{"id":3652,"date":"2008-07-31T08:21:30","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T13:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3652"},"modified":"2008-07-31T08:21:30","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T13:21:30","slug":"gowanus_the_healer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/07\/gowanus_the_healer.html","title":{"rendered":"Gowanus The Healer"},"content":{"rendered":"

How’s this for a silvery lining on the white film<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The murky waters of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal have caused the demise of a baby whale dubbed Sludgie, stunk up an entire neighborhood and even once caught on fire.<\/p>\n

Someday, they may also save your life.<\/p>\n

At least that’s what a pair of New York biology professors believe after doing research on the waterway considered by many to be the most polluted, putrid and repugnant place in the city.<\/p>\n

New York City College of Technology Profs. Nasreen and Niloufar Haque say the key to combating heart disease, Alzheimer’s and even the AIDS virus may exist in a white film full of bacteria in the canal.<\/p>\n

“One of the things we found is that it has a very potential effect as an antibiotic,” Nasreen Haque said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Haque sisters began researching the Gowanus three years ago equipped with a team of elite divers willing to plumb the depths of the canal — and a hypothesis.<\/p>\n

“If organisms can survive in such an area, they must be producing something that protects them,” Nasreen Haque said.<\/p>\n

The divers pulled samples of the white gunk, which is a combination of bacteria, microbes and other chemicals, from under the canal bed. The Haques took the samples to a lab.<\/p>\n

“What we suspected turned out to be true,” Nasreen Haque said. “Extracts from the microbes in the water proved to be potential sources of antibiotics or inhibitors.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Haque said she and her sister found secretions from microorganisms — “some of which operate like antiobiotics” — in the white gunk.<\/p>\n

The Haques are testing some of the agents to see if they are able to fight the type of bacteria that leads to staph infections.<\/p>\n

Nasreen Haque hopes the substances could be used in anti-inflammatory drugs capable of battling heart disease, among other serious disorders.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Location Scout: Gowanus Canal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How’s this for a silvery lining on the white film: The murky waters of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal have caused the demise of a baby whale dubbed Sludgie, stunk up an entire neighborhood and even once caught on fire. Someday, they may also save your life. At least that’s what a pair of New York biology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brooklyn","category-huzzah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3653,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3652\/revisions\/3653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}