Hot Babes

Today I wanna talk about complacency. I was reminded of a friend from Germany when he added me in the Facebook. Yes, that popular "Book" that most youngsters nowadays are reading most of the time instead of their textbooks. I am not really into the facebook. Communication via the internet line has somehow locked people to the front of their computer. For the next generation, kids might not be able to imagine playing with insects or pets together with other kids in the park, and teenagers might not have any idea of going to a dancing party to meet his/her sweetheart. I am neither objecting nor denying the technological advancement; I can only be drifted by it.


Oh, I see. Andreas added me in the facebook, and I really wonder how he is able to find me. He was an exchange student from the University of Koeln last time. We knew each other on the basketball court in PGP, and he is a real hunk with superb bod. Here comes my topic about complacency. He always liked to charge from far for a layup, and I could always block his layup. So, there was always this idea in my mind that I was so strong that I manage to block a guy with his body, even though I was in fact very "lightweight" last time. The reality is, as I start to understand now that he was actually laying-up evade-minded, which means he was trying to keep minimal body contact. This technique, which is with the best chance of scoring, is in contrast to some of the PRC players who charges with the mind of knocking you down. Unluckily, I was still able to block his layup^^ So, I was complacent to think that I was strong, but my defense technique was still very good. Plus, non-basketball fan may not know that Jordan was not only best in scoring, but was awarded Defender of the Year in NBA before.


The above example led me to ponder if complacency is an attribute of the young-age. It's not! People need self-satisfaction of all kinds all the time. People like to be praised. It is like psychological vitamins. Well, this looks like an interesting project in investigating how self-complacency is related to mental health and quality of life. I don't know how much I need it, but I only see that everyone around me needs it. In the end, it become a food-web - some are predators while the others are preys.

p/s: I am writing my title "Hot Babes" to attract people to read on. A friend taught me this trick. Obviously, this post is meant for guys^^

Vol.12(2)

PART I

I would like to talk about the emerging field of biomolecular imaging, which comprises different biophysical techniques applied in observing either the time-average or dynamical picture of the nano-world within the cell. Please do not be confused with the already common but still improving medical devices in tissue scanning, like the ultrasonar, MRI, etc. Proteomics comes in as a post-genomics era, which is then followed closely by the interactomics. Genomics is still important, e.g. in the study of SNP and LOH in cancer patients. However, as gene therapy has never gained the expected success, people have to target the culprit molecular components, i.e. proteins. By understanding which protein interacting with which protein, we are able to elucidate the pathway, and plan our targets. It's customary to design either small-molecule compound or humanized antibody to block these faulty proteins. And this is the current big-money business.

Is it the end of story? Obviously not. As some of the "golden-bullets" produced by pharmaceutical giants had failed the clinical trial due to occurence of death, we are held back and start to consider the importance of looking deeply into the action at the molecular scale. Of course, there are several reasons that lead to the same goal, like answers to certain biological puzzles have been elusive, understanding of the dynamic factor in protein functions, etc. One of these puzzles is the conversion process of PrPC into PrPSc as well as where does it happen within the neuron (for your note, PrPSc is the causative agent of the incurable BSE, commonly known as mad cow disease, as well as other brain-wasting diseases). And this problem has been in my mind for over a year.

About a year ago, I handed in an assignment for the module "Protein Engineering". In that writing, I proposed to mutate four residues in the alpha-helical core of PrPC so as to engineer a non-native CCXXCC motif into this protein. A bi-arsenical fluorophore designed by Roger Tsien's group in UCSD is able to fluoresce by excitation only upon forming covalent bonds with the thiol groups of the four cysteine in helical topology [Griffin, B.A., Adams, S.R., and Tsien, R.Y. (1998) Specific covalent labeling of recombinant protein molecules inside live cells. Science 281:269-272]. I argue that the PrPSc conversion process may somehow has high enough free energy to disrupt the helical topology (please be reminded there are four covalent bonds there) and results in loss of signal. We may even change the scheme to a FRET system to observe gain of signal instead. By this way, we should be able to trace in real-time by confocal microscopy where the conversion happens. Of course, I am always proud of my idea. But in the end, I got only average grade for that module.

Just a few days ago, I came across this publication [Roberti, M.J., Bertoncini, C.W., Klement, R., Jares-Erijman, E.A., Jovin, T.M. (2007) Fluorescence imaging of amyloid formation in living cells by a functional, tetracysteine-tagged alpha-synuclein. Nat Methods. 4(4):345-51]. Well, I am happy about it. It shows that I got the right guess what other people have in their minds and who are able to successfully produce the results, though there is a bit difference between our approach. Amyloid formation of alpha-synuclein is an Alzheimer's (AD) pathology, which might be closely related to PrPSc conversion. Besides, I have also listed other related publications:

(i) Martin BR, Giepmans BNG, Adams SR, Tsien RY. (2005) Mammalian cell-based optimization of the biarsenical-binding tetracysteine motif for improved fluorescence and affinity. Nature Biotechnol. 10:1308-1314.
(ii) Sigurdson CJ, Nilsson KP, Hornemann S, Manco G, Polymenidou M, Schwarz P, Leclerc M, Hammarström P, Wüthrich K, Aguzzi A. (2007) Prion strain discrimination using luminescent conjugated polymers. Nat Methods. 4(12):1023-30.
(iii) Liu B, Archer CT, Burdine L, Gillette TG, Kodadek T. (2007) Label transfer chemistry for the characterization of protein-protein interactions. J Am Chem Soc. 129(41):12348-9.

Vol.12(1)

Nope! It isn't 14th of Feb. Yet I am going to list out a few of my favorite romance movies, simply because I would like to recommend a french movie that I had watched for the second time a few days ago. Paris, je t'aime (2006) is a composition of 18 short films directed by different directors across the world. According to Wikipedia, 20 films were initially planned to represent the 20 arrondissements (areas/districts) of Paris, but two were later dropped out. Its online rating was not particularly high (IMDB=7.5, RT=84). Yet it is a beautifully executed composition, that depicts love of all forms, love of different ages, dramatic consequences of love, love between couples, between family members, love that strikes passerby and homosexual; all of which happened so miraculously in this City of Love, Paris. (Paris is indeed the City of Love, as implicated by the survey from Durex that Parisians make love most frequently compared to other people around the globe^^) Think about it, it's a film with ideas, conveyed by as many as 18 renowned directors in many interesting ways with distinct tastes. What more could you possibly ask for?


Trust me, there are a few "short films" that will definitely tickle your artsy sense, like Christopher Doyle's Porte de Choisy in which Faye Wong's 天空 was used as an accompaniment for a scene, the mimes in Sylvain Chomet's Tour Eiffel, and the vampiress in Vincenzo Natali's Quartier de la Madeleine. And believe me, the casts are really good actors. All in all, my fave has to be Alfonso Cuarón's Parc Monceau: a young lady meeting an old man, and talked along the way with a conversation that hinted at an affair, but...in the end...(zha dao!) The extra point point is: the whole scene was filmed in a single continuous shot! As a side-note, that lady (Ludivine Sagnier) has a superb body. Need confirmation, watch Swimming Pool (2003). Another side-note, I am also very impressed by the mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón. Two of his works that I have watched are Sólo con tu pareja (1991) and Children of Men (2006). Besides, Y tu mamá también (2001) is also an acclaimed film.

Well, if I am allowed to have ONE mistress, SHE would be Oliver Schmitz's Place des fêtes, which is about an African man being treated by an African female paramedic. (So, those f*cking racists should learn to be civilized!) You won't feel from my words. If you do, motion pictures will be meaningless. So, grab the DVD and watch it with any of your close ones, and not necessary on 14th of Feb! The followings are some of the beautiful lines that may interest you:

F: If you want to come, it's now or never.
M: Do you need me?
F: Yes. Yes.

M: Can I massage your feet?
F: Why would I let you?
M: Because they hurt.
F: Do they?
M: You were running in my dreams all night.

"If you let her get away, you'll die.
Death of the heart.
It's the ugliest death there is."

So, where's my list? Well, I think poster is really part of the movie^^









This is a list of romance films that are special enough to stay in my memory. I may have omitted some good ones that I haven't watched yet, and it does not include my fave from the East as well as cartoons. Furthermore, there are some crowd favorites that may not have impressed me that much, e.g. Ghost (1990), Titanic (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Notting Hill (1999), Love Actually (2003), etc. I have just watched the highly rated Notebook (2004) a few weeks ago, and it turned out as a canonical american love story. You see, the problem with me is that I am watching romance movie by myself, without a loved one, so I generally demand something else from it, while it might have touched deeply for other couples. Nonetheless, the lesson I learnt from Notebook is: when a guy truly fell in love to a girl, he would make a dream for her and realize it with his life. I deserve no love, as I have been thinking about myself, making my own dreams. One movie of this genre that I am going to catch is Across the Universe (2007), which cast the beauty Evan Rachel Wood^^

p/s: I have my review on Before Sunset and Before Sunrise here - http://leoe.blogs.friendster.com/leos_annalen/.