{"id":38978,"date":"2011-09-04T15:44:28","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T15:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/genetic-logic-circuit-makes-cells-self-destruct-if-they-look-cancerous-not-exactly-rocket-science\/"},"modified":"2011-09-04T15:44:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T15:44:28","slug":"genetic-logic-circuit-makes-cells-self-destruct-if-they-look-cancerous-not-exactly-rocket-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/genetic-logic-circuit-makes-cells-self-destruct-if-they-look-cancerous-not-exactly-rocket-science.php","title":{"rendered":"Genetic logic circuit makes cells self-destruct if they look cancerous | Not Exactly Rocket Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is easy enough to make software do what you want it to. You could tell your email client to recognise and immediately delete any unwanted messages – say, any from your mother-in-law that contain the word “visit”, but not the word “cake”. Now, Zhen Xie from Harvard University and MIT has found a way of filtering undesirable human cells – in this case, a specific type of cancer cell – with similar ease.<\/p>

Xie has developed a genetic “logic circuit” that prompts cells to kill themselves if the levels of five molecules match those of a cancer cell. Yaakov Benenson<\/a>, who led the study, says, “In the long term, the circuits’ role is to act like miniature surgeons that can identify and destroy cancer cells.” That is a very long way off, but the study is a promising step in the right direction.<\/p>

Xie worked with HeLa cells, a common line of cervical cancer cells taken from a tobacco farmer called Henrietta Lacks<\/a> in 1951. Since then, they have become one of the most important tools in modern medicine<\/a>. Xie identified five small molecules called microRNAs that act ...<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is easy enough to make software do what you want it to. You could tell your email client to recognise and immediately delete any unwanted messages – say, any from your mother-in-law that contain the word “visit”, but not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}