Eh heh.

Sorry I am so lazy. :-/

I read "Into the Wild." If I ever get the ambition, I will write about it. Talk about escapist fantasies, man.

In the sciencey bits, I am reading about CML, which is some sort of leukemia, and I can't remember what the other letters stand for, but it results from a chromosomal translocation that fuses two genes together (called the Philadelphia Chromosome, I remember that much). This sort of thing usually happens from RADIATION EXPOSURE. Anyway, this particular fusion results in a constitutively active kinase, which basically means that the gene has been truncated by the fusion, and it used to be self-inhibited, and now it is active all the time, turning all sorts of shit on, like a naughty toddler or something.

And suddenly, I am distracted by The Beatles "Something" that is playing right now, because I am all sentimental lately. Something of an honest confusing love song. (I do not suggest watching the video, it takes away from the lyrics, I think)

ANYWAYS. Um, so theres this kinase running amuck, that is normally involved in regulating the cell cycle and inhibiting the apoptotic pathway (which leads to CELL DEATH) upon DNA damage (that might occur upon radiation exposure). So you see, the kinase normally is involved in killing off sick cells that have DNA damage and may turn cancerous. When it is doing things wrongly, the cells don't die, and they proliferate uncontrollably, and in this case, you get all sorts of crazy unnecessary blood cells being made in the bone marrow, and I'm not really sure of the mechanism, but it eventually leads to death.

SOOOOOO, this is a success story, because someone figured, Dude, let's just inhibit the kinase. And they were able to develop/find a specific enough inhibitor that you are just inhibiting this particular kinase and not all the other ones that have to do other normal things. BTW, kinases are responsible for putting a phosphate group on particular amino acids on proteins. (I really am so out of touch with what terms laymen know, so this probably makes no sense to anyone outside the field. But oh well, thats what Wikipedia is for.) So, they actually have a super awesome, specific drug for this form of cancer. Honestly, if you were to get a cancer, I would choose this one. Cancers are a**-scary, but its nice that this one makes so much sense.

IN ANY CASE, one of the people involved in this whole saga, Jean Wang, is coming to give a talk next week and that is why I'm learning about sh*t, because I have to, because I'm on a training grant and this is what is expected of me. But it's pretty cool.

In other news, my car developed a nasty brake fluid leak and I think I am getting ripped off by the car mechanic man, but there is not much I can do about that now.

In some even more remote news, that is related to escapist fantasies, I am daydreaming about flying away to Munich, because it is less than $400 to get there, see. But this whole paying for expensive car repairs thing is not very conducive to that sort of thing. Ah well.

I might also mention that citing so many wikipedia articles is bad form for a scientist, but honestly, we all look at wikipedia. YOU MUST TRUST IN YOUR FELLOW MAN.