University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. "Bacterial Product Isolated in Soil from Easter Island Rescues Learning, Memory in Alzheimer's Mouse Model." ScienceDaily. 8 March 2010. 8 March 2010
The article, “Bacterial Product Isolated in Soil from Easter Island Rescues Learning, Memory in Alzheimer’s mouse model,” discussed a new use found for a drug found in the soil of Easter Island. This drug, Rapamycin, has previously been used for many other medical purposes, but in the latest test, it was proven to rescue learning and memory loss in a mouse with the likes of Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists were able to observe these results by feeding Rapamycin to mice with a disease like Alzheimer’s for 10 weeks. The scientists used the Morris water maze to test the mice’s memory and their learning. At the end of the test, Scientists learned that the drug had in fact treated the mice’s equivalent of Alzheimer’s. Through brain scans, scientists also learned that the Rapamycin also reduced brain lesions, or damage, with likeness to those lesions found in the brains of humans who have died from Alzheimer’s. While scientists are still unsure whether this new test will successfully help patients fight Alzheimer’s, they are hopeful, and want to move forward with new tests quickly.
This test could very well have a huge impact on our lives. Alzheimer’s is a very tragic, heartbreaking disease that many people today suffer from severely. Test such as this one are important, because finding a cure to diseases such as Alzheimer’s can save thousands of lives. This newfound use of Rapamycin has the potential to help the medical world and people suffering from Alzheimer’s significantly.
I really enjoyed reading this article, because I think that people should be educated about medical breakthroughs such as this one. Finding a cure to Alzheimer’s would be a huge achievement, and as I already stated it would greatly help many people. Other than just being about an important topic, I thought that the article was well written. It was easy enough to understand, and thoroughly explained the depth and the importance of this new discovery.
In her review of this article, Rosalie did a great job of describing what this drug is and how it is used. She also did a good job of describing how the drug was tested and why it might work on humans. She did a good job of describing how this drug could affect society.
ReplyDeleteI think this review could have been better if she described exactly what is it that the drug does and how it does it. This review also could have been better if she quoted some of the original article to really give us a feel of what it is about.
Before reading this article I was not really aware that there was this much progress towards curing Alzheimer’s.