to focus on the mapping and understanding of biological interactions between molecules as systems.  By mapping out biological systems at the cellular level, scientists hope to understand the causes of disease processes as they occur.  One theory focuses on the idea of nanotechnology.  The underlying idea behind this theory is that each system that regulates our body is based upon a series of interactions between molecules, cells, and environmental influences, much like we know how our brain processes occur by the interactions between firing neurons.  It is thought that by some outside influence, or pattern of information failing to occur normally, this upset in the system will trigger incorrect processes to occur within the system, therefore causing the disease.  As our telephone game in class displayed, if one sequence is off, the normal coding process is flawed, which can cause multiple defects.  For example, an incorrect encoding of our DNA can cause the biological system to incorrectly process the information, and like a chain reaction, cause other incorrect patterns for form, leading to disease.  Environmental influences also can have a profound effect.  Ultraviolet radiation from prolonged sun exposure can cause DNA damage, thus causing an incorrect pattern to be encoded within the skin cells, producing cancer.  By mapping out our biological systems at the most basic level, cellular and molecular, we can understand the normal processes that take place in the biological system for normal and healthy operation.  Moreover, when there is an incorrect process occurring, causing cancer for example, scientists can identify this incorrect process at a very specific and focused point in our system, at the genetic, cellular, and molecular level, and correct or remove this damaged cell or DNA sequence, thus returning the system back to equilibrium and curing the disease. 

      The mapping out of our entire genetic system and each interaction that occurs within a healthy person for example is a large undertaking.  The task is to computer generate a model that understands and records EVERY DNA to RNA, cellular, molecular, and environmental influence that can alter the body’s functioning, both in a perfect and healthy setting, and those that will cause damage or dysfunction; of those in which cause dysfunction and ultimately disease or failure in the biological system, scientists will need to generate a model of each dysfunction, of each environmental influence on every interaction and how they cause the dysfunction, and finally what disease or failure will occur, and come up with a solution.   

“In the next 10 to 20 years, predictive and personalized medicine will be revolutionized by at least two new approaches. The sequence of individual human genomes will permit us to determine with ever increasing accuracy the probable future health of an individual. Inexpensive measurements of blood proteins will permit us to assess, regularly and comprehensively, how that individual’s health is evolving. 

Preventive medicine starts with the identification of proteins within a diseased network that, if perturbed, will restore network behavior to normalcy, and will eventually lead to prophylactic drugs that prevent disease. For instance, a woman at increased risk for ovarian cancer, who at age 30 starts taking a nanotherapeutic that is specially designed to offset the molecular source of the risk, might lower her lifetime chance of developing ovarian cancer from 40 to 2 percent.” (Heath, Davis, Hood, 2009).  
 
 
 

QUESTIONS 

Are there any implications or side effects of using nanotechnology that would cause a dysfunction of the systems itself? 

What would this mean for the world population if many of our diseases would become cured? 

Can this be considered our first step in fighting aging as a disease process in itself? 

Source: Scientific American
 

This article was interesting because it showed the advanced research on fruits and other foods that could help humans battle various diseases and cancers.  Although the public is less likely to buy a purple genetically modified tomato, there is great promise in the possibilities for future research.  Most people fail to get their daily dose of fruits and vegetables each day and by genetically modifying all those doses into this one purple tomato maybe people will be more likely to reach their daily amount of healthy nutrients.  There are many foods out there that can help decrease our risks of getting certain diseases, and hopefully this test will push that idea even further to make people more aware of the importance of fruits and vegetables in their diet.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126892.php

I am sure that we are all familiar with DNA and RNA – which we are thought of as the basis of life.  Studies have shown that a new peptide nucleic acid (PNA) hybrid of DNA and protein drugs would achieve therapeutic effects by binding to specific base sequences of DNA or RNA, repressing or promoting the corresponding gene.  Many studies have demonstrated PNA’s suitability for modifying gene expression, mostly in molecular test-tube experiments and in cell cultures. Studies in animals have begun, as has research on ways to transform PNA into drugs that can readily enter a person’s cells from the bloodstream.

In addition to fomenting exciting medical research, these amazing molecules have inspired speculations relating to the origin of life on earth. Some scientists have suggested that PNA or a very similar molecule may have formed the basis of an early kind of life at a time before proteins, DNA and RNA had evolved.

PNA sounds like a good idea, but I am not sure if it is stable enough to be the primary information carrier for all genes.