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Nanoparticle chomps away plaques that cause heart attacks:
Michigan State University and Stanford University scientists have invented a nanoparticle that eats away—from the inside out—portions of plaques that cause heart attacks.
Bryan Smith, associate professor of biomedical engineering at MSU, and a team of scientists created a "Trojan Horse" nanoparticle that can be directed to eat debris, reducing and stabilizing plaque. The discovery could be a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, a leading cause of death in the United States.
The results, published in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology, showcases the nanoparticle that homes in on atherosclerotic plaque due to its high selectivity to a particular immune cell type—monocytes and macrophages. Once inside the macrophages in those plaques, it delivers a drug agent that stimulates the cell to engulf and eat cellular debris. Basically, it removes the diseased/dead cells in the plaque core. By reinvigorating the macrophages, plaque size is reduced and stabilized.
[...] "We found we could stimulate the macrophages to selectively eat dead and dying cells—these inflammatory cells are precursor cells to atherosclerosis—that are part of the cause of heart attacks," Smith said. "We could deliver a small molecule inside the macrophages to tell them to begin eating again."
[...] "We were able to marry a groundbreaking finding in atherosclerosis by our collaborators with the state-of-the-art selectivity and delivery capabilities of our advanced nanomaterial platform. We demonstrated the nanomaterials were able to selectively seek out and deliver a message to the very cells needed," Smith said. "It gives a particular energy to our future work, which will include clinical translation of these nanomaterials using large animal models and human tissue tests. We believe it is better than previous methods."
Smith has filed a provisional patent and will begin marketing it later this year.
Journal Reference:
Alyssa M. Flores et al. Pro-efferocytic nanoparticles are specifically taken up by lesional macrophages and prevent atherosclerosis$, Nature Nanotechnology (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0619-3)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29 2020, @11:11PM (1 child)
Different AC here. I give credit to Buzzard for at least adding that to the moderator guidelines rather than it being an unwritten rule. I have concerns about how its implemented, but it's not inherently unfair like it is to impose substantial penalties when people violate unwritten standards. The wording is intentionally vague, so as to not allow people to spam the site while technically complying with the letter of the law. APK comes to mind, when he spammed Slashdot and would carefully craft posts just so he could sneak them past the lameness filter.
I see two problems with banning repetitive posts and subjecting them to the spam mod. One is that there isn't a clear distinction between modding posts spam or redundant. Blockquoting large amounts of the text from another comment with very limited original content could justifiably be modded redundant if such a comment is only posted once. Posting the same thing ten times is far less defensible. The other issue deserves more elaboration and depends on what constitutes repetitive posts.
One can easily argue that Ethanol-fueled's posts are often not constructive and can be very repetitive. He does have a habit of blaming Jews and other minorities very little of substance to the discussion. His comments are frequently defended as political satire or garden variety trolling, leading to multiple spam mods against him being overturned. I'm not saying that Ethanol-fueled's comments should or should not be modded spam, but pointing out the ambiguity in the rule and why it's unlikely to prevent further disputes over the spam mod.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @12:04AM
As for EthanolFueled, I posted a suggestion elsewhere in the discussion that makes the whole section 230 concern go away - verified users posts are permanent, and they can moderate. Pseudo-anonymous and anonymous posts are deleted after a certain number of hours and pseudo-anonymous users can't moderate, so no sock puppeteer moderation.
Most questionable content would self destruct after a while, so anyone who has a valid complaint will be satisfied with it being gone. Questionable posts from verified users can be investigated and if the site operators consider it's over the line, take action against the user (anything from a warning to a timeout to a permanent ban). Or if they feel the post doesn't violate site guidelines, they can tell the user to file a complaint with the police. Most won't.
EthanolFueled and others would simply see it heir posts disappear automatically, after, say, 3 hours. If they were required to use their real identity, they might want to reconsider the repercussions of their posts in the real world. And if not, face the social and legal consequences. No loss of freedom of speech, just a loss of permanence for non-validated posts, and an obligation to face the consequences of ill-advised speech.
And for the site operators, less work.
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