Got Milk?? Part 2

Dr. Svanborg did not feel ready to share her knowledge with the world until August, 1995. In her background work, she discovered a piece of evidence that helped her theory that human milk can protect against cancer. The study showed that the risk of childhood lymphoma is nine times higher in bottle-fed infants. She and her student wondered if there was some connection in the breast feeding and the discovery that they had made in the lab. The actual portion of the breast milk that killed the cancer cells was a protein called alpha-lactalbumin (sometimes, called alpha-lac). Just how was this normal protein in human breast milk persuading the cancer cells to commit suicide?

What We Need to Know

What are the contents of human breast milk?
How does the finding that infants raised with breast milk were nine times less susceptible than bottle-fed infants to lymphoma demonstrate that there may be a link between something in human milk and cancer cell destruction?
How does one isolate a protein from something like milk?

Many other researchers had been already studying alpha-lac but never noticed the killing function it had. It may be because the protein has different functions in different situations. As it turns out, the protein could indeed alter its function depending on the local environment. When subjected to an acid environment, the protein changed shape and that very shape change caused a rapidly growing, immature cell to kill itself. However, cancer research scientists remained skeptical of their work.

The vice president of grants at the American Cancer Society had been reading about Dr. Svanborg's work and took a trip to Sweden to visit the laboratory at Lund University. He was impressed with her research team and gave them $200,000 to continue the cancer research. Dr. Svanborg and her colleagues finally got the recognition that they needed to put the "seal of approval" on her research on the alpha-lac protein.

What We Need to Know

How are proteins made? What is their chemical nature?
What determines the shape of proteins?
When shape is altered why is the functionality of the protein altered? Give an example besides the alpha-lac one.
Why would Dr. Svanborg need a "seal of approval" from the world of research scientists?
How important are politics to research in science? Give some examples.

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . . . .