Drinking green tea to cure diabetes? Understanding scientific research can't be take for granted.

Original title: Drinking green tea to cure diabetes? Understanding scientific research can not be take for granted
scientific spiritual face
This reporter Zhang Jiaxing
October 24, Chinese scientists "tea as the order" to start the artificial design of gene regulation system, and then treat diabetes research in the international academic journal "Science and Translational Medicine" as the cover article published online. The study, which was validated in mice and non-human primates, was later misinterpreted as evidence that drinking green tea could cure diabetes.
netizens commented on the relevant reports: according to the dose of mice estimated that people eat two pounds of tea a day, get the highest number of likes. Ironically, the report was reprinted on Weibo with the words "yoga" and "health" as keywords.
"We're not studying green tea to control blood sugar, and a lot of comments don't seem to understand the full text," he said. Recently, a reporter from Science and Technology Daily interviewed Ye Haifeng, author of the paper and a researcher at the School of Life Sciences of East China Normal University. The key, he says, is to transplant engineered cells wrapped in microcapsules into the body, where green tea is used to initiate insulin gene expression to produce insulin, thereby controlling blood sugar. In other words, without artificially designed key cells, drinking more green tea would not work.
health and well-being, research is a field of synthetic biology
."Previously, scientists found a protein in a line-up bacteria that used aromatic compounds as an energy source, and I had the potential to become a 'switch'," he said. 'There were strong starters (starting gene expression) before nature, and if you find a component with negative suppression, you can construct a system that transmits commands similar to "0, 1" in a computer, Ye said.
With this in mind, Ye Haifeng led the team to design a sequence in response to this transcriptional blocking protein PcaV, as a biological component, through the design synthesis, the construction of a gene expression control switch, which is controlled by the metabolites of green tea, the original catechic acid. It can be seen that for this "logical system", the green tea metabolite raw tea acid happens to be a trigger, and green tea health has nothing to do with health.
such research is part of the emerging synthetic biology category, which aims to create artificial biological systems that run like circuits. Traditional biology penetrates the nature of life, and synthetic biology is recreated as needed, and its relationship is similar to that of theoretical physics and experimental physics in the Big Bang of Life. Therefore, life mechanisms and paths are the basis, and whether accurate, whether there is perfect manoeuverability is the criterion of judgment.
test showed that the control system showed good time, dose dependence and reversibleness in regulating the expression of GM. Moreover, whether it is injection, oral primary tea acid and drinking customized concentrated green tea can regulate the control system transplanted in mice for genetically modified expression.
a gene regulatory system that changes the fate of cells
with a system that can be precisely regulated, it's like having a "Trojan horse" inside the body that can control the fate of cells.
"the gene that connects the system to insulin expression can turn on insulin expression when needed and turn it into artificial islet cells." By wrapping the cell in microcapsules and transplanting it into a diabetic animal model, the cells can be stimulated to release insulin by oral primary tea or by drinking custom-enriched green tea, and when not consumed, the insulin-expressed gene is silent, Ye said.
, of course, "Trojan horses" can also be applied to other "battlegrounds". If the system is connected to other genes, such as the wizard RNA gene that encodes gene editing, it controls whether gene editing is performed. "I think it's the ideal means of in-body intervention in CAR-T (precision-guided T-cell) therapy." Ye Haifeng said that CAR is a chimed antigen subject, it found that tumor cells will lead T-cell attack, if the CAR installed a "remote control", you can attack the emergence of cytokine storm stop, and green tea control system can act as a "remote control" role - the need for CAR-T therapy work, drink green tea, car-T therapy truce, do not drink green tea.
"compared to previous studies on antibiotics, food additives, preservatives as triggers, green tea metabolites as triggers for the system of non-toxic side effects on the human body." 'Tea can trigger the switch and it will have a more safety advantage, ' Mr. Ye said.
In this frontier study of life sciences, green tea is more like a "key", and scientists have invented a matching "lock" that controls the switch on the door, which has clinically applied "infinite scenery" behind it, including control of blood sugar in diabetics. Misinterpreting it as "drinking green tea to cure diabetes" is undoubtedly ignoring the whole process of taking it out of context.
Expert Comment Xie Zhen Researcher, Tsinghua University
The development of modern life science and technology, especially in recent years, bioengineering and synthetic biology, has enabled people to artificially modify biological components and create new biological functions to solve the major problems facing human beings in production and life. In this synthetic biology study, a team of Ye Haifeng researchers at East China Normal University successfully used a gene expression switch controlled by green tea metabolites to regulate insulin production and secretion, reducing blood sugar in both animals after injecting "microcapsules" containing the cells into mice and monkeys with diabetes.
only see the "green tea" and "blood sugar" titles, they directly link the two, understand that scientific research work should not be such a "take it for granted." The innovative elements of scientific research require the attitude of seeking knowledge and exploring in the spirit of science, and using the "peeling onion" way to understand that each layer may be the push of scientists' "hot eyes" day and night. When the public, evaluation experts and other circles in order to truly interpret scientific research results, to avoid blind credulity rumors, out of context, in order to correctly understand the significance of scientific research, can help to enhance the scientific literacy of the whole society.
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