camel
dr. dolittle | February 4, 2013 Image of camel from ukmedix news.
Researchers from King Abdulaziz University (Jeddah) have tested the effectiveness of micro and nanoshells for delivering a substance from camel urine, PMF701, thought to be a cure for cancer. These findings will be presented at the 2nd Biotechnology World Congress (Feb 18-21).
PMF701, not yet approved by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, is currently in clinical trials. In a quote published by SciDev.net, the head of the university's tissue culture unit and the principal investigator of the project Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid stated, "We made a natural…
dr. dolittle | November 14, 2012
Image by He Meng, from Nature News
Bactrian camels thrive in conditions considered harsh by many standards: very dry, cold, high elevations. Researchers now suspect their physiological adaptations of high blood sugar, high salt diets, and increased body fat may have evolved to help the animals cope with their environment. For humans, those symptoms could lead to heart disease, but for the Bactrian camel, they are considered physiological, i.e. totally normal.
A paper published in Nature Communications describes the genomic variations in wild and domesticated Bactrian camels. What they found…