The (Bio)Focus on Patients: Understanding and Curing Disease is All About Precision

This is personal, and not just for me. This is personal for you, too. If you don’t know someone today who is touched by one of the diseases or syndromes listed in my post, you will at some point in your life. The key to easing lives—and even curing, not just treating, patients—is most often a combination of biotechnology with other sciences and some level of engineering (that’s where the “making it” often happens). 

For example, if you are vaccinated (any vaccine), or if you have taken an antibiotic, or if you find that a particular yogurt brand helps with digestive issues after binging on an enormous, delicious, sugary chocolate cake on your birthday, coupled with chocolate ice cream and hot fudge, when all that sugar and yucky-but-sooooo-good food throws off your own bacterial gut balance (asking for a friend), then you’ve benefitted from a bioscience and/or biotechnology. 

Those examples are common biotechnologies we don’t consciously think about, or at least, I have never heard someone say, “Hold on a minute, it’s time for me to take my biotechnology so I can rid myself of this pesky [whatever bacterial infection is hurting you would go here].” 

Those examples also tend to occur when the issue is introduced into our bodies from an external source, then overwhelm our bodies’ ability(ies) to manage our health: powerful viruses, certain bacteria, an overload of all things chocolate-sugary… (although that issue starts with a lack of discipline, which is technically “internal”—I’m working on it…).

But what about when the issues go beyond what we might think of as that day-to-day? And what about when our own bodies are the source of the issue? In those instances, we look to biotechnology to be more precise:

• How, precisely, is your body working right now and how, precisely, can we correct it, because your body has done something that most bodies have not done or do not do?

Here we have to get to where the problem started, or at least to the place where we can fix it, and that is usually at the molecular level. Remember from my The (Bio)Science of Vitamins: It’s Not What You Think article’s intro-post: molecules are simply the gathering of at least two atoms (little units of matter) connected by chemical bonds that make something. (at least, that’s the “Demystify Biotech” definition!!) The “make something” that we care about ends up being tissues like organs.

Other times the starting point is even smaller than a molecule in order to learn, precisely, how a body is working and how, precisely, we can correct it. Here is where we get to the “nano” level, which you can read about in a STATNews article I posted (but to demystify, when you hear “nano,” think in terms of one billionth). 

As the saying goes, precision is key. That's the mastery of biotechnology.

The Value of Demystifying Biotechnology: Your Stakeholdership, Improved Treatment, and Cures for Patients

Many of you have been following my Biotech Thursdays since it started, so this won’t come as a surprise, but I will remind you every chance I get: science, and my world of biotechnology, is accessible to everyone. 

Everyone. 

The world of science does not belong to a particular club, and it’s not for people who are waaaaaay smarter than the rest of us. It’s not just for those who did well in science at school, or for those who tested better in various tests.  It’s not just for the scientists, either. In fact, for millennia most scientists spent a lot of time and energy trying to educate and inspire everyone around them about the value of science!! (unfortunately, throughout history some have paid dearly for that, too)

As a Science Communicator I am obviously biased, but it’s my job to simplify so that you can be a part of it, and when it comes to biotechnology, we are ALL a part of it.  AND(!), if you follow basic economics, supply follows demand, so with better knowledge and use of what is being supplied comes better options for demand.

(for example, social media looked really different 20 years ago…)

Science is available for all of us to learn about, and biotechnology improves when more people understand how it serves us. 

That’s biotech, baby!!

So as we look at the USA May National Awareness Spotlights, I ask that you critically think about how many of these diseases or syndromes you knew about 10 years ago versus today, and consider how by raising awareness we’ve been able to improve science, medicine, and lives.  We are all a part of that.

Here are the spotlights:

·      ALS

·      Ehlers- Danlos Syndrome

·      Stroke

·     Sturge-Weber Syndrome

·      Mental Health

·      Brain Cancer and Brain Tumor

·      Blood Pressure Education

·      Cystic Fibrosis

·      Lyme Disease

·      Melanoma and Skin Cancer

If you liked this article then make sure to follow me for more content to help demystify biotech!

? 2021 Christa Dhimo

(and as always, let's give credit where credit is due!!):

Works Cited: See direct links within the article; there are no directly cited sources this week, but I would like to acknowledge the superb curating from National Day Calendar for offering the information and links on their site: https://nationaldaycalendar.com/