Blood Suckers

Blood suckers have been reported to have existed in many cultures, may be since the prehistoric times. The curiosity coupled with fear that their prevalence cast is witnessed by the huge success of the vampire fiction.  Even devils, demons subsisted on the essence of life: the blood. How those that are victimized survive after an attack is interesting, indeed.

Blood clots after an injury. Blood coagulation is an important mechanism in animals which helps them to prevent excessive bleeding caused due to rupture of blood vessels.The body dissolves these clots naturally restoring the blood flow.  Sometimes, these clots occur inside the blood vessels without any vessel being injured or do not dissolve naturally. How these parasites (ticks, bats, leaches, kissing bugs, mosquitoes)  prevent the blood from clotting in their prey and suck blood led scientists to investigate and find anti-clotting substances.

Anti-clotting Substances:

Hirudin: the medical leech Hirudo medicinalis makes a compound called 'hirudin', which inhibits  the enzymatic activity of thrombin. It has medicinal importance as it is used to treat stroke patients.

Desmoteplase: Australian vampire bat Desmodus rotundous makes 'desmoteplase', a saliveryplasminogen activator. It activates plasmin and leads to the distruction of fibrin at a rate hundreds of times faster than existing drugs. It is being tested in human patients currently.

Nitrophorin: The saliva of kissing bug, Rhodinus contain a protein called 'nitrophorin', which binds nitric oxide (NO). The bug after biting humans, injects its saliva into the blood and nitrophorin gets into the human blood vessels which bind NO and consequently dilate the blood vessel.

After extraction, isolation and purification from the suitable animal the aforesaid chemicals can be obtained. They can prevent many deaths due to strokes and heart attacks in humans as they can dissolve these pathological clots.

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Lonely Long Journey

 Decision to move on, to choose higher education as vocation can be difficult if your passions are many. I am a student studying for my Pre-PhD.I am 24 now and I suffer from versatility.

It might sound odd, but i have diverse interests which keep me away from staying focused on my subject. I feel it is a sin not knowing your subject properly. The subject of my post-graduate study was zoology with ecology as special paper. My interests that I should stay focused on are all grouped under bio-sciences.

 In general PhD is all about what to watch while you wait.1.Before getting enrolled, 2. Before defending your topic, 3.Before thesis submission and presentation. It can be really frustrating.

Traveling alone can be difficult and boring. Also, it is necessary to be a good writer, a good speaker, if you wish to perform well. So, to ease on the pressure, I have decided to write something on daily basis.Readers, your comments are most welcome.

Watching peers succeed and many others who succeed, puts the picture of success before us. We dream being successful.

Many times failure happens that could prove to be fatal. Many a times rather most often it is we who victimize ourselves, knowingly or unknowingly.

But still when we realise that the most important and expensive wealth that we possess are- ourselves, happiness at that instant arrives. Nothing has been lost.

The lesson is to laugh at our being silly, smile at ourselves, care for ourselves as if caring for a toddler. To forgive our self and get rid of the guilt. Uniqueness of our personality, our dreams, our goals, and how we make attempts, direction of our efforts- define ourselves.

Amidst a great chaos their exists an order. I am learning on to be the eye of the storm.PhD is my dream to be actualized in the near future and by the time this blog will be my writing space.