TP53 – the guardian angel gene

Cancer is a pretty bad group of diseases, in fact it causes about %13 of all deaths worldwide! Cancer occurs when some cells in a persons body grow and divide uncontrollably. Normal cells grow and divide and then die. Cancer cells just keep living and dividing and so make more and more cells. If they divide enough times to make enough cells they can form a tumour – and that’s bad.

So why do some cells not die when they are supposed to?

Basically, the genes in the cell which are responsible for making the cell die are broken or mutated.

All genes do is make proteins which carry messages around. So if the gene for cell death is mutated it can’t make the protein so the message for cell death never gets through and the cell never dies.

One of the genes responsible for cell death is TP53. TP53 is called ‘the guardian angel gene’ because it does some REALLY important things:

1. It can initiate cell death. This can stop cancer.
2. It can activate DNA repair proteins when DNA has sustained damage. This can also stop cancer.
3. It can stop the cell from dividing to give it a chance to repair itself. You guessed it … this can stop cancer too.

So if your TP53 gene is broken you have a higher chance of getting cancer, in fact scientists have even named this disorder – Li-Fraumeni syndrome. The TP stands for tumour suppressor by the way.

This is a picture of the protein, p53, that TP53 makes:

Looks crazy doesn’t it!

Paper spaceplane

Paper planes are cool. The Guinness world record for the time aloft for a paper airplane is 27.6 seconds. If you want to know how to make some great ones check out these videos.

On a scientific note a Japanese professor is collaborating with origami masters to design a small paper spacecraft that could be launched from the International Space Station and survive a descent to Earth! The spaceplane is about 20 cm long and is made of paper, but it has passed wind tunnel tests at Mach 7 and 200 °C. Mach 7 is a hypersonic speed by the way!! It looks like this:

Saving the weirdest and most wonderful species on the planet

An organisation called EDGE is trying to save the most Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered species on the planet. EDGE species have few close relatives on the tree of life and are often extremely unusual in the way they look, live and behave, as well as in their genetic make-up. For example this slender loris …

… is one of the top 100 Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) mammals. There is also a list of the top 100 EDGE amphibians.

They are one-of-a-kind species. If they are lost there is nothing similar to them left on the planet. It would be a bit like the art world losing the Mona Lisa – they are simply irreplaceable!