Human 2.0

Cancer is the number one killer in the United States, is responsible for 13% of all human deaths, and even for those it doesn’t kill it leads to a drastic decrease in quality of life.  As such, any serious discussion about improving human longevity has to start with treating and curing cancer.  Thankfully scientist don’t need us to remind them of that and have been hard at work looking for better and better ways to stop this deadly disease.  One such group is a team at the University of Florida, who have developed a new gene therapy which treats cancer by cutting of the supply of blood to the tumor.

To do this, the researchers developed what they call a “fusion protein” which was delivered into the cells by a transposon they call Sleeping Beauty.  The imbedded protein does two things: first, it promotes thrombosis, or blood clotting, and second it reduces blood vessel density inside the tumor.  Both of these effects result in the tumor receiving less nutrients.  The researchers found that in their test mice tumor volume decreased 53 percent and cancer cell growth slowed by 49 percent.

http://www.physorg.com/news163989319.html