Yes, this is a blog about the brain and work, but as I was going through the medical sites I cam across this fascinating piece from Oxford University and a team led by Professor Thomas Helleday that hasn’t appeared on Digg or other aggregate sites.

Here is the article by Jonathan Wood from the OxSciBlog site:

A new concept for cancer therapy could lead to treatments personalised to each patient’s tumour without any side effects, says Professor Thomas Helleday, who is pioneering the idea at Oxford University [watch a video describing this work].

He believes cancer may have an ‘Achilles’ heel’: The genetic damage that builds up in cancer cells and the subsequent escape from the body’s normal controls on growth may also make them very susceptible to treatments that block repair of DNA.

‘DNA damage is a prerequisite for most cancers,’ explains Professor Helleday of the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology at Oxford University. ‘Whether that damage is a result of the tar in cigarettes, toxins or genetic and environmental factors, it can result in mutations that alter genes. That genetic instability drives cancer.’

Normal cells have many pathways and mechanisms to correct and repair DNA breaks and damage as they occur. These are crucial to maintain the normal functioning of the cell. If the damage is too great, the cells are either killed by a process called apoptosis or their growth and division is arrested so that the damage doesn’t go any further.

Many cancers have defects in one or more repair processes which enables them to sidestep these controls. ‘We can exploit these defects,’ says Professor Helleday. ‘If we can block the remaining repair systems, the body will knock out the cancer cells. Normal cells with a full set of repair kits will be fine.’

Such treatments, designed to each patient’s individual cancer, should mean patients experience few, if any, side effects from the treatment. It would be a great advance over standard chemotherapy techniques which are toxic to all dividing cells.

Professor Helleday’s group have studied defects in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes which predispose women to developing breast and ovarian cancer. In these cancers, a pathway that repairs mistakes when DNA is replicated no longer works, and the cancer cells are reliant on a different process based on a protein called PARP for survival.

The researchers showed that these breast and ovarian cancers could be targeted using an existing drug that inhibits the PARP protein. The idea has now been licensed to Astra Zeneca and phase II clinical trials of the drug involving a few hundred patients began in May 2007.

‘The results are better than expected,’ says Professor Helleday. ‘I thought we might see the cancers in these people stop growing. But in many cases the drug is killing off the cancer cells. The tumours have shrunk substantially and the patients report no serious side effects.’

Professor Helleday is sure this can be a general concept for tackling many cancers: ‘If there are two possible pathways for repairing damage and one is lost in a cancer, we can target the second one. This is called synthetic lethality as the drug is not toxic on it own – only for the cancer cells with this extra defect.’

‘In the future, you could imagine screening a patient’s cancer for defects, picking out the precise inhibitors to target the remaining DNA repair pathways, and treat that person’s tumour in a very targeted way.’

‘We know of thousands of these pathways in yeast. We want to extend this knowledge into humans so we can exploit them and come up with selectively toxic therapies with no side effects and no damage to normal tissue,’ he says.

Truly amazing stuff!

I love my Mac and even though this is a blog about work and the brain occasionally I add something about OS X.

OS X is pretty intelegant: simple, intelligent, elegant. I  just like my computer to do what I need to get done and Mac does that.

One of the few frustrations I have is how to, after minimizing a document or web page or application, restore that application to full-size.

I love that I can minimize applications and docs with an Cmd-M shortcut; but I got really frustrated that I can’t restore them with the opposite Shift-Cmd-M, which would be really logical and Mac like. Very unusual (and it bugs me) to find such a fundamental gap when just about everything else just works.

Sometimes Cmd-tab (Like ctrl-tab in Windows) and scrolling through the programs seems to work and sometimes it just doesn’t. And it is time consuming and destroys the thought flow to have to relocate the pad pointer and click… grrrrr….

So I use Spotlight.

Spotlight, for non-Mac users, is a super fast search engine for your HD built into Mac OS X. Just press Cmd-Spacebar and it’s there.

Firstly, it makes a superb program launcher: you simply type two or three letters of the name of the application, hit your arrow down button (And if Apps is your top list then you won’t even need to do this), press return and Boom! you’re away. Program launched. No clicking required.

It becomes very instinctive and fast, and just feels quicker. (And easier than, say, Quicksilver).

For restoring minimized apps & docs that you’ve put into the dock just use exactly the same method. Cmd-Spacebar to launch Spotlight, type the first couple of letters of the name of the Application you minimized, press return and you’re done. The app will restore. You can even hold down the shift button when hitting return if you want to see it done in the cool OS X Slow-Mo style….

Nice.

If anyone knows any other way of restoring minimized apps without clicks I’d love to hear about it - otherwise this is fast, easy, and becomes very Zen-like helping the cognitive flow of my work immensely.

One of daughters, unbeknown to me decided to drag a stool over to my my desk, climb up, and get a fingernail under the j key on my G4 mac. Key pops off. As I could find no instructions and lots of questions, and I have fixed the problem, below is a complete solution…

To mend: you will see four parts: two plastic rings, the key cover (With the letter, number, or symbol on it), and the keyboard with a toothy gap in it. The tricky part is all in the two plastic rings. They form a spring for the key. The bigger lies on the bottom, and the smaller part goes through the bigger to form an X.

The bottom (the larger) has two thinner but more pronounced nodules these will go eventually towards the screen. The smaller has two smaller nodules on the end of the frame, these lie on top of the larger nodule. The part of the smaller plastic ring with no nodules lies underneath the bigger plastic ring.

The two nodules halfway along the body of the smaller plastic ring are now inserted into the corresponding holes in the bigger plastic ring. You should be able to raise the two plastic rings into a fixed and firm X and also lay them totally flat, provided the smaller ring is half on top of the larger ring, and half underneath.

Put the actual flat letter key to one side. If you try to mount the key on the plastic X and then mount it all into the keyboard you will never succeed. Believe me I know…

To mount. Look into the keyboard. You will see a square. Nearer the space bar side you will see small metal bar, and, at the top (nearer the screen) you will see two holes . You must fix the small plastic ring to the space bar side first. (That’ll account for the 15 minutes of life I lost working that out). So, firstly, slot the smaller ring over the small raised metal bar nearer the keyboard. This is tricky, but achievable with patience. Then carefully insert the larger ring’s nodules into those holes at the top of the key box (nearer the screen). This is achievable with even greater patience. Once this is done, see that is can both lay flat and be raised into a fixed and firm X. Then look on the underneath of the key itself. You will see on the underside above the letter two small grooves the top of the smaller plastic ring goes here. The best tip is to lay the key on top of the flat plastic rings and simply push, jiggle, and push until it clicks. This should also be mirrored at the front of the keyboard, and voilà, one mended key. (If it goes wrong and breaks, sorry, it worked for me.)

Only took me 45 minutes to work out how it all fitted together - it seemed a lot longer - and I had visions of spending $80 or more on a new keyboard… now it works vis à vis… jjjjjjj

Dear John,

I’m sorry that I offended you with my Geico spec spot. I’m not sure if you understood the context in which it was made. The spot was done as a spec spot and not authorized by anyone at Geico. Spec spots are done as part of a director’s sample reel to get other work. There’s a tacit understanding by companies when new director’s use their brand for sample spots. I’ve even made a spec spot that I sold to company.

We did this spot because Geico had been doing a US campaign that took certain types of television shows, sucked you in by making you think you were watching a Bay Watch type show or an infomercial then having the character interrupt and pitch Geico insurance. Most probably it did not play in Sweden. In this spot we wanted to make you think you were watching an actual CNN report.

So far it does indeed play very well for US and have gotten some great comments as well a one or two that said it was tasteless, including one production company in NYC that is repping me. They just took it off my reel which was fine by me. I’ve played it for creative directors, copywriters, etc and it always gets a laugh, albeit a dark, naughty laugh. I’ve even had a website or two and several cell phone content companies want to license it from me, although I can’t for obvious reasons.

My feeling about Osama Bin Laden and the tragedy of 9/11 is that we are giving a terrorist way too much power over our lives and thoughts. Osama Bin Laden and his ilk were made by the US because of our policies. That being said, our government has opened up a hornet’s nest. Do we let Osama Bin Laden haunt us and give him any power over our lives? Of course not. He is the devil and if we can and should laugh at him. In the spot he’s selling out as a pitch man. In reality, he sold out his people by giving the west reasons to hate.

Anyways, John, I’m sorry you misinterpreted our intent on this spot and thought that this was a real spot. That ultimately is the intent of doing sample spec spots, making you believe it’s a real spot. If you’d like, you can check out my reel at www.billkelman.com I think you’ll get a few laughs from my work. I’m a firm believer in new media, virals, etc and as a new guy, getting attention is what it is all about.

Please stay in touch and likewise, I will do the same.

Sincerely,

This feels like a good day - Jonathan Morgan of Lookscankill.org has done a great job at listening about pictures and ideas and contributing. As I know move on with the new site I hope you will leave a comment of your opinion on the contact page - a huge thanks to all those who have made this site possible: to those who have contributed logos, photos, and advice; as well as the review panel. I am please with it; I think it is intelegant: simple, intelligent, elegant; and I hope that as the site grows with resources and media it will keep true to the Way Of Intelegant and keep it clear…