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| Science & Technology |
| Chicken feathers can be used to reduce hair loss and nausea from chemotherapy - study |
| 2024-06-02 |
| [Jpost] Chicken feathers, especially those on the wings that are left over after machines fail to pluck them all, are a pain in the neck to remove. But amazingly, this plumage can be used for a useful purpose. Chemistry experts at the famed Kings College London and the Francis Crick Institute have developed a new drug-deliver technique using proline, an amino acid found in chicken feathers and skin tissue that could be utilized to minimize the side effects of chemotherapy and repair important enzymes. Just published in the journal Chem under the title “Metal-Peptidic Cages – Helical Oligoprolines Generate Highly Anisotropic Nanospaces with Emergent Isomer Control,” the study explains how Dr. Charlie McTernan and colleagues have created a cage (a box made of single molecules) from biologically compatible peptides, which are short amino acids that form the basis of proteins. These cages can house drugs of different sizes and transport them in the body with high levels of precision. The negative side effects associated with chemotherapy, such nerve damage and the loss of hair caused by toxicity in which the treatment kills healthy, rapidly dividing cells surrounding tumors and the tumor itself. By creating a nano-sized cage to house the drug and carry it into the malignancy before releasing it, this effect can be targeted directly at the tumor, protecting healthy cells. Proline is very rigid and straight in shape, while also being soluble in water, which makes it uniquely suited for drug delivery, since water makes up more than half of the human body. By binding the peptide to small amounts of metal such as palladium, the researchers could create a structure they could rapidly increase or decrease in size. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #2 Good news - it’s probably already in chicken hot dogs. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2024-06-02 11:15 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2024-06-02 11:03 |