Virus-free Embryonic-like Stem Cells Made From Skin Of Parkinson’s Disease Patients

The researchers stained the cells green for a neuron-specific protein (class III beta-tubulin) and red for a dopamine-producing neuron-specific enzyme (tyrosine hydroxylase).

ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news and science breakthroughs — updated daily

As I’ve mentioned over and over…very soon, adult stem cells will do anything that embryonic stem cells can do…minus the tumor causing property of course. – dg

This marks the first time researchers have generated human iPS cells that have maintained their embryonic stem-cell-like properties after the removal of reprogramming genes. The findings are published in the March 6 edition of the journal Cell.

via Virus-free Embryonic-like Stem Cells Made From Skin Of Parkinson’s Disease Patients.

Brain Reconstruction: Stem-Cell Scaffolding Can Repair Stroke Damage | 80beats | Discover Magazine

Adult stem cells plug the holes in strokes – dg

Brain Reconstruction: Stem-Cell Scaffolding Can Repair Stroke Damage

Researchers have developed a treatment based on an injection of neural stem cells encased in a biodegradable polymer that replaced the brain tissue in rats that had been damaged by stroke. Led by British neurobiologist Mike Modo, the team was able to show that the hole in the brains of rats caused by a stroke was completely filled with “primitive” new nerve tissue within seven days. This raises the possibility of radically better treatments for a condition that is the leading cause of adult disability in industrialized countries [Technology Review].

via Brain Reconstruction: Stem-Cell Scaffolding Can Repair Stroke Damage | 80beats | Discover Magazine.

CATCH UP! – New stem cell technique brings Parkinson’s cure closer

Chasing a cure for Neurological Disease

“New” stem cell technique brings Parkinson’s cure “closer”???? CATCH UP!  There are treatment centers around  the world that have been treating Parkinson’s disease with adult stem cells for years. -dg

New stem cell technique brings Parkinson’s cure closer

By David Derbyshire

Last updated at 11:07 AM on 06th March 2009

Unlike previous attempts to create stem cells, the American team of researchers did not need to create and destroy human embryos

A technique that turns human skin into healthy brain cells could offer hope to thousands of Parkinson’s disease patients, scientists said today.

Researchers believe that injections of these cells could reverse damage caused by the degenerative brain disease – and ease some of its most distressing symptoms.

It is the first time that scientists have ‘reprogrammed’ ordinary skin cells into becoming stem cells using this technique – and then turned them into healthy brain cells.

The brain cells produced dopamine, the chemical lacking in people suffering form Parkinson’s disease.

Unlike previous attempts to create stem cells, the American team of researchers did not need to create and destroy human embryos.

They were also able to make the cells free of cancer causing genes – a massive problem with previous experiments.

via New stem cell technique brings Parkinson’s cure closer | Mail Online.

Scientists identify compound that could prevent HIV transmission

Scientists at the University of Minnesota have identified a compound that, applied vaginally, can prevent transmission of the primate version of HIV, called SIV. The study is published in the 4 March 2009 online edition of Nature. Ashley Haase, M.D., head of the University of Minnesota Department of Microbiology, principal investigator of the study, and Pat Schlievert, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology, and-co-investigator, researched Glycerol Monolaurate (GML), a naturally occurring compound that the FDA recognises as safe. It is widely used as an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agent in food and cosmetics.

‘After 25 years, an effective vaccine for HIV is still on the distant horizon, so not only vaccines, but all research into ways to prevent the continued spread of this lethal virus remains critically important,’ Haase said. ‘If GML as a topical microbicide can add to our prevention, it could contribute to saving millions of lives.’

After sexual exposure to SIV, the researchers found that the body’s natural defence system is activated, rushing immune cells (T-cells) to the scene of the infection. The virus uses these T-cells as fuel to expand infection locally and spread it throughout the body.

via Science Centric | News | Scientists identify compound that could prevent HIV transmission.

News: Symphogen and Origen Ally to Produce Transgenic Chickens. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News – Biotechnology from Bench to Business

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, Act 1 scene 5

Transgenic chickens?

Symphogen and Origen Ally to Produce Transgenic Chickens

GEN News Highlights – Mar 6 2009, 10:51 AM EST

Symphogen and Origen Therapeutics are working together to develop transgenic chickens capable of producing human antibodies against infectious diseases, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.

via News: Symphogen and Origen Ally to Produce Transgenic Chickens. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News – Biotechnology from Bench to Business.

The making of an intestinal stem cell

intestinal-stem-cell

Science Centric | 6 March 2009 15:44 GMT

Researchers have found the factor that makes the difference between a stem cell in the intestine and any other cell. The discovery reported in the 6th March issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, is an essential step toward understanding the biology of the stem cells, which are responsible for replenishing all other cells in the most rapidly self-renewing tissue in mammals. It may also have implications for colon cancer, according to the researchers.

The report finds evidence that a transcription factor called Achaete scute-like 2 (Ascl2) switches on the stem cell program in intestinal cells. Transcription factors are genes that control other genes.

‘This transcription factor makes these stem cells tick,’ said Hans Clevers of Hubrecht Institute-KNAW and University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands. ‘It activates a small program of genes essential to gut stem cells.’ In other words, if the Ascl2 gene turns on, any dividing cell in the intestine would turn into a stem cell capable of producing any other cell type in that tissue, he added.

The lining of the intestine is made up of peaks known as villi and valleys called crypts. The crypts contain stem cells and so-called Paneth cells, which serve to protect those stem cells.

Intestinal stem cells are rather unique among adult stem cells, Clevers said. In most tissues of the body, stem cells divide only rarely – perhaps once a month. That’s not true of the rapidly dividing stem cells of the intestine.

‘Their entire life, intestinal stem cells make tissue every day,’ he said. That’s because approximately every five days, the intestinal lining is replaced in its entirety, leaving only the stem cells and their Paneth cell defenders constant. The stem cells produce an impressive 200 to 300 grams of new cells every day, Clevers added…

via Science Centric | News | The making of an intestinal stem cell.

Dolly the Sheep Shorn – Part 1 – Cloning 101

Dolly the Sheep & Clone

Cloning 101

Cloning is the process of creating living organisms identical to a single parent.  A clone is a group of organisms genetically identical individuals descended from the same parent (organism or cell) by some kind of asexual reproduction.  Some simple plants (such as tubers) and animals (such as sea anemones) reproduce naturally in this way, and identical twins are actually natural human clones, produced when the 2-cell-staged embryo split into two, known as embryo splitting.  Today, scientists clone by extracting the genetic material from a donor cell and putting it into an egg with its own genetic material removed.  The resulting embryo is allowed to develop, put into a surrogate mother, and come to term.  This is known as ‘nuclear transfer’, the method used in creating Dolly, the sheep that made news headlines around the world and achieved a major scientific breakthrough.  What made her so special was that she was cloned from adult differentiated cells, a way that was considered impossible at that time.

The purpose of cloning research is to change living organisms so as to improve people’s lives.  Recently, developments in genetic engineering, and cloning in particular, show a promising future, but also raise frightening prospects.  Here we will further explore all these aspects and the risks and possibilities in this ‘tool for mankind’. - http://library.thinkquest.org/C0122429/index1.htm

If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck…it’s not a duck!

donald-duck

When does an adult stem cell look like an embryonic stem cell and act like an embryonic stem cell but isn’t an adult stem cell?

When it’s an Induced pluripotent stem cell.

Induced pluripotent stem cells[1], commonly abbreviated as iPS cells or iPSCs, are a type of pluripotent stem cell artificially derived from a non-pluripotent cell, typically an adult somatic cell, by inducing a “forced” expression of certain genes.

Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells are believed to be identical to natural pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells in many respects, such as the expression of certain stem cell genes and proteins, chromatin methylation patterns, doubling time, embryoid body formation, teratoma formation, viable chimera formation, and potency and differentiability, but the full extent of their relation to natural pluripotent stem cells is still being assessed.

IPSCs were first produced in 2006 from mouse cells and in 2007 from human cells. This has been cited as an important advancement in stem cell research, as it may allow researchers to obtain pluripotent stem cells, which are important in research and potentially have therapeutic uses, without the controversial use of embryos.

via Induced pluripotent stem cell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

PRP – Part 4 – PRP Science (a)

Platelet Rich Plasma

Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods

Buffered Platelet-Rich Plasma Enhances Mesenchymal Stem Cell Proliferation and Chondrogenic Differentiation

The success of tissue engineering applications can potentially be dramatically improved with the addition of adjuncts that increase the proliferation and differentiation of progenitor or stem cells. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has recently emerged as a potential biologic tool to treat acute and chronic tendon disorders. The regenerative potential of PRP is based on the release of growth factors that occurs with platelet rupture. Its autologous nature gives it a significant advantage in tissue engineering applications.

via Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. – Tissue Engineering Part C: Methods – 0(0):.

Who Profits From Scientific Research?

Does the injection of the profit motive into scientific research distort the kinds of questions that get investigated and degrade the quality of the results that get produced?

via Lab Test: Who Profits From Scientific Research? (Page 3).