Papers by Mariano Bizzarri
Heritable human genetic modifications pose serious risks, and the therapeutic benefit still dubio... more Heritable human genetic modifications pose serious risks, and the therapeutic benefit still dubious. Therefore, there are concerns regarding the ethical and safety implications of this research as well as the negative impact it could have on studies involving the use of genome-editing techniques in non-reproductive (somatic) cells.
In the Greek tradition, "physis" denotes both the "nature" (the "essence") of an entity and its a... more In the Greek tradition, "physis" denotes both the "nature" (the "essence") of an entity and its accomplishment, that is to say, its "development". For example, the embryo is the "essence" of the unfolding organism and, at the same time, the process leading to it. The egg is a symbol of wholeness, but this totality cannot be perceived out of its self-organizing process. In this way, according to Heraclitus, the living being "hides." Essentially, the Self can only be recognized as an outcome rather than a starting point. This stance, endorsed by Heraclitus and Aristotle, has been left aside by modern scientific research since Bacon's time when the less noble Stoic inheritance was tacitly assumed. In Stoics' belief, physis means power (God or otherwise), i.e. the causal principle (causa prima), which is involved in generating any natural process. Having emphasized the "cause"-even in absence of a clear definition of such a concept-the "real process" lost its relevance and its intelligibility was impaired. The description of the process began to be confused with the description of the "entity" (the thing-in-itself), and this representation eventually ended up identifying the "essence" with its (presumed) "primary" causes. This way, natural things and/or processes were re-absorbed into their presumptive causes, missing the true complexity of the natural system.
The emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised many questions and doubts, ranging f... more The emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised many questions and doubts, ranging from the true "origins" of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) to problems related to clinical management of the disease. Here we discuss serious concerns that have emerged about the health policy measures adopted in Italy. In order to properly assess these issues in perspective, we provide a detailed documented chronicle of the events as they came to light.
civic education in America’s public schools has erupted in response to the terrorist attacks of S... more civic education in America’s public schools has erupted in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Broadly speaking, liberal approaches to civic education have emphasized the need to resist jingoism and to explore why America induces such hatred in certain parts of the world. By contrast, conservative responses to 9/11 have emphasized our national virtues and the need to defend them in times of danger. Conservatives tend to caricature liberal civics lessons as the toleration of the intolerable, while liberals often criticize conservative civics lessons as a knee-jerk brand of patriotism.Yet despite this stark contrast in content, both liberal and conservative advocates continue to insist that civic education in our schools not only impart civic knowledge and civic skills but also shape our deepest values, attitudes, and motivations. My view, briefly stated, is that the attempt to inculcate civic values in our schools is at best ineffective and often undermines the i...
Pathology - Research and Practice, 2020
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and its metastasis which generally observed a... more Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and its metastasis which generally observed at the last stage is the major cause of breast cancer-related death. Therefore, the agents that have the potential to prevent metastatic and invasive nature of breast cancer can open up new therapeutic strategies. Melatonin, a major hormone of pineal gland, is a powerful anti-cancer agent. There are growing evidence regarding the protective effect of melatonin against cancer invasion and metastasis. The anti-metastatic feature of melatonin accompanies with suppression of tumor proliferation, induction of tumor apoptosis, regulation of the cell cycle, modulating angiogenesis, impediment of invasion, and induction of cancer cells sensitivity to the chemotherapy agents. More recently, anti-metastatic effect of melatonin through affecting cancer stem cells and vascular mimicry has been identified. Thus, the aim of this review is to discuss the potential therapeutic effect of melatonin on breast cancer via modulating the cells invasion and metastasis.
Minerva ginecologica, 1996
Ovarian failure is a common consequence of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in women undergoing bone... more Ovarian failure is a common consequence of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in women undergoing bone marrow transplantation. The longer survival in these women has raised, during the past years, the need for a better quality of life. The objective of the present study has been to evaluate perspectively the potential benefit of hormonal replacement therapy in 24 women who underwent bone marrow transplantation. The data obtained indicated that hormonal replacement therapy results effective in preventing and/or relieving the multiple manifestations of gonadal failure, including amenorrhea, hot flashes, atrophy of genital apparatus, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.
Physics of Life Reviews, Jul 1, 2020
In an old paper, dating back from 1945, the German embryologist G. Fankhauser demonstrated how re... more In an old paper, dating back from 1945, the German embryologist G. Fankhauser demonstrated how relevant could be top-down constraints in shaping organization structures at lower levels. In the particular case considered by this author, a polyploid triton -while having a doubled cell size with respect to the diploid -had exactly the same dimension of organs and ducts . Simply the polyploid triton used half of the cells to build up its organs. This is crucial for life: the optimization of the caliber of a biological structure (the duct) is finely tuned to fit with the flow of biological fluids (a top-down constraint) and cannot be established by its constituent cells or the genome neither. While this is an intuitive tenet (after all we do not decide our home size based on the size of the bricks!), this is a largely overlooked issue in Biology that, in the last fifty ears, concentrated almost exclusively on the investigation of bottom-up control. Indeed, this reductionist stance resulted inadequate -to say the least -in accounting for the emergence of complex patterns, in both morphology and molecular networks . In the paper from Kuchling Franz, et al. [3], the authors give a comprehensive and extremely rigorous model of the intimate nature of top-down control in biology by looking at the different differentiated states recovered by a living system in terms of generalized flow of subsequent configurations converging to a non-equilibrium steady-state. The Authors give a picture of the integration of this control by considering the free energy principle (FEP) as the main driver of processes that lead to biological organization. The basic tenet is that dynamics is sufficient for complex patterns to arise and be remodeled until a specific target phenotype results. The traveling of a system through different states of organization is addressed in probabilistic terms. The starting point is an old and basic pillar of probability calculus, such as the Bayes theorem. Bayes theorem is usually seen
International Journal of Endocrinology, 2016
Myo-inositol (myo-Ins) has a physiological role in mammalian gametogenesis and embryonic developm... more Myo-inositol (myo-Ins) has a physiological role in mammalian gametogenesis and embryonic development and a positive clinical impact on human medically assisted reproduction. We have previously shown that mouse embryo exposure to myo-Ins through preimplantation development in vitro increases proliferation activity and blastocyst production, representing an improvement in culture conditions. We have herein investigated biochemical mechanisms elicited by myo-Ins in preimplantation embryos and evaluated myo-Ins effects on postimplantation/postnatal development. To this end naturally fertilized embryos were cultured in vitro to blastocyst in the presence or absence of myo-Ins and analyzed for activation of the PKB/Akt pathway, known to modulate proliferation/survival cellular processes. In parallel, blastocyst-stage embryos were transferred into pseudopregnant females and allowed to develop to term and until weaning. Results obtained provide evidence that myo-Ins induces cellular pathways involving Akt and show that (a) exposure of preimplantation embryos to myo-Ins increases the number of blastocysts available for uterine transfer and of delivered animals and (b) the developmental patterns of mice obtained from embryos cultured in the presence or absence of myo-Ins, up to three weeks of age, overlap. These data further identify myo-Ins as a possibly important supplement for human preimplantation embryo culture in assisted reproduction technology.
Best Practice & Research in Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Nov 1, 2016
During the last decades, a substantial body of research has focused on the role of the two major ... more During the last decades, a substantial body of research has focused on the role of the two major inositol (Ins) stereoisomers, myoinositol (myoIns) and D-chiroinositol (D-chiroIns), both second messengers of insulin, in insulin-dependent processes, including polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). MyoIns has been shown to affect different pathways at both ovarian and non-ovarian level. On the contrary, D-chiroIns alone is unable to exert significant improvements in the ovarian cell functions, as its beneficial effects are mainly limited to the non-ovarian tissue in which it may significantly inhibit the negative cellular consequences of hyperinsulinemia. However, both Ins isomers can be positively associated in the management of PCOS patients in a ratio corresponding to their physiological plasma ratio (40:1). This appears to exert a synergistic effect according to a multi-targeted design. In this respect, new fundamental insights into the biological mechanisms displayed by Ins, as well as clinical trials based on the myoIns + D-chiroIns formulations, have already provided encouraging results.
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Apr 8, 2019
Cancers, May 18, 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
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Papers by Mariano Bizzarri