September 24, 2016 at 04:13AM

Today I Learned: 1) There are no common genotyping tests to determine suitibility of a cancer patient for radiation therapy. This is starkly different from chemotherapies, for which there are many genetic tests to predict safety and efficacy of the chemotherapy. It's not entirely clear why radiation therapy hasn't benefited from genetic testing the same way chemotherapy has, but it may simply be because radiation therapy scientsts tend to gravitate towards technological innovations for delivering radiation in more controlled, more precise, more measured ways. 2) We (meaning a bunch of scientists at Heidelberg) just discovered the molecular sensor that the human body (well, mouse body, but probably also the human body) uses to detect when a fever is high and when to shut it down. It's a temperature-sensitive ion channel called TRPM2 (Transient Receptor Potential Member 2). There are lots of other members of the TRP family, which are sensitive to different temperature ranges and are expressed in different places. TRPM2 is active in the preoptic area (POA) of the hypothalamus, which is a little bit of the brain responsible for tracking core body temperature and adjusting it in response to inflammatory signals. 3) iGEM will accept plasmids that aren't Biobrick compatible, though they won't count towards medal requirements.