Scientists have found a new piece of the puzzle about how the drug thalidomide caused devastating birth defects in thousands of children whose mothers took the drug while pregnant more than 60 years ago.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers reported this week that the drug triggers the degradation of a slew of transcription factors — proteins that help flip genes on or off — including one called SALL4.
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This is not ”news” or even a new discovery whatsoever;
The connection between [the] SALL4 and birth defects was discovered and already published in Science Journals fifteen years ago –
“Mutations at the SALL4 locus on chromosome 20 result in a range of clinically overlapping phenotypes, including Okihiro syndrome, Holt-Oram syndrome, acro-renal-ocular syndrome, and patients previously reported to represent thalidomide embryopathy.”
(https://jmg.bmj.com/content/jmedgenet/40/7/473.full.pdf 2003)
.
Leaves us to wonder what this CANCER RESEARCH firm (Dana Farber) is hoping to gain by publishing such absurd ‘claims’ at this time, doesn’t it?.. not that it isn’t blatantly obvious, given thalidomide’s ongoing ‘story’/renewed uses/.. and lawsuits/…. But “All hail the money-making drugs!”, right?
Shame on them, and [especially] the Governments who fund them, and this…
Thalidomide acts on transcription factors
Previously the theory was that it was like an auto immune action. That these babies would have been identified as abnormal and had miscarriage, but this drug prevented the miscarriage. Some research was done on using it for auto immune therapy
This is not ”news” or even a new discovery whatsoever;
The connection between [the] SALL4 and birth defects was discovered and already published in Science Journals fifteen years ago –
“Mutations at the SALL4 locus on chromosome 20 result in a range of clinically overlapping phenotypes, including Okihiro syndrome, Holt-Oram syndrome, acro-renal-ocular syndrome, and patients previously reported to represent thalidomide embryopathy.”
(https://jmg.bmj.com/content/jmedgenet/40/7/473.full.pdf 2003)
.
Leaves us to wonder what this CANCER RESEARCH firm (Dana Farber) is hoping to gain by publishing such absurd ‘claims’ at this time, doesn’t it?.. not that it isn’t blatantly obvious, given thalidomide’s ongoing ‘story’/renewed uses/.. and lawsuits/…. But “All hail the money-making drugs!”, right?
Shame on them, and [especially] the Governments who fund them, and this…