Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP, forms what is often referred to as a ‘second skeleton’. This disease causes the body to, often when damaged, form new bone. The formation of new bones disrupts the body’s normal functions and can cause a host of problems. Joints that were previously flexible can become locked in place by …
The described article can be found here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.biochem.8b00092 Recently in this course, we discussed the important of both cystathionine β-synthase (CBS) and cystathionine β-lyase in generating H2S. H2S floats around and sulfhydrates proteins, chemically altering them in important ways. Sulfhydration itself may even be as prevalent as nitrosylation, a long studied and well-understood post-translational modification. Without …
After diving into the literature of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), I have begun to understand this debilitating disease. The sources I have collected will be placed into the following broad categories. Clinical FOP To craft a presentation of this body of literature that will be accessible to a wide audience, I will need to start …
The paper described below can be found here: http://jem.rupress.org/content/early/2018/02/13/jem.20171831 Within the last week, Hu et. al. published a paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine that has been plastered all across the internet as a way to “reverse Alzheimer’s”. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States./ The disease …
To treat disease, we must first have a grasp of the disease’s pathology and mechanism of action. A general understanding of the reactions involved is critical in efficiently designing an efficacious drug or treatment. On one end of this spectrum is smallpox. Smallpox is an infectious disease caused by the virus Variola major. It resulted …
Fatty acid beta-oxidation (FAO) is an instrumental process in metabolism. This process begins by transportation of the fatty acyl-CoA molecules into the mitochondria. Carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1 (CPT1) replaces the acetyl-CoA group with a carnitine group, and the fatty acid carnitine is able to use a transport protein the cross the membrane. After crossing, a …
Biochemistry is essential for a thorough understanding of biological systems, as well as chemical phenomena. The melding of both biology and chemistry provides insights that neither would be able to provide independently. Novel insights gained from this discipline contribute to not only other disciplines, such as molecular biology, immunology, organic chemistry, and genetics, but to …
