Interesting Facts: Man-made Urea

Urea

Urea - a molecular compound in human urine

Friedrick Wohler

Friedrick Wohler


In the past, organic compounds were restricted to those that could be produced only from living entities. These compounds were thought to contain a “vital force” based on their natural origin. This “vital force” concept was disproved in 1828 by a Geman chemist, Friedrick Wohler. Wohler synthesized a molecular compound found in human urine called urea. To accomplish this task he used the molecular compounds ammonia and cyanic acid. Urea became the first organic molecule synthesized by a chemist.

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Disease-causing agents – a potential source of medicine?

We can learn a lot from the world of parasites, which in general also includes bacteria, viruses and fungi. The medical profession has long focused on bacteria and viruses more-so than parasitic protozoa partly due to the fact of how causes of disease have traditionally been identified. A pathogen had to be shown to be associated with a particular disease. In this respect it had to be isolated, grown in a pure culture, and inoculated into a host which would then produce the disease. The organism in the host also had to be shown to be the pathogen that the host was inoculated with. Bacteria and viruses were easily characterized as disease causing agents within these set of rules, but protozoa, despite their ability to cause severe disease, never really fell easily into this category. Protozoa have an extremely complex process not only in terms of the biological sense but also in terms of survival and the means in which they infect their hosts. Continue reading

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Helping the poorest of the poor fight disease

Sufferers of sleeping sickness

Sufferers of sleeping sickness


Imagine living day to day in a place plagued by constant poverty and unimaginable disease. AIDS, African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), dracunculiasis (guinea worm disease), malaria, nodding syndrome, and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are some of the most common diseases the people of southern Sudan have to live in constant fear of. Although some of the diseases widespread in southern Sudan such as AIDS and malaria are also found elsewhere, southern Sudan is also plagued by some of the more exotic diseases such as guinea worm disease, nodding syndrome, river blindness, and sleeping sickness that are almost entirely local to Sudan and neighboring African countries. Continue reading

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Pharmacogenetics – The future of “Personalized Medicine”

PharmacogeneticsEuropean Americans are ten to forty times more likely than African Americans to get a very aggressive type of skin cancer called Melanoma. People of Asian descent are more likely to have the inability to process alcohol efficiently – exposing them to more toxicity. People of Northern European descent have a predisposition for Type 1 diabetes. High blood pressure is twice as common in African Americans than in the rest of the American population. Native Americans have higher rates of tuberculosis, pneumonia, and influenza. I’ll stop there; the list is rather large.

I mention the above statistics to bring the point home for the need for more targeted or “personalized” drugs within the Pharma industry. A “one size fit all” approach for every disease/disorder simply does not aim for maximum effectiveness. Clearly the above example and more importantly common sense points to the fact that every human being is not like every other human being when it comes to appropriate medical treatment and disease prevention. Individuals have different germlines based on many factors within the evolutionary track of a specific population. Continue reading

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UC Berkeley Java Certification

uc_berkeley_extension1
I just finished up my last class to get the UC Berkeley Java Certificate. The program is offered by UC Berkeley Extension, an arm of UC Berkeley. The program consists of taking and passing three Java programming courses spanning 90 hours of instruction by seasoned professionals. It’s a great way to keep your skills up-to-date, expand your skills, and network with others. However, it is a bit expensive at around $700 – $800 a class + books.
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Pharma Mega-Mergers: When you can’t innovate, merge

In April of 2009, Pfizer agreed to buyout Wyeth for $68 billion; Pfizer’s market cap at that time was just around $100 billion. The following month Merck trumped the Pfizer deal with a $41 billion merger with Schering-Plough. What was Merck’s market cap at the time? – Roughly around $50 billion. Not to be outdone, Roche rounded-up the mega-mergers of 2009 (so far) with a $46.8 billion deal to acquire Genentech. However, it must be mentioned that Roche already had a majority stake in Genentech (55.8%), so we’re really talking about $46.8 billion for the remaining 44.2 % of Genentech it did not already own. Continue reading

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Google App Engine goes Java

java_appengine2At a Google Technology User Group meet-up last night, I listened to a presentation by a Google App Engine Engineer, Jeff Scudder. This past Sunday night Google announced the support for Java on there App Engine service. Previously, the only language that was supported was Python. Also, there is now integration with Google Web Toolkit, and a Google Plugin for Eclipse.
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Linux with Windows Apps

In terms of using Ubuntu Linux as my laptop operating system, I have often been put in the predicament of needing to use applications that either I only have for Windows or applications that are not available for Linux. In the latter case, many hardcore Linux devotees will argue that a free open source Linux app can most likely be found for Linux to replace a Windows app. However, in the cases where a comparable software is not available for Linux, the user is often left in frustration.
So what can be done about this? I have found two options that provide the solution for this dilemma:
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IPv6 Presentation at Sun Microsystems

On January 31st, 2009, at Sun Microsystems, I gave a presentation on IPv6 and the Hurricane Electric (HE) Tunnelbroker. The speech was given during the SupperHappyDevHouse 30 event and you can download the presentation slides here. The event attracted a SuperHappyDevHouse attendance record of over 400 people. Continue reading

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Run Windows & Linux on the same PC at the same time!

I’m currently writing this blog from a 1 GB Lenovo NetBook running Ubuntu Linux 8.10 inside virtualization software installed on Windows XP Home Edition. I have been experimenting with different hosted virtualization software to compare and contrast – I have been very impressed! However, I would not recommend installing virtualization software on a netbook! I did get it working, but currently, most virtualization software does not “officially” support the processors netbooks use (in my case, an Intel Atom processor). Also, the performance on a netbook, when running anything more than the command line, is impractical. Continue reading

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