Gratitude
April 23rd, 2014
Hello Friends! First off, I apologize for the lack of updates since my last post but I want to begin by assuring you that I’m doing well since my first chemotherapy treatment session. It was an interesting experience and one that I’ll try to better document the next time I go in (this Friday, April 25th). Essentially, I’m hooked up to this fancy little machine that drips a variety of fluids into my body at specified rates. The first few days after treatment weren’t so hot with nausea and fatigue being the main culprits of discomfort; fortunately though it mostly cleared up in about four days.
I know that I had previously promised to delve a little deeper into the science behind the drug regiment that I’m, on so I figured I’d touch a little on that today. ABVD is a chemotherapy regimen used in the first-line treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, and consists of the drugs Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine, and Dacarbazine (I’ll focus on the first two today). I’m fascinated by what scientists call “the mechanisms of action,” essentially, what the drugs actually doing.
Adriamycin is a drug that works by fitting between the base pairs of DNA.
Essentially structural modifications can lead to functional changes. A side note, I absolutely love when form and function, typically design and architecture concepts, come into play in biology.
As this diagram shows, the DNA complex (in green) is disrupted by the Adriamycin (the little spheres) which prevents the DNA double helix from being resealed and thereby stopping the process of replication. One of the other drugs, Bleomycin, acts by breaking DNA strand breaks. While there are several hypotheses the mechanism of action is still relatively unknown. A final note about these drugs, we can thank bacteria for both of them!
Adriamycin is actually a product of the bacteria Streptomyces peucetius which was discovered in the 1950s, when an Italian research company, Farmitalia Research Laboratories isolated said bacteria from the area surrounding a 13th century castle, during efforts to find anticancer compounds from soil-based microbes. Bleomycin was discovered in 1966 when the Japanese scientist Hamao Umezawa found anticancer activity while screening culture filtrates of the bacterium Streptomyces verticillus. So cool!
So beyond my bacterial friends, there was just a ton to be thankful for over the last few weeks. Paul’s top five:
- Old friends and new friends who engage in thoughtful dialogue about life. You know who you are, thank you!
- Intentional community. Where people are real with each other, and unashamed to talk about struggle.
- Music. I’m so thankful for the way it enriches the human experience, check out this group called Hammmock “Departure Songs is an album about being there and not being there. And how it feels to both be there and have someone else not be there. Presence and absence. Love and grief. Hammock’s music has always been a balm for troubled hearts in troubled times - and here the troubled times are their own. This is intensely personal music, and we are lucky that Hammock will let us listen in.”
- Podcasts. I love the pure storytelling element mixed in with the power of sound design, my two favorite are Radiolab and 99% Invisible. Highly recommend!
- Creativity. I can’t say too much about this now, but it’s related to one of the previous four points and it’s something I’ve been really thankful to get to work on and I’m excited to share with you soon!