For David and Mary Hubbell of Fisher, every day spent with their 18-year-old daughter, Katy, feels like a treasure.

Katy Hubbell was 4 years old in 1997 when doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening bone marrow disease called aplastic anemia.

The disease prevented Katy's body from producing enough blood cells to keep her alive, and at least one doctor gave the Fisher girl a year to live.

But Katy and her family received new hope when she received a bone marrow transplant in Houston, followed by rounds of chemotherapy treatment. Community members offered their prayers and put on fundraisers to help pay for the family's bills.

Nearly 13 years after the life-changing procedure, Katy Hubbell is a senior at Fisher High School, where she has a part in the school play, completes anime drawings and plans to go to college.

"Katy continues to amaze us, and every day with this smiling girl is a gift," said Katy's mother, Mary Hubbell. "The experience changed us as people and made us realize that life is so short."

David Hubbell took his daughter to a pediatrician at Carle after she began receiving an abnormal number of bruises in 1997. Blood tests showed Katy's platelet level was dangerously low.

When her red and white cell counts started to fall, Katy was transferred to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, along with lymphoma.

"Patients with severe aplastic anemia have no immune system," Mary Hubbell said. "They can't be outside of a hospital environment, and any kind of infection can be very life-threatening."

Katy was kept at home to avoid infection, and visitors had to scrub themselves before entering the home.

More:
13 years after a bone-marrow transplant, Katy Hubbell plans for college

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, causes problems with communication, coordination and movement.

AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman

A bone-marrow transplant can treat a mouse version of Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder that affects roughly 1 in 10,00020,000 girls born worldwide (boys with the disease typically die within a few weeks of birth).

The findings, published today in Nature1, suggest that brain-dwelling immune cells called microglia are defective in Rett syndrome. The authors say their findings also raise the possibility that bone-marrow transplants or other means of boosting the brains immune cells could help to treat the disease.

If we show the immune system is playing a very important role in Rett patients and we could replace it in a safe way, we may develop some feasible therapies in the future, says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who led the study.

Mutations in a single gene on the X chromosome,MECP2, cause the disease. Because they have only one X chromosome, boys born with the mutation die within weeks of birth. Girls with one faulty copy develop Rett syndrome.

Symptoms of Rett syndrome typically set in between 6 and 18 months of age. Girls with the disease have trouble putting on weight and often do not learn to speak. They repeat behaviours such as hand-washing and tend to have trouble walking. Many develop breathing problems and apnoea. Rett syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder, and treatments focus on symptoms such as nutritional and gastrointestinal problems.

The MECP2 protein orchestrates the activity of many other genes, but how its alteration causes Rett syndrome is a mystery. I wish I knew, says Kipnis.

Neurons express more MECP2 than any other cell in the brain, and restoring the genes function in mouse neurons reverses some disease symptoms2.Recently, however, scientists have begun to suspect that other brain cells are also involved. Re-activating MECP2 in brain-support cells called astrocytes treats gait problems and anxiety in mice3.

Kipnis and his team focused on another class of brain cell microglia. They are the brains macrophages, a type of immune cell that sops up the detritus created by other cells. Studies have linked various immune cells to brain function, including repetitive and compulsive behaviour4, which led Kipnis to test whether replacing an immune system in mice lacking Mecp2 with cells containing the gene could improve symptoms.

Continued here:
Bone-marrow transplant reverses Rett syndrome in mice

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Among the primary causes of adult-onset blindness are degenerative diseases of the retina, such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. While some treatments have been developed that slow down the rate of degeneration, the clinical situation is still generally unsatisfactory. But if you could grow a new retina, transplant might be a possible cure. Now new hope is springing up from a research project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in which scientists have succeeded in growing human retinal tissue from stem cells.

Pluripotent stem cells are capable of forming nearly any tissue in the body including retinal tissue. There has been great controversy about using pluripotent stem cells for human research or treatment, as historically the only source was to harvest them from early stage human embryos. Instead, for this work the researchers were able to regress mature body cells back into the pluripotent stem cells from which they originally grew. The process is called reprogramming, and is accomplished by inserting a set of proteins into the cell.

To produce the pluripotent stem cells, a white blood cell was taken from a simple blood sample. Genes which code for the reprogramming proteins are inserted into a plasmid, a nonliving ring of DNA. The cell is then infected with the plasmid, rather as a virus infects a cell, with the difference that the plasmid's genes do not become part of the cell's genetic structure. As the reprogramming proteins are formed within the cell by the plasmid DNA, the cell has a good chance of being reprogrammed into a pluripotent stem cell. This stem cell can then be encouraged to grow and differentiate into retinal tissue rather than make more blood cells.

Laboratory-grown human retinal tissue will certainly be used in testing drugs and to study degenerative diseases of the retina, and may eventually make available a new transplantable retina, or a new retina that is grown in place within the eye.

The figure above compares a schematic of the human retina with a photomicrograph of laboratory-grown retinal tissue. The new tissue has separated into at least three layers of cells, with rudimentary photosensitive rods or cones (red) at the top of the picture, and nerve ganglia (blue-green) at the bottom. The blue cells in the middle layer are likely bipolar retinal cells. The structure of the lab-grown retinal tissue is similar to that of a normal human eye, as can be seen by comparison with the retina schematic. The cells also formed synapses, which provide the channels through which optical information flows to the brain.

"We don't know how far this technology will take us, but the fact that we are able to grow a rudimentary retina structure from a patient's blood cells is encouraging, not only because it confirms our earlier work using human skin cells, but also because blood as a starting source is convenient to obtain," says Dr. David Gamm, pediatric ophthalmologist and senior author of the study. "This is a solid step forward." Further steps are eagerly awaited by those living in the dark.

Source: University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

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Physicians grow retinas from human blood-derived stem cells

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Could lead to treatments for obesity

By Tamara Cohen

PUBLISHED: 14:28 EST, 18 March 2012 | UPDATED: 14:28 EST, 18 March 2012

The secret to staying slim may be all in your genes.

Scientists believe they have found the gluttony gene which fails to tell your brain when you are full.

In tests on mice, they showed that a mutation on a single gene broke down communication in the body and led to non-stop eating and rapid weight gain.

Gut buster: Scientists believe they have uncovered a gene which makes you eat even when are full because it breaks down communication between the body and the brain

But the good news is, they hope identifying the gene could help with treatments for obesity which affects nearly one in four adults in the UK.

Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Centre in the U.S. studied variations in the Bdnf gene in mice.

See original here:
Georgetown University Medical Centre: Scientists discover 'greedy gene¿ that makes you eat more even when you are full

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A single gene's effect on the brain can result in non-stop eating, research has shown.

Scientists believe the "gluttony gene" may be responsible for cases of obesity caused by out-of-control appetite. The Bdnf gene variant was studied in mice. It was found to prevent brain neurons from transmitting signals that tell the body it has eaten enough.

"This discovery may open up novel strategies to help the brain control body weight," said lead researcher Dr Baoki Xu, from Georgetown University Medical Centre in the US.

Hunger and satiety, the sensation of "feeling full", are governed by a complex balance of hormonal and neuronal signals. Two hormones in particular, leptin and insulin, released in the body after a meal play a key role.

Their chemical signals activate neurons in the hypothalamus region of the brain that trigger satiety. But if the connection is not made, the craving for food continues.

"Short" versions of the Bdnf gene block the leptin and insulin signals and prevent the "stop eating" message passing through the brain to the correct appetite-suppressing locations, say the scientists.

The research is reported online in the journal Nature Medicine.

Bdnf makes a protein that is synthesised in dendrites, the branch-like "fingers" that project from nerve cells. Dendrites carry the synapses that neurons use to communicate to each other.

"If there is a problem with the Bdnf gene, neurons can't talk to each other and the leptin and insulin signals are ineffective, and appetite is not modified," said Dr Xu.

Previous work by Dr Xu has shown that Bdnf is important for the formation and maturation of synapses during development. Mice born without the correct "long" version of the gene suffer impaired learning and memory. They also grow to be severely obese.

Read more:
Scientists 'discover gluttony gene'

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

This is a guest post from M. A. Loera Snchez from the iGEM team UANL 2012. I have carried out a few small grammar edits but otherwise the essay is all his work, and I would like to thank him for the opportunity to host it on my blog. All references are below the main text.

The mainstream fronts of synthetic biology

What I cannot build, I cannot understand.

This phrase by the genius physicist Richard Feynman is cleverly encrypted into the genetic code of the first bacterial cells with an artificial genome that have ever existed.

Actually the quote says what I cannot create, but maybe the scientists at the JCVI who are behind this tremendous breakthrough- preferred to save some base pairs to avoid the use of the word create and its tricky implications.They published this work in 2010 and opened a whole new world of possibilities and made it completely clear to anyone what we mean when we talk about Synthetic Biology and what its ultimate purpose should be: to understand life by building it.

Although the term Synthetic Biology has been around since the mid-1970s, the definition of it has been very vague: some people would call Synthetic Biology anything related to general genetic engineering procedures; others, perhaps more rightfully, would claim to be doing Synthetic Biology because of working with DNA synthesis or making bacteria behave like tiny computers. Even the 2010 report by the US Presidencial Comission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has to define the term considering different points of view (that of the molecular biology, the chemist and the engineer) and states that the activities related to Synthetic Biology are considered by some to be just extensions of already existing fields, like Molecular Biology, Genetic Engineering and Microbiology.

I remember (oh, the shame!) being skeptic about the possibility of something so oxymoronic being, well true. I still turn red when I recall that I kind of corrected the person who first said Synthetic Biology to me by telling her that what she wanted to say was maybe Systems Biology.

So what is it really?

Well, my work in Bio! has been devoted to dig into the deeps of Synthetic Biology and the iGEM competition, and throughout this time I began to notice what I would call the mainstream fronts of Synthetic Biology. These are the main orientations that so called Synthetic Biology projects would take and by enlisting them, I think it will be easier to clarify the distinctive characteristics of this field.

Front 1: DNA synthesis

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The mainstream fronts of Synthetic Biology: Guest post

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ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2012) A multinational research team led by scientists at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School has identified the reason why some patients fail to respond to some of the most successful cancer drugs.

Tyrosine kinase inhibitor drugs (TKI) work effectively in most patients to fight certain blood cell cancers, such as chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and non-small-cell lung cancers (NSCLC) with mutations in the EGFR gene.

These precisely targeted drugs shut down molecular pathways that keep these cancers flourishing and include TKIs for treating CML, and the form of NSCLC with EGFR genetic mutations.

Now the team at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore, working with the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), Singapore General Hospital, and the National Cancer Centre Singapore, has discovered that there is a common variation in the BIM gene in people of East Asian descent that contributes to some patients' failure to benefit from these tyrosine kinase inhibitor drugs.

"Because we could determine in cells how the BIM gene variant caused TKI resistance, we were able to devise a strategy to overcome it," said S. Tiong Ong, MBBCh, senior author of the study and associate professor in the Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Signature Research Programme at Duke-NUS and Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, at Duke University Medical Center.

"A novel class of drugs called the BH3-mimetics provided the answer," Ong said. "When the BH3 drugs were added to the TKI therapy in experiments conducted on cancer cells with the BIM gene variant, we were able to overcome the resistance conferred by the gene. Our next step will be to bring this to clinical trials with patients."

Said Yijun Ruan, PhD, a co-senior author of this study and associate director for Genome Technology and Biology at GIS: "We used a genome-wide sequencing approach to specifically look for structural changes in the DNA of patient samples. This helped in the discovery of the East Asian BIM gene variant. What's more gratifying is that this collaboration validates the use of basic genomic technology to make clinically important discoveries."

The study was published online in Nature Medicine on March 18.

If the drug combination does override TKI resistance in people, this will be good news for those with the BIM gene variant, which occurs in about 15 percent of the typical East Asian population. By contrast, no people of European or African ancestry were found to have this gene variant.

"While it's interesting to learn about this ethnic difference for the mutation, the greater significance of the finding is that the same principle may apply for other populations," said Patrick Casey, PhD, senior vice dean for research at Duke-NUS and James B. Duke Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology.

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Genetic variation in East Asians found to explain resistance to cancer drugs

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Public release date: 18-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Karen Mallet km463@georgetown.edu Georgetown University Medical Center

Washington, D.C. -- Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have revealed how a mutation in a single gene is responsible for the inability of neurons to effectively pass along appetite suppressing signals from the body to the right place in the brain. What results is obesity caused by a voracious appetite.

Their study, published March 18th on Nature Medicine's website, suggests there might be a way to stimulate expression of that gene to treat obesity caused by uncontrolled eating.

The research team specifically found that a mutation in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf) gene in mice does not allow brain neurons to effectively pass leptin and insulin chemical signals through the brain. In humans, these hormones, which are released in the body after a person eats, are designed to "tell" the body to stop eating. But if the signals fail to reach correct locations in the hypothalamus, the area in the brain that signals satiety, eating continues.

"This is the first time protein synthesis in dendrites, tree-like extensions of neurons, has been found to be critical for control of weight," says the study's senior investigator, Baoji Xu, Ph.D., an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown.

"This discovery may open up novel strategies to help the brain control body weight," he says.

Xu has long investigated the Bdnf gene. He has found that the gene produces a growth factor that controls communication between neurons.

For example, he has shown that during development, BDNF is important to the formation and maturation of synapses, the structures that permit neurons to send chemical signals between them. The Bdnf gene generates one short transcript and one long transcript. He discovered that when the long-form Bdnf transcript is absent, the growth factor BDNF is only synthesized in the cell body of a neuron but not in its dendrites. The neuron then produces too many immature synapses, resulting in deficits in learning and memory in mice.

Xu also found that the mice with the same Bdnf mutation grew to be severely obese.

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Researchers reveal how a single gene mutation leads to uncontrolled obesity

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

For David and Mary Hubbell of Fisher, every day spent with their 18-year-old daughter, Katy, feels like a treasure.

Katy Hubbell was 4 years old in 1997 when doctors diagnosed her with a life-threatening bone marrow disease called aplastic anemia.

The disease prevented Katy's body from producing enough blood cells to keep her alive, and at least one doctor gave the Fisher girl a year to live.

But Katy and her family received new hope when she received a bone marrow transplant in Houston, followed by rounds of chemotherapy treatment. Community members offered their prayers and put on fundraisers to help pay for the family's bills.

Nearly 13 years after the life-changing procedure, Katy Hubbell is a senior at Fisher High School, where she has a part in the school play, completes anime drawings and plans to go to college.

"Katy continues to amaze us, and every day with this smiling girl is a gift," said Katy's mother, Mary Hubbell. "The experience changed us as people and made us realize that life is so short."

David Hubbell took his daughter to a pediatrician at Carle after she began receiving an abnormal number of bruises in 1997. Blood tests showed Katy's platelet level was dangerously low.

When her red and white cell counts started to fall, Katy was transferred to Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, along with lymphoma.

"Patients with severe aplastic anemia have no immune system," Mary Hubbell said. "They can't be outside of a hospital environment, and any kind of infection can be very life-threatening."

Katy was kept at home to avoid infection, and visitors had to scrub themselves before entering the home.

Read the rest here:
13 years after a bone-marrow transplant, Katy Hubbell plans for college

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Rett syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, causes problems with communication, coordination and movement.

AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman

A bone-marrow transplant can treat a mouse version of Rett syndrome, a severe autism spectrum disorder that affects roughly 1 in 10,00020,000 girls born worldwide (boys with the disease typically die within a few weeks of birth).

The findings, published today in Nature1, suggest that brain-dwelling immune cells called microglia are defective in Rett syndrome. The authors say their findings also raise the possibility that bone-marrow transplants or other means of boosting the brains immune cells could help to treat the disease.

If we show the immune system is playing a very important role in Rett patients and we could replace it in a safe way, we may develop some feasible therapies in the future, says Jonathan Kipnis, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who led the study.

Mutations in a single gene on the X chromosome,MECP2, cause the disease. Because they have only one X chromosome, boys born with the mutation die within weeks of birth. Girls with one faulty copy develop Rett syndrome.

Symptoms of Rett syndrome typically set in between 6 and 18 months of age. Girls with the disease have trouble putting on weight and often do not learn to speak. They repeat behaviours such as hand-washing and tend to have trouble walking. Many develop breathing problems and apnoea. Rett syndrome is classified as an autism spectrum disorder, and treatments focus on symptoms such as nutritional and gastrointestinal problems.

The MECP2 protein orchestrates the activity of many other genes, but how its alteration causes Rett syndrome is a mystery. I wish I knew, says Kipnis.

Neurons express more MECP2 than any other cell in the brain, and restoring the genes function in mouse neurons reverses some disease symptoms2.Recently, however, scientists have begun to suspect that other brain cells are also involved. Re-activating MECP2 in brain-support cells called astrocytes treats gait problems and anxiety in mice3.

Kipnis and his team focused on another class of brain cell microglia. They are the brains macrophages, a type of immune cell that sops up the detritus created by other cells. Studies have linked various immune cells to brain function, including repetitive and compulsive behaviour4, which led Kipnis to test whether replacing an immune system in mice lacking Mecp2 with cells containing the gene could improve symptoms.

More here:
Bone-marrow transplant reverses Rett syndrome in mice

Recommendation and review posted by sam

29-02-2012 15:30 Scientists have created cerebral cortex cells-- those that make up the brain's gray matter-- from a small sample of skin. Source: Cambridge Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com

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Brain Cells can be Made from Skin Cells - Video

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13-03-2012 19:50 Produced by the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Rochester Medical Center, this video illustrates how 5 people living with spinal cord injury have modified their homes. Visit us on the web at http://www.urmc.rochester.edu This video was funded by the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation.

Continue reading here:
Home modifications following a spinal cord injury - Video

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For about three days in January, Matt Ladd said he didnt know whether it was day or night, what was top or bottom.

I was probably as sick as Ive ever been, said Ladd, a Billings game warden, in a telephone interview from Seattle. As things got progressively worse and worse, I was really concerned about what was going on right then.

Ladd was headed to Seattle for stem cell bone marrow transplant surgery when an infection he was being treated for worsened. The infection started around a catheter inserted into his chest to deliver chemotherapy drugs. The chemo was battling Ladds acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, which was diagnosed in September. His bone marrow wasnt producing enough red blood cells.

The chemo worked. He was in remission and on his way to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant when the infection sent him into a rapid downward spiral. Because of the location of the catheter, the infection attacked his heart valves. During the struggle with the infection, his kidneys failed, his body retained water and he swelled up.

The infection scuttled plans for the bone marrow transplant surgery. With his kidneys failing, he had to undergo dialysis. As a final insult to his immune system, he had to take more chemotherapy since the surgery had been delayed and doctors feared the MDS might return.

My body and kidneys didnt respond well to the chemo, he said.

More than a month after he was scheduled to undergo surgery, Ladd is living in an apartment north of Seattle as family members rotate caretaking duties. His wife, Maureen, a math teacher at Billings West High, is holding down the fort at home, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for their sons, Dylan, Logan and Jack.

What was going to be a short process has become a very long process, Maureen said.

Now the Ladds are waiting to hear whether Matt and his sister, Jessica Cook, will take part in a Seattle Cancer Center Alliance study of a new method of bone marrow transplantation. Since Ladds kidneys have been injured, he would normally have to have a reduced-intensity transplant used for the elderly and those with health issues, Maureen explained.

The experimental method would treat Cook, Ladds only sibling and a bone marrow transplant match, with Lipitor prior to the surgery. The cholesterol-lowering drug has shown promise in preventing reactions to transplants. If they are accepted for the study, it would mean a further delay of surgery, since Cook would have to be on the drug for a couple of weeks prior to the operation.

See the original post here:
Billings game warden fights cancer complications

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SHAPE Urges NIH to Adopt Personalized Medicine for Heart Attack Prevention

Houston, TX (PRWEB) March 17, 2012

One of the most important developments is the use of noninvasive imaging to diagnose atherosclerosis in its pre-symptomatic stage. While detection and treatment of traditional risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure are important, it is now clear that the direct measurement of atherosclerosis, which enables personalized risk assessment, is useful in identifying high risk individuals and improves risk classification.

In fact, in the 9 years since the NIH released NCEP-III Guidelines which introduced Global Risk Assessment, subclinical atherosclerosis has gained increased recognition as a more powerful predictor than all risk factor combinations and risk factor-based scoring systems. The burden of atherosclerotic plaques predicts adverse events much more accurately than risk factors, particularly near-term events.

Consequently, in 2009, the Appropriate Use Criteria considered coronary artery calcium scans (CAC) appropriate for asymptomatic patients with an Intermediate global risk estimate, as well as those deemed lower risk with a family history of premature coronary heart disease. In 2010, the ACC/AHA Guideline for Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk in Asymptomatic Adults followed suit, elevating CAC and carotid plaque and intima-media thickness (CIMT) to Class IIa recommendations for cardiovascular risk assessment in asymptomatic adults at intermediate (10% to 20% 10-year) risk.

As we await the NCEP IV Guidelines, the SHAPE Task Force anticipates that the discoveries of the past decade will be incorporated in the NCEP Adult Treatment Panel (ATP) IV, and that the NIH will assign a major role to detection of subclinical atherosclerosis to improve risk prediction for primary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

The Guidelines should no longer favor intensive treatment of cholesterol independent of atherosclerosis, but instead must target those individuals with the highest burden of atherosclerotic CVD risk who are expected to benefit the most from aggressive cholesterol-lowering therapies. The heightened awareness of possible statin induced hyperglycemia (diabetes mellitus) and rare cognitive dysfunction reinforces the need for more accurate risk assessment to insure that widespread drug therapy is appropriately implemented.

The SHAPE Task Force therefore suggests changing the name of the National Cholesterol Education Program to the National Atherosclerosis Education Program. This change will appropriately shift the focus from a single risk factor of atherosclerosis (cholesterol) to atherosclerosis itself, and can help save the lives of many High Risk individuals, who are currently misclassified as Low or Intermediate Risk.

SHAPE is continuing its scientific quest for innovative approaches to heart attack prevention, and ultimately, eradication. As an educational nonprofit organization, SHAPE advocates only the most scientifically proven approach, independent of specific practices or procedures. SHAPE is actively supporting the Department of Health & Human Services Million Hearts initiative to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes over five years.

Members of the SHAPE Task Force include:

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SHAPE Task Force Calls for Changing National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) to National Atherosclerosis ...

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28-12-2011 05:37 Ceraxon Citicoline - link to online store GenuineTabs.com Modafinil (Modalert) 100 mg / 200 mg Modalert (modafinil) is a medication that promotes wakefulness. It is thought to work by altering the natural chemicals (neurotransmitters) in the brain. The best quality of smart drugs ceraxon...

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Ceraxon Citicoline - Video

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Washington, March 17 (ANI): New biotechnological and chemical methods will facilitate efficient production of chemicals, materials and fuels from renewable natural resources, such as agricultural or industrial waste materials, say researchers.

The Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence (CoE) in White Biotechnology - Green Chemistry Research is focusing on the research and development of microbial cells, or cell factories, for producing new useful compounds from sugars in plant biomass.

These compounds can be used, for example, for manufacturing bioplastics or in medical applications.

"By means of gene technology, we can modify microbial metabolism and thereby produce organic acids for a wide range of industrial applications. They can be used, among other things, for manufacturing new plastic and textile materials, or packaging technologies," explained Merja Penttila, Research Professor and Director of the Centre of Excellence from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

New methods play a key role when various industries are developing environmentally friendly and energy-efficient production processes.

Use of renewable natural resources, such as agricultural or industrial waste materials, to replace oil-based raw materials will make industries less dependent of fossil raw materials and, consequently, reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

The CoE also develops highly sensitive measuring methods and investigates microbial cell functions at molecular level.

"We need this information to be able to develop efficient bioprocesses for the future. For instance, we build up new micro- and nanoscale instruments for measuring and controlling microbial productivity in bioreactors during production," said Penttila.

The metabolism of microbes is modified so that they will convert plant biomass sugars into sugar acids and their derivatives.

These compounds can potentially serve as raw materials for new types of polyesters, whose properties - such as water solubility and extremely rapid degradation into natural substances - can be used, for example, in medicine.

More:
Soon, gene technology to produce novel plastics and textiles from waste

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18-02-2011 06:00 What is the difference between stem cell transplantation and bone marrow transplantation?

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Bone Marrow Transplantation: Stem Cell Transplantation - Video

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15-03-2012 11:26 Daniel A. Osman, MD, breast cancer surgeon, program director, Miami Breast Cancer Conference, discusses the Miami Breast Cancer Conference (MBCC), which took place at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel, in Florida, March 14-17, 2012. During the span of the MBCC the central theme of the meeting has been to make everything you learn instantly applicable. As the conference enters its 29th year, this thesis remains true with a focus on the use of genomics and personalized medicine. The esteemed presenter Charles M. Perou, PhD, discussed the topic of personalized medicine in his presentation on sequencing-based genomics. Perou led research in 2002, shortly after the genome was mapped, that discovered 5 biologically different subtypes of breast cancer. These subtypes have led to enhanced prognoses and treatments for breast cancer patients, which has helped herald a new era in breast cancer management.

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Dr. Osman on the 29th Miami Breast Cancer Conference - Video

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Self-experimentation is a venerable tradition in science.

London surgeon John Hunter deliberately gave himself gonorrhea (and inadvertently, syphilis) in 1767 and suffered from effects of the diseases in his old age.

Now Michael Snyder has joined their ranks.

The geneticist didn't risk life and limb, but he did sacrifice his privacy inviting colleagues to sequence his DNA and track tens of thousands of markers in his blood over a period of 14 months, when he was sick and when he was well, ultimately crunching billions of measurements on the molecular details of his body.

Some of the results came as big, and not very welcome, surprises, uncovering, among other things, that he was at risk for Type 2 diabetes, and capturing the precise moments when the disease took hold in his body.

Snyder, who heads the genetics department at Stanford University's medical school, says the work is more than just a curiosity. He thinks that his experiment, published Thursday in the journal Cell, offers a taste of what medicine may be like someday for everyone.

Physicians talk often about "personalized medicine": the idea that therapies should be tailored to each patient's unique genetic and medical profile. Doctors already practice a sort of personalized medicine when they "type" a tumor to find the most effective chemotherapy drug. Someday, scientists like Snyder say, it will be a routine part of prevention too.

But if the gantlet his team ran is any indication, that day isn't upon us yet.

First, the researchers sequenced Snyder's genome the 6 billion letters of his DNA blueprint several times over, to assess his risk for various conditions. (And they sequenced Snyder's mother's genome as well, to learn which genes he got from each parent.) They drew Snyder's blood regularly to see how proteins, RNA and a swath of other chemicals in his body increased or decreased when he was in good health and bad his "omics" profile. They monitored his immune system and other health measures.

"Your genome shows what you're predisposed for. Your 'omics' profile tells you what's really going on," Snyder said. "This is a whole new level."

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Geneticist's 'personalized medicine' study focuses on himself

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13-03-2012 21:42 Dr Oz on the latest regenerative medicine

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Dr Oz Regenerative Medicine - Video

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16-03-2012 11:56 Craig Venter, president and founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute, spoke to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine governing board on January 17th, 2012, about the future of personalized medicine in which genomics, the study of genes and their function, is applied to pinpoint specific treatments for patients.

Continue reading here:
Craig Venter | CIRM Spotlight on Genomics - A Step to Personalized Medicine - Video

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A NEW stem cell therapy treatment to develop new bones for patients with bone loss and new skin for recipients of plastic surgery has been developed, doctors from Shanghai No.9 People's Hospital announced yesterday.

In the procedure, medical staff use a special machine to collect stem cells from a patient's blood. The stem cells adhere to a base made of a special biological material.

The stem cells are then transplanted into the patient's body, where they grow into either new bones or skin tissue, while the base is absorbed by the human body.

"So far the practice has been successful in treating patients with bone and skin loss," said Dr Dai Kerong from Shanghai Jiao Tong University's translational medicine institute at Shanghai No.9 hospital. "The stem cell technology will be used to develop corneas for blind people as well as treating heart attack and stroke patients by developing new heart and cerebral tissue."

The technology is patented in China and abroad and will be licensed within one or two years, according to Dai.

China has established 51 translational medicine centers to boost the introduction of laboratory research into clinical use.

The complicated procedures and documentation required often prevent doctors from introducing lab success into clinical practice.

Dai said one reagent developed by No. 9 hospital's doctors for in vitro fertilization received a license in Europe within six months and has been used in clinical practice "while this would take at least five years in China."

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Eastday-Big stem cell breakthrough

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15-03-2012 13:24 Video created as class project by JTC-345 students featuring Dr. Gene Kelly, CSU faculty member and Associate Director for Research and Development at the School of Global Environmental Sustainability.

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COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY - Enviance March Madness Contest - Gene Kelly - Video

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

SUNRISE, Fla., March 15, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bioheart, Inc. (BHRT.OB) announced today that it has successfully conducted a laboratory training course in partnership with the Ageless Regenerative Institute, an organization dedicated to the standardization of cell regenerative medicine. The attendees participated in hands on, in depth training in laboratory practices in stem cell science.

"We had students from all over the world attend this first course including physicians, laboratory technicians and students," said Mike Tomas, Bioheart's President and CEO. "Bioheart is pleased to be able to share our 13 years of experience in stem cell research and help expand this growing life science field."

The course included cell culture techniques and quality control testing such as flow cytometry and gram stain. In addition, participants learned how to work in a cleanroom operating according to FDA cGMP standards, regulations used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, food and medical devices. Aseptic techniques were also taught as well as cleanroom gowning, environmental monitoring and maintenance.

Future courses are open to physicians, laboratory technicians and students. After graduating the course, attendees are prepared to pursue research and careers in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine. For more information about the course, contact info@agelessregen.com.

About Bioheart, Inc.

Bioheart is committed to maintaining its leading position within the cardiovascular sector of the cell technology industry delivering cell therapies and biologics that help address congestive heart failure, lower limb ischemia, chronic heart ischemia, acute myocardial infarctions and other issues. Bioheart's goals are to cause damaged tissue to be regenerated, when possible, and to improve a patient's quality of life and reduce health care costs and hospitalizations.

Specific to biotechnology, Bioheart is focused on the discovery, development and, subject to regulatory approval, commercialization of autologous cell therapies for the treatment of chronic and acute heart damage and peripheral vascular disease. Its leading product, MyoCell, is a clinical muscle-derived cell therapy designed to populate regions of scar tissue within a patient's heart with new living cells for the purpose of improving cardiac function in chronic heart failure patients. For more information on Bioheart, visit http://www.bioheartinc.com.

About Ageless Regenerative Institute, LLC

The Ageless Regenerative Institute (ARI) is an organization dedicated to the standardization of cell regenerative medicine. The Institute promotes the development of evidence-based standards of excellence in the therapeutic use of adipose-derived stem cells through education, advocacy, and research. ARI has a highly experienced management team with experience in setting up full scale cGMP stem cell manufacturing facilities, stem cell product development & enhancement, developing point-of-care cell production systems, developing culture expanded stem cell production systems, FDA compliance, directing clinical & preclinical studies with multiple cell types for multiple indications, and more. ARI has successfully treated hundreds of patients utilizing these cellular therapies demonstrating both safety and efficacy. For more information about regenerative medicine please visit http://www.agelessregen.com.

Forward-Looking Statements: Except for historical matters contained herein, statements made in this press release are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "to," "plan," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "estimate," or "continue" or the negative other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

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Bioheart and Ageless Partner to Advance Stem Cell Field With Laboratory Training Programs

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Public release date: 15-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jennifer Ganton jganton@ohri.ca 613-798-5555 x73325 Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

A team of researchers from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) has been awarded $367,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and $75,000 from the Stem Cell Network to lead the first clinical trial in the world of a stem cell therapy for septic shock. This deadly condition occurs when an infection spreads throughout the body and over-activates the immune system, resulting in severe organ damage and death in 30 to 40 per cent of cases. Septic shock accounts for 20 per cent of all Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions in Canada and costs $4 billion annually. Under the leadership of Dr. Lauralyn McIntyre, this new "Phase I" trial will test the experimental therapy in up to 15 patients with septic shock at The Ottawa Hospital's ICU.

The treatment involves mesenchymal stem cells, also called mesenchymal stromal cells or MSCs. Like other stem cells, they can give rise to a variety of more specialized cells and tissues and can help repair and regenerate damaged organs. They also have a unique ability to modify the body's immune response and enhance the clearance of infectious organisms. They can be found in adult bone marrow and other tissues, as well as umbilical cord blood, and they seem to be easily transplantable between people, because they are more able to avoid immune rejection.

There has been a great deal of interest in using MSCs to treat disease, with most research so far focused on heart disease, stroke, inflammatory bowel disease and blood cancers. Hundreds of patients with these diseases have already been treated with MSCs through clinical trials, with results suggesting that these cells are safe in these patients, and have promising signs of effectiveness. MSCs are still considered experimental however, and have not been approved by Health Canada as a standard therapy for any disease.

In recent years, a number of animal studies have suggested that MSCs may also be able to help treat septic shock. For example, a recent study by Dr. Duncan Stewart, CEO and Scientific Director of OHRI (and also a co-investigator on the new clinical trial) showed that treatment with these cells can triple survival in a mouse model of this condition.

"Mesenchymal stem cell therapy appears promising in animal studies, but it will require many years of clinical trials involving hundreds of patients to know if it is safe and effective," said Dr. Lauralyn McIntyre, a Scientist at the OHRI, ICU Physician at The Ottawa Hospital, Assistant Professor of Medicine at uOttawa and a New Investigator with CIHR and Canadian Blood Services. "This trial is a first step, but it is a very exciting first step."

As with all "Phase I" trials, the main goal of this study is to evaluate the safety of the therapy and determine the best dose for future studies. The 15 patients in the treatment group will receive standard treatments (such as fluids, antibiotics and blood pressure control), plus a planned intravenous dose of 0.3 to 3 million MSCs per kg of body weight. The MSCs will be obtained from the bone marrow of healthy donors and purified in the OHRI's Good Manufacturing Practice Laboratory in the Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research. The researchers also plan to evaluate 24 similar septic shock patients who will receive standard treatments only (no MSCs). All patients will be rigorously monitored for side effects, and blood samples will be taken at specific time points to monitor the cells and their activity. This trial will not be randomized or blinded and it will not include enough patients to reliably determine if the therapy is effective. It will be conducted under the supervision of Health Canada and the Ottawa Hospital Research Ethics Board, and will have to be approved by both of these organizations before commencing.

"The OHRI is rapidly becoming known as a leader in conducting world-first clinical trials with innovative therapies such as stem cells," said Dr. Duncan Stewart, CEO and Scientific Director of OHRI, Vice-President of Research at The Ottawa Hospital and Professor of Medicine at uOttawa. "This research is truly pushing the boundaries of medical science forward, and is providing the citizens of Ottawa with access to promising new therapies."

"The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is very pleased to support this clinical trial," said Dr. Jean Rouleau, Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health. "The work of Dr. McIntyre and her colleagues will not only add to our growing knowledge of the benefits of stem-cell therapies, but will hopefully lead to treatments that can help save the lives of patients where currently, our treatment options are less than optimal."

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Ottawa researchers to lead world-first clinical trial of stem cell therapy for septic shock

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith