National Cancer Institute

Cystic Fibrosis What is Cystic Fibrosis? Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease that is one of the most common and lethal. The disease is usually noticeable in the victim by the age of 3 and impairs their ability to breathe and digest normally. This genetic disease is caused by a mutation of the CFTR gene (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator). Everyone does have this gene, but only when it is mutated can it cause Cystic Fibrosis. Normally, the CFTR gene produces a protein whose job…

that having freckles could bring the possibilities of having skin cancer. Based on a video interview made to Dr. Jablonski—an American anthropologist and palaeobiologist, she said that “freckles are like cancer factories because feel melanin is producing negative chemicals”(“Freckles: Evolutionary Advantage or 'Cancer Factories"). Eventually, making people fearful of getting “the MC1R gene that somehow can play a role in the cancer initiation or growth” (Healy). In other words, when it comes to…

In just 9 months a single cell, no bigger than a speck, of dust transforms into the most sophisticated organism on the plane, a human fetus. It all begins with the moment of fertilization, but days after it can take the most unexpected turn. Any tiny change or mutation in a gene can cause genetic disorders once you are born. It’s possible to inherit a gene mutation from one or both parents or, a condition caused by a DNA abnormality. There are so many rare conditions that are still being…

Vitiligo is an illness that was discovered early in the history. There are a lot of civilizations and religions had some opinion about the deficiency of pigmentation in the human body. "Small blemish" was the first and old name that is related to vitiligo more than 1500 years. In the 1879, Moritz Kaposi was the first one who discovered the lack of pigment granules of the vitiligo. In the last century, the name Vitiligo has been used to explain the illness process of losing the pigment cells.…

Sorafenib: Sorafenib is used as targeted therapy for those patients affected by papillary thyroid cancer or medullary thyroid cancer. In a phase III trial, patients were subjected to a double blind, randomized experiment, in which patients were effectively treated with surgery or RAI previously. However, these eligible patients had distant metastatic sites, and were RAI-refractory, which are remnants of cancerous tumors found elsewhere in the body that were not treated in their previous…

Background: Emergency thoracotomy is a rare but lifesaving procedure in victims of chest trauma especially with penetrating wounds. In the United States, 9 percent of all trauma-related deaths occur from injuries to the thorax, of which one-third involve a penetrating mechanism. In an internal survey, 80% of cardiothoracic surgeons felt that special training is required and only 7% reported that they regularly practice emergency thoracotomy in arrest. We plan to develop an emergency thoracotomy…

Introduction: Sparse evidence outline whose infections are responsible for hospital admission in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Their location, severity and prognosis are unknown. Our aim was to characterize infections requiring hospitalization in MS patients. Methods: We performed a retrospective study of MS patients admitted to our hospital between 2006 and 2014. We collected information about MS characteristics, location and severity of infection, need for Intermediate/Intensive Care Units (ICU)…

our own lives. When Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, he had no choice but to face his own mortality. Doctors told him it was an incurable form of cancer, and that his days on Earth were now limited. During Jobs’s 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, he commented that this was the closest he had ever come to facing death. Fortunately, during a biopsy later on it was discovered that the pancreatic cancer was a very rare type that could be cured through surgery.…

Writing Assignment 1: Description of Unknown Mutant Allele Phenotype Subtle differences were observed after comparing all body parts of mutant and a wild type D. Melanogaster. It was discovered that normal venation pattern was disrupted in mutant D. Melanogaster. The phenotype mutation (vein pattern) of D. Melanogaster was identified with a different degree of expressivity in mutant D. Melanogaster; this was achieved by differentiating the single line (longitudinal vein 5) on a wild-type wing…

In the article "Schizophrenia begins in the womb, study suggests" by Honor Whiteman on the Medical News Today discusses the research devoted to Schizophrenia. The article talks about the abnormal gene labeled FGFR1 that can impair brain development early on. The scientists believe that this research could then find treatments and maybe prevent schizophrenia in the utero. Treatments such as giving pregnant women a drug that could prevent the process developing in the fetus. They discuss that…