Did genes or ancestry make the Manning brothers? Why not both?
The field of sports genomics is rife with argument, starting with the simple question of what athleticism even is. For every study that shows a relationship between ribonucleic acids and raising trophies, another contradicts it. The interplay of slow- and fast-twitch fibers that makes balance, concentration, spatial awareness, these are not traits like hair color. Maybe someday genomics will be a useful predictor of whether you're growing a Hall of Famer at your kitchen table, but for the moment, it's overneat to the point of uselessness. If you're going down the rabbit hole of athleticism, at least go down a more intriguing path that embraces the messiness and mystery: genealogy.
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These tumors had higher levels of GAGs and vitamin E — about 15 times more of the latter — compared to normal kidney tissue. Disrupting the biochemical pathway producing GAGs prevented kidney cancer cells from devouring vitamin E-laden lipoproteins, dying by the iron hand of ferroptosis. Future research Garcia-Bermudez and DeBerardinis caution that there is much more research to be done before their study's findings have any clinical application for treating cancer. 'We know that GAGS are on the surface, they speak to the lipoproteins and they affect the uptake of lipoproteins,' Garcia-Bermudez said. 'But how mechanistically this happens, especially in the cancer cell, hasn't been shown before … If we understand how this works and we find molecular targets that maybe we can treat with drugs and block, then we have a way to specifically deplete vitamin E in the tumor.' 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Our drug doesn't carry anything and it's through this mechanism by which you can kill the cell.' For Garcia-Bermudez and DeBerardinis, their research efforts were like finding a needle in a haystack, one they hope to find more needles in. 'Our study is really exciting, but at the same time it's a very basic discovery,' Garcia-Bermudez said. 'It was incredible to discover something that people have not observed in cancer before, to understand why these tumours are so resistant. I'm super excited to keep working on this.'
