I have always considered it of paramount importance that a medical doctor should also be a scientist.

If not a scientist, then at least a practicing medical doctor must have a scientific out look with a crit

ical thinking.

That is how he or she will know of the importance of conducting a double-blinded placebo controlled clinical trials.

Science IS evidence based, anything else is quackery.

This is exactly a true physician knows why homeopathy, ayurveda, crystal therapy etc. do not work.

I keenly got involved into translational research at Johns Hopkins and was involved in gene therapy.

We were using adeno-viral vectors to transfer a specific gene into the RPE retinal cells in-vitro.

That work never got published as I moved to west coast to University of California, Irvine.

There I had a fruitful career of 2 years with 3 publications.

Here is one of the paper:

Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2010 May;51(5):2601-7. Epub 2009 Dec 3.

Inhibition of apoptosis in human retinal

pigment epithelial cells treated with

benzo(e)pyrene, a toxic component of

cigarette smoke.

Mansoor S, Gupta N, Patil AJ, Estrago-Franco MF, Ramirez C, Migon R, Sapkal A, Kuppermann BD, Kenney MC.

Source

Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, CA 92868, USA.

Abstract

PURPOSE:

To study the inhibitory effects of some agents or drugs (inhibitors) on benzo(e)pyrene (B(e)P)-induced cell death and apoptosis on human retinal pigment epithelial (ARPE-19) cells in vitro.

METHODS:

ARPE-19 cells were pretreated with varying concentrations of different classes of inhibitors (calpain, benzyl isothiocyanate [BITC], simvastatin, epicatechin, genistein, resveratrol, and memantine) before B(e)P exposure. Cell viability (CV) was determined by a trypan blue dye-exclusion assay. Caspase-3/7 and caspase-9 activities were measured by fluorochrome assays. The production of reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) was measured with 2,7-dicholorodihydrofluorescein diacetate dye assay.

RESULTS:

At 30-microM concentrations, the genistein, resveratrol, and memantine inhibitors were able to reverse significantly the loss of cell viability, the activation of caspase-3/7 and caspase-9, and the production of ROS/RNS in ARPE-19 cell cultures. Memantine was the most potent and genistein was the least effective inhibitor in blocking the B(e)P-induced effects. Calpain, BITC, simvastatin, and epicatechin did not reverse the loss of cell viability in B(e)P-treated ARPE-19 cells. As a matter of fact, at the concentrations studied (15, 30, 45 microM), the BITC plus B(e)P-treated cultures showed significantly lower cell viability than the B(e)P-treated culture alone, suggesting BITC-related toxicity.

CONCLUSIONS:

Genistein, resveratrol, and memantine can reverse the apoptosis and oxidant production generated by B(e)P, a toxic element of smoking. These inhibitors may be beneficial against retinal diseases associated with the loss of RPE cells.

PMID:: 19959636; [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]; Dr. Kuppermann/Dr. Kenney Lab in the University of California, Irvine in Orange.; We carried out all our experiments in this lab.; Remember, the ultimate test of any idea, hypothesis or theory is Experiments.