Why relational thinking is needed in the field of medicine...

[Judith Rosen <***>]

This came in the day's morning email... 

They know they need "improvements"... but they don't have a clue what or how. Meanwhile, ten years of work and research (and funding!) is down the drain. I hope they turn it into a positive, the way Fleming did with his experiments contaminated accidentally with bread mold spores. 

Speaking of discovery of Penicillin (in 1929) reminds me of something I have often wondered over: Healers in "olden times" knew that moldy bread could cure an infected wound, and treated such things as gangrene by moistening the bread and packing it into and around the damaged tissue. Didn't anybody in medical research ever ask "Why?" about that phenomenon?

Judith

Here's the news squib:

NewScientist.com - NEWSFLASH

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GM pea causes allergic damage in mice

For the first time, a genetically modified plant has been shown to
cause inflammation in animals – the 10-year project to develop
pest-resistant peas is dropped

Researchers took the gene for a protein capable of killing pea
weevil pests from the common bean and transferred it into the pea.
When extracted from the bean, this protein does not cause an
allergic reaction in mice or people.

But when the protein is expressed in the pea, its structure is
subtly different to the original in the bean. This structural change
probably caused the unexpected immune effects. The researchers are
calling for improvements in screening requirements for genetically
engineered plants.