[HN Gopher] Wireless electrical-molecular quantum signalling for...
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       Wireless electrical-molecular quantum signalling for cancer cell
       apoptosis
        
       Author : Jason_Protell
       Score  : 58 points
       Date   : 2023-09-16 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | mnemotronic wrote:
       | This, if true, is fascinating and more than a little scary.
       | 
       | I'm imagining a situation where someone can somehow send the
       | apoptosis signal to every cell in my body.
        
         | amts wrote:
         | You can connect a ~3-10V battery to yourself, which may
         | increase an electrostatic field and deflect the incoming
         | signal.
        
         | what-no-tests wrote:
         | Sounds very Kabbalistic.
        
       | tomohelix wrote:
       | The fun thing about biology is that if there can be something
       | built by a true omniscient creator, then biology is the closest
       | thing to it. All of reality and all of physics is used. It is
       | simply what works no matter how arcane or difficult to understand
       | the concept and mechanisms behind it is. Like all engineering
       | projects there are still physical constrains of course but there
       | is no limit on the technology allowed. There is simply no
       | "cutting edge knowledge" or "unexplored science" to evolution.
       | Literally everything can be applied within the physical
       | constraints of a carbon-based lifeform
        
         | glenstein wrote:
         | The way I like to think of it is that life, most broadly and
         | abstractly conceived, falls like water through the space of
         | possibilities afforded by nature, and there is no limit to how
         | complex that "shape" can be (where "shape" is something in a
         | space of possible combinations of forms, mechanisms, tools that
         | are simultaneously used by one organism, a search space of
         | possible combinations rather than a literal shape).
         | 
         | And whatever "intelligence" it would take to consciously think
         | from first principles to those kinds of shapes, well, there's
         | no upper limit to the possible sophistication that might be
         | required to manually get there. But nature gets there blindly,
         | and uses every possible thing.
        
         | amts wrote:
         | It is recursively ingrained into the current spacetime data
         | structure itself [1]. So no wonder.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCSSgxV9qNw Why Is 1/137
         | One of the Greatest Unsolved Problems In Physics?
        
         | moonchrome wrote:
         | > Like all engineering projects there are still physical
         | constrains of course but there is no limit on the technology
         | allowed
         | 
         | Except having to work from a legacy codebase via incremental
         | changes. No way for evolution to explore silicon based life
         | when it kicked off with carbon.
        
           | flir wrote:
           | > No way for evolution to explore silicon based life when it
           | kicked off with carbon.
           | 
           | Oh, I don't know. Isn't that what we're for?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | kens wrote:
       | This is in Nature Nanotechnology,not Nature, by the way, which is
       | not clear from the domain.
        
         | aydyn wrote:
         | Additionally, 5-year impact factor of 39.9 so still very, very
         | respectable.
        
       | Jason_Protell wrote:
       | Abstract
       | 
       | Quantum biological tunnelling for electron transfer is involved
       | in controlling essential functions for life such as cellular
       | respiration and homoeostasis. Understanding and controlling the
       | quantum effects in biology has the potential to modulate
       | biological functions. Here we merge wireless nano-electrochemical
       | tools with cancer cells for control over electron transfer to
       | trigger cancer cell death. Gold bipolar nanoelectrodes
       | functionalized with redox-active cytochrome c and a redox
       | mediator zinc porphyrin are developed as electric-field-
       | stimulating bio-actuators, termed bio-nanoantennae. We show that
       | a remote electrical input regulates electron transport between
       | these redox molecules, which results in quantum biological
       | tunnelling for electron transfer to trigger apoptosis in patient-
       | derived cancer cells in a selective manner. Transcriptomics data
       | show that the electric-field-induced bio-nanoantenna targets the
       | cancer cells in a unique manner, representing electrically
       | induced control of molecular signalling. The work shows the
       | potential of quantum-based medical diagnostics and treatments.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | dbcurtis wrote:
         | The key part here is that they observe it being selective to
         | cancer cells. That could be huge. But I imagine this on the
         | bench, not a animal trial, so not much exploration of side
         | effects yet
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-16 23:01 UTC)