Patients often self-treat with homeopathic remedies that might include acryiaflavin.
If the compound is actually a radiation protector, what should doctors tell their patients about acryiaflavin?
-Pam
Great question! The best things doctors should say is to advice the patient to not take Acryiaflavin A because it could cancel out any good that radiation is doing to kill the cancer cells and therefore would prolong their treatment, or cause it to be ineffective.
Great Presentation! This is some interesting work. Knowning what you know now, what is the next experiment you would perform to continue the research of this drug to prove whether it is a raditation protector rather than a chemo drug?
Hi Evan,
The next experiment I would perform would be to test the drug alone to see if it has antioxidant properties that are causing it to increase the percent survival, or to see if it is one of those drugs with the rare case that when alone it acts completely different (potential chemo) than it does when paired with radiation (acting like radiation protector). Another experiment that I think would further prove its radiation protector properties would be to increase the radiation flies receive, treat them with the drug, and see if the drug can still increase their percent survival.
Very nice presentation! What is a specific experiment that you could preform to test the radiation protection qualities of this drug, and see if it is actually a radiation protector?
Thank your Madeleine! Just like what I said in my reply to Evan I would test the drug alone to see if it has antioxidant properties that are causing it to increase the percent survival, or to see if it is one of those drugs with the rare case that when alone it acts completely different (potential chemo) than it does when paired with radiation (acting like radiation protector). I would also look to see if it can continue to increase the flies survival even when the flies are exposed to more radiation, like 3000 rad instead of the 2500 rad that they were getting in this experiment.
You did great! This was very interesting research to listen to. My question would be how did you get to choosing this drug for your research into its cancer treatment potential? It’s know purpose and what it inhibits in the cell is very interesting.
Thank you Samuel! When choosing this compound, we were given a huge list to pick from and to be honest this one just caught my eye, but doing further research on it and seeing how it can inhibit Cyclin Dependent Kinase made that much more interested because it looked like a compound that would yield promising results! Although the results were not as predicted they were still very interesting and I am very glad we got to experiment with this compound.
Great presentation! Does the fact that you discovered the compound A.A to be a radiation protector (increase percent survival) vs the expected decrease in percent survival for larvae change the applications of your experiment’s findings at all?
Thank you Luke! The results of our experiment don’t really change the applications of it because it still provides useful information when treating cancer even though it’s not a potential chemotherapy. Since it looks like our drug is a potential radiation protector doctors can use that information to know what compounds to avoid when treating cancer with radiation.These results can also be expanded a little beyond cancer in that this drug can be potentially used to heal people that got accidentally got exposed to radiation.
That is a wonderful question, but because we were only testing Arcyriaflavin in fly larvae to see if it can kill them it is impossible to know what the side effects in humans would be. I also wasn’t looking for that when researching the drug, but I don’t think the side effects could be any worse than traditional chemotherapies we now especially because Arcyriaflavin is a naturally occurring compound.
Patients often self-treat with homeopathic remedies that might include acryiaflavin.
If the compound is actually a radiation protector, what should doctors tell their patients about acryiaflavin?
-Pam
Great question! The best things doctors should say is to advice the patient to not take Acryiaflavin A because it could cancel out any good that radiation is doing to kill the cancer cells and therefore would prolong their treatment, or cause it to be ineffective.
Hi there,
Great Presentation! This is some interesting work. Knowning what you know now, what is the next experiment you would perform to continue the research of this drug to prove whether it is a raditation protector rather than a chemo drug?
Hi Evan,
The next experiment I would perform would be to test the drug alone to see if it has antioxidant properties that are causing it to increase the percent survival, or to see if it is one of those drugs with the rare case that when alone it acts completely different (potential chemo) than it does when paired with radiation (acting like radiation protector). Another experiment that I think would further prove its radiation protector properties would be to increase the radiation flies receive, treat them with the drug, and see if the drug can still increase their percent survival.
Very nice presentation! What is a specific experiment that you could preform to test the radiation protection qualities of this drug, and see if it is actually a radiation protector?
Thank your Madeleine! Just like what I said in my reply to Evan I would test the drug alone to see if it has antioxidant properties that are causing it to increase the percent survival, or to see if it is one of those drugs with the rare case that when alone it acts completely different (potential chemo) than it does when paired with radiation (acting like radiation protector). I would also look to see if it can continue to increase the flies survival even when the flies are exposed to more radiation, like 3000 rad instead of the 2500 rad that they were getting in this experiment.
You did great! This was very interesting research to listen to. My question would be how did you get to choosing this drug for your research into its cancer treatment potential? It’s know purpose and what it inhibits in the cell is very interesting.
Thank you Samuel! When choosing this compound, we were given a huge list to pick from and to be honest this one just caught my eye, but doing further research on it and seeing how it can inhibit Cyclin Dependent Kinase made that much more interested because it looked like a compound that would yield promising results! Although the results were not as predicted they were still very interesting and I am very glad we got to experiment with this compound.
Great presentation! Does the fact that you discovered the compound A.A to be a radiation protector (increase percent survival) vs the expected decrease in percent survival for larvae change the applications of your experiment’s findings at all?
Thank you Luke! The results of our experiment don’t really change the applications of it because it still provides useful information when treating cancer even though it’s not a potential chemotherapy. Since it looks like our drug is a potential radiation protector doctors can use that information to know what compounds to avoid when treating cancer with radiation.These results can also be expanded a little beyond cancer in that this drug can be potentially used to heal people that got accidentally got exposed to radiation.
Does Arcyriaflavin have any major side effects
That is a wonderful question, but because we were only testing Arcyriaflavin in fly larvae to see if it can kill them it is impossible to know what the side effects in humans would be. I also wasn’t looking for that when researching the drug, but I don’t think the side effects could be any worse than traditional chemotherapies we now especially because Arcyriaflavin is a naturally occurring compound.