Diamond nanoparticles modity curcumin activity:<i>in vitro</i> studies on cancer and normal cells and <i>in ovo</i> studies on chicken embryo model

Curcumin has been studied broadly for its wide range of biological activities, including anticancer properties. The major problem with curcumin is its poor bioavailability, which can be improved by the addition of carriers, such as diamond nanoparticles (DN). They are carbon allotropes, and are therefore biocompatible and easily taken up by cells. DN are non-toxic and have antiangiogenic properties with potential applications in cancer therapy. Their large surface makes them promising compounds in a drug delivery system for bioactive agents, as DN create bio-complexes in a fast and simple process of self-organisation. We investigated the cytotoxicity of such bio-complexes against liver cancer cells and normal fibroblasts, revealing that conjugation of curcumin with DN significantly improves its activity. The experiment performed in a chicken embryo model demonstrated that neither curcumin nor DN nor bio-complexes affect embryo development, even though DN can form deposits in tissues. Preliminary results confirmed the applicability of DN as an efficient carrier of curcumin, which improves its performance against cancer cells in vitro, yet is not toxic to an organism, which makes the bio-complex a promising anticancer agent

We Do Not Like It: A Likert-Type Scale Survey on the Attitudes of a Young Population towards the Transhumanistic Theory of Education

Transhumanists assume that future education may be purely based on technological stimulation. The question is: Do potential clients of education “like” such vision? In order to check this, we asked over one thousand two hundred young Poles to evaluate their identification with the transhumanistic theory of education. The results are quite surprising: its show that they disagree with the assumptions of this theory, while they rather agree with the postulates of more traditional (and no technology-based) concepts of education

Congenital Hyperinsulinaemic Hypoglycaemia&mdash;A Review and Case Presentation

Hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia (HH) is the most common cause of persistent hypoglycaemia in infants and children with incidence estimated at 1 per 50,000 live births. Congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI) is symptomatic mostly in early infancy and the neonatal period. Symptoms range from ones that are unspecific, such as poor feeding, lethargy, irritability, apnoea and hypothermia, to more serious symptoms, such as seizures and coma. During clinical examination, newborns present cardiomyopathy and hepatomegaly. The diagnosis of CHI is based on plasma glucose levels &lt;54 mg/dL with detectable serum insulin and C-peptide, accompanied by suppressed or low serum ketone bodies and free fatty acids. The gold standard in determining the form of HH is fluorine-18-dihydroxyphenyloalanine PET ((18)F-DOPA PET). The first-line treatment of CHI is diazoxide, although patients with homozygous or compound heterozygous recessive mutations responsible for diffuse forms of CHI remain resistant to this therapy. The second-line drug is the somatostatin analogue octreotide. Other therapeutic options include lanreotide, glucagon, acarbose, sirolimus and everolimus. Surgery is required in cases unresponsive to pharmacological treatment. Focal lesionectomy or near-total pancreatectomy is performed in focal and diffuse forms of CHI, respectively. To prove how difficult the diagnosis and management of CHI is, we present a case of a patient admitted to our hospital

In vitro plant tissue cultures accumulate polyisoprenoid alcohols

In vitro cultivated plant cells and tissues were found to synthesize polyisoprenoids. Taxus baccata suspension cell cultures accumulated polyisoprenoids of the same pattern as the parental tissue; methyl jasmonate or chitosan treatment almost doubled their content. All the root cultures studied accumulated dolichols as predominant polyisoprenoids. Roots of Ocimum sanctum grown in vitro accumulated approx. 2.5-fold higher amount of dolichols than the roots of soil-grown plants. Dolichols dominated over polyprenols in all Triticum sp. tissues studied