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Sophie Master's avatar

Love this!

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svitlana-ing's avatar

I listen intently.

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

How can we control ion flow and electric field gradient using this knowledge?

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Benjamin Anderson's avatar

Our lab started with chemicals that target ion channels and are still doing some of this however now we're working on doing this with fully exogenous electromagnetic fields. In both cases the core model update is that rather than targeting specific channels to alter ion flows based on diffusion effects, we've shifted our focus toward directly modulating the protein-water-ion interactions inside the cell

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

This is very interesting indeed. I’ve proposed creating micro voxel endogenous (in vivo) fields via biocompatible material encapsulated semiconductor fragments which contain radio accessible programmable elements in control of various solid state beam and field generators (e..g. ultrasonic, EM etc). But that was aimed at targeting individual ion channels the need for which I am now going to reconsider ofcourse! :)

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

So many questions after reading this. So what exactly are the membrane pumps doing then? What are the 'big picture' implications of this hypothesis if true for biomedical science? Also: please forgive me but a very minor correction: Nasonov was a Soviet citizen ;-)

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Benjamin Anderson's avatar

Membrane pumps are still hydrolyzing ATP and facilitating the movement of ions in this model. We would argue just more likely as stabilizers or fine-tuners rather than the main drivers of ion balance.

As far as big picture: think about what would it look like to target diseases that are currently pegged to faulty pumps or channel protein expression as if they are instead the product of internal structural problems. We don't know the answer to that yet, but we're working on it! In short, think the shape of the solution is going to look more like an MRI that has read AND write capability as opposed to drugs & gene therapies.

Thanks for the note on Nasanov, will update (:

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

“MRI read and write” - that would be amazing :-o

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

“diseases that are currently pegged to faulty pumps or channel protein expression”

That’s a lot! (many of them cancers too…..)”

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

Not really getting how the 'writing' might happen...

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T.Theodorus Ibrahim's avatar

Have you written more about this somewhere

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