Biotech Notes #4: cancer in the youth, vaginal probiotics, interstellar biotech
Biotech Notes #4: cancer in the youth, vaginal probiotics, interstellar biotech
Cancer in the youth
Something that worries me even more in the long run though, is the rising risk of developing early-onset (18-49 years old) cancer: lung cancer (42% increase), gastrointestinal cancer (22% increase), and uterine cancer (36% increase).
Overall colorectal cancer mortality rates have dropped 56% from 29.2 in 1970 to 12.8 in 2021, but they’re now the leading cause of cancer death in men younger than 50 and second in women in that age group. Because colonoscopy screening typically starts at age 45, and most people think we’re still too young to get cancer, so these cases aren’t identified until signs and symptoms appear.
What are the causes? In the case of colorectal cancer, there’s a possible association with prenatal exposure to a particular synthetic form of progesterone, taken to prevent premature labour. For all of them, we could clearly point our fingers to ultra-processed foods, a sedentary lifestyle, air, water, soil pollution with carcinogens…
This only reminds me of my point in another Biotech note: the climate/sustainability narrative should’ve never been around “the planet”. Humans are selfish for good reason: the plastics dump into the oceans we eat, the gasses emit into the air we breathe, the agro-chemicals we apply to our crops we consume. Human and planetary health are inexorably linked and the numbers now speak for themselves.
Vaginal probiotics
First of all, I have an informal competing interest because I’m in love with the brand: the interactiveness of their website, the unforgettable tones in their packaging, the creative copy in their ads, and beyond all: the boldness in their new vaginal microbiome probiotic.
VS-01™ is the first vaginal suppository (yes, you actually introduce it into your vagina). It contains 3 live strains of L. crispatus that, according to Seed, can capture nearly 75% of genomic diversity in the human vaginal microbiome — But what does that actually mean for women’s health?
A few years ago, I did some reading on the correlation between the vaginal microbiome and HIV. As in many conditions, the more diverse your microbiome is, the stronger you stand against disease. In the vagina, Lactobacillus bacteria make the pH acidic which inhibits the growth of pathogenic bacteria and sexually transmitted infections.
My younger self thought that technology = value proposition. Today, I see that big cos have been investing millions into developing products that say to promote microbiome health and still, most probiotics I see in the market are supplements, not treatments. Nonetheless, I’m intrigued to see the new “live biotherapeutics” for cervical cancer prevention and recurrent urinary tract infections that Seed grows with new AI and genetic engineering tools.
Interstellar biotech
From Interstellar to Passengers, a question that space movies try to answer is: how the hell will we survive the rough conditions and millenary time it takes to sail the stars? Rumors say Disney tried it too, and the answer might as well be to put those cold plunges on steroids through cryopreservation.
Earlier this year, former longevity investor Laura Deming announced a key milestone in her new cryopreservation startup, Cradle: the recovery of electrical activity from cryopreserved rodent neural tissue, which preceded a $48 million round to build a full body pause button for biology.
The interdisciplinary challenge they’re working to solve is how to protect the tissue when cooling and rewarming. They need to change the temperature fast enough to prevent ice formation, but not too fast so there are no thermal gradients across the whole volume of the tissue. In addition, they can use molecular cryoprotective agents (CPAs).
Extending the “life shell” of donor organs is a clear go, and soon, they might be able to preserve whole bodies so patients can wait until scientists and physicians figure out how to properly treat them. If you ask me though, I think it’d be really cool to see this in space too :-)
Bonus: there’s blood in my pee
I love running. I’ve been into it for 4 years now, averaging 30km throughout a week, and just ran my 4th half marathon a few weeks ago. Some days before that, I became quite bothered by a weird problem I’d never had before: blood in my urine, right after running, unrelated to menstruation. Knowing about my past urinary problems (surgeries), I worried this could be the end of me running.
Before running to the clinic, I did my research and found out about runner’s hematuria in all kinds of running blogs, the Mayo Clinic, and a few NCBI papers. The consensus was that, as long as the blood appeared after running, disappeared after 48-72 hours of inactivity, and there were no other symptoms, I wouldn’t have to worry. But then it happened again after another run, and another one and I really wanted to know WHY this actually happens and how I can avoid it.
The answers I found in different scientific papers, one including cystoscopy and magnetic resonance imaging, matched overall: bleeding is caused by repeated contact of the bladder posterior (back) wall against the fixed bladder neck, which is easier to happen when you’ve voided your bladder right before a long run. Solution: void 30 min before your run and DRINK MORE WATER FOR YOUR OWN SAKE SOFIA, to cushion the slap during your run :)
Additionally, some studies also found dysmorphic erythrocytes in the urine of runners, which was related to glomerular (kidney not filtering urine properly) disease and some other sources suggested to contact your doctor if you presented oliguria (decreased urination) too, which I did. It’s never a bad idea to get your urine tested, so that’s what I’m doing next.
Most studies found an incidence of less than 20% in groups of hundreds of runners, so I barely expect this to be of interest to anyone here. However, as running continues to gain popularity, if you ever find your urine to be red after your run, I hope you don’t get as scared as me but still ask an expert. And if you want to be amused by an old paper I found on this, check this out:
Bonus bonus
Optogenetics to control muscles - Biofounders podcast episode to come with the Mexican PhD student behind this MIT Media Lab project
UC Berkeley research group that spun out a company that makes virus-based smoke biosensors
Kolibri plays music to cells to reduce gene therapy manufacturing costs - What other applications might this technology expand to?