You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

jangles ago

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/ckozfn16370?lang=en&region=US PAX2 - market price Just $5k for 10 aliquots. The pedos are just a tool for them to increase peptide production.

Apothecarist ago

It's been a few years since I've stepped foot in a lab but that link is for a Zinc Finger Nuclease. These enzymes are used to create "knockout" strains for research. The one you linked is to specifically "knockout" the human PAX2 gene. If you are not familiar with this technology, knockouts are used to study the effects of removing specific genes from the genome. So this one in particular would be used to study the effects of a missing PAX2 gene (and consequently, the importance of a PAX2 gene). PAX2 is involved in many signaling pathways and has been studied for a long time (I learned about it in many of my undergraduate courses).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233383105_Signaling_pathways_of_PAX2_and_its_role_in_renal_interstitial_fibrosis_and_glomerulosclerosis (not the best image but I don't feel like looking any further atm)

As a side note, nothing is cheap in the biotech industry. It is not uncommon for a peptide or enzyme to cost hundred/thousands of dollars, even if you are only buying a few microliters. With that said, research is typically done on animal models. But I'm sure there's an interest in doing research on human models...and obtaining certain enzymes/peptides/tissues.

Apothecarist ago

On a side note, I have not done much research on melanin and will look into it soon. I have heard the melanin - pineal gland connection, though. Just wanted to let you know I didn't completely ignore the sources you cited! In relation to the Tuskegee experiments, and possible Ebola controversies...that would make the test subjects black (along with a lot of missing orphans/refugees not being white). Knowing our sordid history with racism, however, there's a possibility they saw blacks as a better "guinea pig" than whites (same for the gays with HIV). All humans/most animals produce melanin so animals could be the source of it, but there's no denying there's more melanin in humans with darker skin. Melanin is necessary, though, for proper development of the iris (coloboma connection??).

And would you look at this!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin The connection between albinism and deafness is well known, though poorly understood. In his 1859 treatise On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin observed that "cats which are entirely white and have blue eyes are generally deaf".[20] In humans, hypopigmentation and deafness occur together in the rare Waardenburg's syndrome, predominantly observed among the Hopi in North America.