Gene Therapy: New horizons for pharmaceutical research

When I began to study in the Pharmacy School, I had read about gene therapy. The world began to know the news about the results of the Human Genome Project, and it was announced centuries of new pharmacological discoveries.

 

Do you can imagine it? Many genetics desease can be cured with a specific treatment. In fact it was posible for many kind of genetics disorders like several types of cáncer, cystic fibrosis and even AIDS.

Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. In the future, this technique may allow doctors to treat a disorder by inserting a gene into a patient’s cells instead of using drugs or surgery. Researchers are testing several approaches to gene therapy, including:

·    1 . Inactivating, or “knocking out,” a mutated gene that is functioning improperly.

·    2. Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.

3    3. Replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene.

Although gene therapy is a promising treatment option for a number of diseases (including inherited disorders, some types of cancer, and certain viral infections), the technique remains risky and is still under study to make sure that it will be safe and effective.

So, the future pharmacist have here a big matter to study. I really think this is the future of new kind of personalized medicine, and we can see soon big discoveries about treatment of, until now, incurable deseases.

Pets: Unconditional Love

I really love pets. But I must say that it is hard to have a good care of them. It demands time and dedication to give them your love. They are animals, and like us, I think they feel the love that we gave them when they see that you care about them.

Have you ever put yourself in the place of your pet? It is hard, but if you think of it, we just treat our pets like any other human been. It is frequently seen that people give fried meat, bread or salads, and in extremely cases, chocolates or candies, to their dogs. Because we eat them, it doesn´t means that a dog or any other pet eat the same thing.

 

I have a dog. My father gave it to my mother when my grand mom, her mother, died. It´s name is Gea, like the Greek goddess of Earth. We loved it from the very beginning! It is very smart and I try always to communicate with my dog howling gently, and my dog begins to howl with me.

It is still alive, but it is old. I don´t want to think about the day when she will leave us. I just know that she is part of our family and of our hearts.

Your best holidays ever!

I really never went to trip to Europe or north America or even cities of my own country. In my holidays I enjoy to rest and spent time with my family. But I can imagine how would be a travel to another countries or cities. I don’t know if I will visit the typical tourist places like big monuments, or buildings. I’m interested in the history of these places. I think that’s talk us about the idiosyncrasy of the people that live there.

Here, in Santiago, there are many interesting places that tell us histories about the efforts to build the city, or the Inca’s influence that made the Spanish conquerors choose to place Santiago city here. You can visits places like Plaza de Armas (Weapons Square: the place where the army presents if they have to defend the city in the colony times)

Maybe the first thing that I would do if I arrive in a different city is learn about it history, visit the places that made history. Then I would like to observe the people, what clothes they uses, what they like to do, etc... Their customs.




It was this way how I begin to learn about the history of Chile when I arrive from Brazil, and I still like to visit this historical places.

A Country I Would Like to Travel

There are many histories that I read or I Heard when I was just a child about composers, ancient scientists or great humanists, that simple have changed the world to our days.
And I always thought that the places and the contexts where and when they lived give them some inspirations for their works. For example, Bach and Beethoven in Germany, Mozart in Viena, Vivaldi in Venice, Haendel in England, DaVinci in Italy, Aristotle in Greece, etc…

I think there is not just one country that I want to travel to learn about history and about many different cultures. Today we live in a kind of global society where the discoveries and art work are shared around the world. So, our knowledge not came just from Europe. It is also a mix with ancient knowledge from China, India, Arab world and Africa. If you just can look today, for example, about the African influences in Latin American dances, or Arabic influences in our language, or about the cultural differences between the good or evil, heritage from ancient Persian Zoroastrian religion, you can see that we constitute an amalgam of millennial cultures that are still live in the world.

My Blogging experience

Write a blog it is not easy for people like me, because I never share my thoughts or my personal likes. I do have some political or philosophical point of view for many situations. However I sometime think that somebody wants to use this information against you.

In fact, today, in digital modern era, where everybody share secrets moments with "selfies", we can look or read caution notes about dangerous people that explores internet to damage someone in some way. So, we always have to care about what we say or write in attention to not share key information that can put you and the ones that you love in danger.

I think that the problem of information is in fact that not all that you read or see in internet is useful. Probably the most part of internet is made from who we call “trolls”. So, you have a problem to solve with that: “How to efficiently search for specific information on the web?”

And the first answer to that question that appears in my mind is the “Language”. Internet is full of searcher machine that can offer you hundreds or thousands of web sites that contains the key word. But if you want get over that, you must to learn English. It is almost the main solution for the problem. That means not just learn a few words. It means learn to think in different way that you make all the time in spanish.

The problem of language is bigger than that. There is not just one kind of english. There are many. So, to exercite on the web it look like a good beginning to communicate to the world!!

The amazing brain!

There is something special with human brain.

It´s not just about feelings. It´s about create knowledge as a model for understanding the reality.

In this way, it´s amazing how far the human kind can get. If we just stop to think about the ancient civilizations, the inventions and the tech developing in our times, we just can realize the great ability thanks to our brain. But if we think about all the abstract thought and concepts that we can imagine, in this moment you can realize about the real capacity of the human brain.

I remember when I learned about molecules. In spite of human inability to see the smallest things, we can create a model that represents the reality in a very close exactitude. It was in the XIX century when August Kekulé proposed a model for a molecule called benzene. He couldn´t see the molecule, just by the results of experiments and he´s thought, he arrived to the better structure that represents benzene. We used that structure until our days, but just a couple of years we could got a real image of structures that contains this benzene rings. Guess what: It is just like Kekulé thought! It´s amazing!

So, if we can just stop and think, and imagine about even the things that we can´t see, we will see it!

There is many things and concepts that we still use it, created by philosophers and scientists, even when are passed thousands years. Our ability to communicate each other through a precise language is just a simple example of that.

The human brain still have the ability to surprise us positively, and create and imagine for a better world!

The most enjoyable subject...: ARS SINE SCIENTIA NIHIL EST

I began to think about science when I was very Young and received my first lab kit in my birthday. 

The experiments were very basic but they look like magical tricks. And I began to think about what happened at the molecular level that could explain that magic.

When I was growing up, I learned about the discovering of the atom, and how a Greek philosopher called Democritus thought about the smallest thing in universe. It was when he realized that the smallest thing must be indivisible, which is the meaning of the word “atom”.

Thinking about this, I wonder if the different kind of interactions between the atoms and molecules can cause different kind of weather, colors in nature, even diseases in humans. And I began focussing my attention in learning how any scientist or physician study human diseases at molecular level.

At the pharmacy school I realized that my way of thinking is not far from reality. And it is very important to learn basic subjects like mathematics, physics, general chemistry, molecular biology, etc., to be able to learn more sophisticated subjects, such as pharmacokinetics, toxicology, and many others. The basic subjects are equally important for lab techniques and all lab work. That´s because I think we keep the basic principle of “ARS SINE SCIENTIA NIHIL EST”, that is: Art without knowledge is nothing.

So, I always think about the world of possibilities that we can develop with what we are learning! We just need drive and imagination.

Music in our lives...!

Music is, and ever was, a constant in my life.

I grew up listening my parents playing the piano. I still remember my first piano class.

Today I like to play different kind of music. Of course I began with the classical music, which is a universo it self. There aren´t just one kind of classical musical. We can find a big group of music called Early music, that is music composed and played from XV to begining of XVII century.

Before Early music, you can talk about Medieval music, that are divided in Juglar music and Church music.

But after Early music, we begin to listen Baroque music, wich is singularly beautiful.

Of course I learned listen a lot of music and I asking to my self what kind of music the people listened in other times and making links between some historical character and the music in his or her time.

I enjoy Jazz, Blues and Rock and Roll, which are big groups of many differents kinds of music.

But I think that classical music has the power to amaze people who are not used to listening, or even do not know very well that kind of music. We can see it in films. I really think that a big part of success of any movie it i son its soundtrack.

I think my favorite composer is Bach. Of course I enjoy hundreds composers of all times, but Johann Sebastian Bach is really unique. I always remember a TV documentary that remember a quote of a biologist called Lewis Thomas. When he was asked what message he would choose to send from Earth into outer space in the Voyager spacecraft, he answered, "I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach." After a pause, he added, "But that would be boasting."

As you can read, music is very important for me and my life. As the teacher wrote, hearing is one of the first sense that human being develope before the birth.

Today I still play the piano in my free times. I have a little son that is learning cello with a particular teacher. I hope he knows how to appreciate good music as I think I do.

My favourite book or film

I think that I don´t have just one favorite film. I just enjoy some kind of film and I always try to have a great time in cinema. I read some books at school, and I remember some of them but I really enjoy other kinds of books. I like, for example, biographical and historical books and films. I think because, in some way, I can keep and connect real known facts that I have studied, with the fictional ones on the film.

Forrest Gump, The Elephant Man, Immortal Beloved, Waterloo, The Mission, Mishima are just a few very good examples of what I´m talking about.

But, once again, and due the talented and emotional compositions for cinema, there are many films that I really love its music. Composers like, John Williams, John Barry, Alan Silvestri, Ennio Morricone, Basil Poledouris, Danny Elfmann, Philip Glass, Nino Rota, and many others, have made real artwork films through their compositions.

I think one good example is the film 1981´s “Conan the barbarian”.
The composer of the film was Basil Poledouris. The film, itself, doesn´t have many dialogs, so the music is of great importance for keeping the line of history.

Of course I enjoy entertainment epic films for cinema, like Star wars and Lord of the Rings, where the music, again is an important factor of it success.

Walking towards powerfull small technology

It´s very hard to choose just one, or the most important piece of technology. Maybe there are many through my life, in different stages, I think.

When I was a kid, I remember listening to my music in vinyl player called LP mini component. In this time I heat milk with a kind of pot over the fire. Today we have the widely used Microwaves, and I heated my mug of milk in a minute.

Maybe the using of personal computer changed my student life. Made the researching and talking to anybody around the world really possible thanks to internet.

Other important change of technology was the cassete player to a DVD player.

And the changes go and on more quickly than years ago.

So, I think that the issue here is the saving of a large amount of information as possible. In that way, you can realize that the new pieces of technologies are smaller but more powerful saving a big amount of data and files that you use it diary.

Why did I choose my career?

I think that when I was very young, I really loved science as a philosophy of life. I still do! Finding the meaning of little things ever was a challenge to me. Then I had an encyclopedia where I looked for the subjects in a first approach of the theme.

But my liking was changing a little when I asked myself how to cure illnesses of the world. Thus, I focused my attention on some careers that work in this subjects. One of these, and maybe the most important, is studying pharmacy.

I know that biochemistry and pharmacy is the same career in some countries, but here in Chile are separated.

When I took the PSU test I finally chose Pharmacy at the School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Chile, but I think that I never could unite this liking with music, that is another great liking. Some people think that there is no relationship between pharmacy and music, but recently I´ve read an article talking about music as a way to develop many mental and somatic reactions, making music a kind of medicine. Maybe this is a kind of link between music and pharmacy. I still have to discover it!

Introducing my self

Rafael Riadi Mahias is the fourth of five kids of my parents. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, but my parents are Chilean. At the ´70 my father go to Brazil to find a better future for his wife and his 3 sons. They are my mom and my siblings that stay in Chile while my father settle down in São Paulo. After some years they reunited and live in Brazil where I born few months later!

I studied in school in Brazil and I finished my school studies in Chile. So, I have many friends in both countries. I begin my studies in Chile in Liceo A-67 Alexander Fleming, then I went to University of Chile to study Pharmacy at School of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences.  

I always enjoy classical music too. My parents play the piano and I always wondered how beautiful will be to move my hands on the keyboard and play music. So my mom put me in piano classes with a very nice German lady.

Today I can say that I enjoy science and music in the same way, with passion and seriously.