Ian C. Ellul

As I was in the lobby of a hotel awaiting a colleague to discuss a preliminary agreement between her professional association and The Synapse, I came across an article which highlighted the use of Quantum Dots to tag DNA-repair Proteins. Apparently researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Essex and the University of Vermont have proposed that repair proteins appear to efficiently scan the genome for errors by jumping like fleas between DNA molecules, sliding along the strands, and perhaps pausing at suspicious spots. Obviously the relevance of these findings lie in the fact that in humans, approximately 107 cells divide per second with estimates suggesting that spontaneous mutations arise in about a third of those cells.

 

The researchers tagged two repair proteins, UvrA and UvrB, with quantum dots, which are semi-conductor nanocrystals that light up in different colours. They also stretched the usually clumped DNA to see the process more clearly. They watched while UvrA proteins randomly jumped from one DNA molecule to the next, holding on to one spot for about 7 seconds before hopping to another site. However when UvrA formed a complex with two UvrB molecules, a new and more efficient search technique emerged: the complex slid along the DNA tightrope for as long as 40 seconds before detaching itself and jumping to another molecule. The findings are available in Molecular Cell of last month.

 

Further research published last February details how capping quantum dots with mannose or galactosamine makes these quantum dots accumulate in the liver but not other parts of the body. That selective targeting could be used to deliver drugs to one organ, without causing the systemic adverse reactions which occur with existing drugs. To date, researchers still have not found an ideal way to target these dots to specific tissues or organs.

 

These two different yet related examples highlight the many complimentary facets of medicine. Adding new platform technologies (to developing ones such as stem cell therapy and monoclonal cell therapy) to target disease is obviously further enhanced by a deeper knowledge of existing self-repairing mechanisms. It is only by using this binary system of research and development that we can develop better armamentarium to target selected diseases such as oncology. This is even more relevant in drug-resistant or refractory cases in selected subpopulations such as paediatric nongerminomatous malignant germ cell tumors.

 

It is indeed a point of personal contempt that even though we have been around for thousands of years (and taking into account selective sweeps) it is only recently that we have started to edge nearer to feasible and effective applications of quantum nanotechnology in medicine. Presumably this revolves around the fact that during the last decades funding in research and development (and locally we are not immune to this) has always been sorely lacking. If one thinks on this, this may not only depend on lack of funds. Sometimes it is a pandemic which is draining our research coffers, whilst other causes can be a recession … or maybe even a white elephant.

 

However, of one thing I am sure. This year will herald even more exciting discoveries … maybe drawing us nearer to developing a magic bullet technology …