Simon C. "Niels" Groen

Your skin color may affect how well a medication works for you — but the research is way behind

tomwt — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 16:46:40 +0000

Your skin color may affect how well a medication works for you — but the research is way behind tomwt Tue, 11/26/2024 - 08:46 More CNAS in the Media Emily Cooke | Live Science November 26, 2024

LIVE SCIENCE - Your skin color may influence how safe and effective a given drug is for you, a new analysis suggests.

In a recent think piece, published Oct. 9 in the journal Human Genomics, scientists examined a plethora of studies, revealing that melanin — the pigment that gives our skin, hair and eyes their color — can absorb certain drugs that are either applied to the skin or taken orally, thus affecting how much of a dose makes it to the tissues that need treatment.

This means that people's responses to a standard dose of a given drug may vary depending on their skin tone. For instance, research has shown that nicotine binds to melanin and that variations in skin pigmentation may influence how much people smoke. This may be because, once nicotine is inhaled, it travels through the bloodstream and is absorbed by melanin-containing cells in the skin, therefore reducing how much of the drug reaches the brain. However, the exact reason is not yet fully understood.

Toxic chemicals, such as those found in fertilizers and pesticides, may also accumulate in higher concentrations in darker skin than in lighter skin, the researchers found. This could reframe what a standard safe-exposure level might be for certain demographics.

In the think piece, Sophie Zaaijer, a consultant and researcher affiliated with the University of California, Riverside, and Simon Groen, an assistant professor of evolutionary systems biology at UC Riverside, noted that melanin's ability to interact with specific drugs was flagged back in the 1960s. However, they argued that its effects have not been properly considered in preclinical research or in clinical trials of new drugs.

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Simon C. "Niels" Groen

Skin tone may affect how drugs work, including those designed to help people stop smoking

tomwt — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:27:29 +0000

Skin tone may affect how drugs work, including those designed to help people stop smoking tomwt Thu, 10/24/2024 - 16:27 More CNAS in the Media Anna Edney | Bloomberg October 17, 2024

BLOOMBERG - Many factors can affect how well a drug works: age, whether you’ve eaten, your weight and even drinking grapefruit juice. Recently, I learned skin color can also play a role.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, highlighted this last week in the journal Human Genomics and called for drugmakers to take steps to better understand the reaction between melanin, the substance that determines skin tone, and medications.

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Scientists Sophie Zaaijer and Simon Groen from UC Riverside laid out a cost-effective way drugmakers could investigate whether melanin affects these potential treatments. Hopefully they’ll listen.

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Simon C. "Niels" Groen

A poisonous diet gives these animals their own toxic defense

tomwt — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:10:02 +0000

A poisonous diet gives these animals their own toxic defense tomwt Wed, 06/12/2024 - 09:10 More CNAS in the Media Brian Handwerk | Smithsonian Magazine June 12, 2024

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - You are what you eat, the old saying goes, and that holds true for many animals that regularly ingest poison. For certain species that feed on toxic fare like plants and insects, not only do the poisonous meals do these creatures no harm, but the consumers actually co-opt the toxins. They become poisonous themselves for protection from parasites or predators.

Monarch butterflies are beautiful backyard favorites—but they’re also toxic. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed plants, where caterpillars devour leaves containing poisonous cardiac glycosides compounds. The monarchs store these toxins in their own bodies to deter predators—and the insects’ appealing black and orange color signals this toxicity.

The monarchs evolved to digest the toxic plant through just a few key genetic mutations—ones that scientists have recently uncovered. Unfortunately for the butterflies, some of their predators, including black-headed grosbeaks and eastern deer mice, have also evolved mutations enabling them to devour the insects and tolerate the toxins.

“It looks like in this situation there might be an evolutionary arms race up the food chain,” says Simon Cornelis “Niels” Groen, an evolutionary systems biologist at the University of California, Riverside.

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Simon C. "Niels" Groen

RFK Jr. revealed he had a parasitic brain worm. Here’s what to know.

tomwt — Thu, 09 May 2024 17:40:38 +0000

RFK Jr. revealed he had a parasitic brain worm. Here’s what to know. tomwt Thu, 05/09/2024 - 10:40 More CNAS in the Media Fenit Nirappil | The Washington Post May 08, 2024

THE WASHINGTON POST - Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed that he was diagnosed with mercury poisoning around the same time doctors discovered a parasitic worm in his brain, adding to questions about cognitive fitness that have roiled the 2024 campaign.

“It’s not necessarily a problem right away to have this infection, but it’s really when the parasite is starting to die in the brain,” said Simon Groen, assistant professor of evolutionary systems biology at University of California at Riverside, who has researched parasitic worms. “That’s when a lot of molecules are released from the parasite cells that brain cells can respond to with an innate immune response that causes inflammation. And that in turn can lead to neurological disorders like seizures.”

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Department of Nematology

Simon C. "Niels" Groen