Stem Cells Blogs This is an OPML file. It can be used to export all the MedWorm RSS feeds on this topic into your personal RSS reader (usually you have to save this file to your own computer before clicking on an Import OPML command in your own feed reader to upload the file which will then import all the feeds) or it can be used by webmasters to integrate MedWorm feeds with their own website. This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader, such as GoogleReader, or to display this data on your own website or blog. Subscribe to this data using MyMedWorm.Subscribe to this data using GoogleReader.Subscribe to this data using Bloglines.Subscribe to this data using MyYahoo.

This page shows you the most recent publications within this specialty of the MedWorm directory.

Are plant stem cells good for hair and skin?
Kris’s question…I am noticing that plant stem cells are popping up in a number of skin and hair care products recently. I cannot find much info as to any efficacy beyond marketing information from the companies of said products. Any information is appreciated! The Beauty Brains respond: Like bow ties in Dr. Who, stem cells are cool. Why stem cells are cool Stem cells are unique because a) they are able to create more of themselves (they have the property of self-renewal) and b) they are able to turn into other cells (they have the property of differentiation). Therefore these cells are able to play a major role...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - May 23, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

Function of Cellular Prion Protein
from Takashi Onodera, Katsuaki Sugiura, Shigeru Matsuda and Akikazu Sakudo writing in Prions: Current Progress in Advanced Research:Although much is known about the effect of PrPSc in prion diseases, the normal function of PrPC is poorly understood. PrPC may act as an antiapoptotic agent by blocking some of the internal environmental factors that initiate apoptosis. PrP-knockout methods provide powerful hints on the neuroprotective function of PrPC. Using PrPC-knockout cell lines, the inhibition of apoptosis through STI1 is mediated by PrPC-dependent SOD activation. Recently several reports show that PrPC participate in tr...
Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. - May 20, 2013 Category: Microbiology Source Type: blogs

Top stories in health and medicine, May 16, 2013
Brought to you by MedPage Today. 1. Arts Therapy Has Benefits in Cancer. Cancer patients who participated in creative arts therapy derived significant clinical, psychological, and quality-of-life benefits, a meta-analysis of more than two dozen studies showed. 2. Fecal Transplant: FDA Wants Regulation. Researchers who have been reporting success with the use of fecal transplant to treat resistant C. difficile are likely to need an OK from the the FDA to continue that treatment. 3. Study: Embryonic Stem Cells Cloned. For the first time, researchers have efficiently produced human embryonic stem cells, using a process simila...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 16, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: News Cancer Infectious disease Source Type: blogs

Human embryonic stem cells created from adult tissue for first time
Scientists have used the cloning technique that led to Dolly the sheep to turn human skin into embryonic stem cells – which can make any tissue in the body. The US team overcame technical problems that had frustrated researchers for more than a decade to create batches of the bodys master cells from donated skin. […] (Source: Biosingularity)
Source: Biosingularity - May 16, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Derya Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs

Therapeutic Cloning Attained
Therapeutic cloning or somatic cell nuclear transfer are names given to a method of producing embryonic stem cells from a patient's own cells. These embryonic stem cells could then be used to generate cells of any type as a basis for regenerative therapies. Making the process work has proven to be challenging, however, both from a technical point of view and thanks to misguided attempts to make it illegal. In recent years the focus shifted towards work on induced pluripotent stem cells instead, but a research group now claims success in the original goal: Scientists [have] successfully reprogrammed human skin cells to bec...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 16, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

New Treatment Could Make Older Hearts Young Again
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have discovered a treatment that reversing the effects of aging in the hearts of mice, making them in effect young again. The discovery has implications for the treatment of heart disease in humans.Contributor: Mark WhittingtonPublished: May 15, 2013 (Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content)
Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content - May 15, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Source Type: blogs

Human Embryos Created by Cloning in Oregon
Once induced pluripotent stem cells hit the scene, human cloning slowly faded away. Why clone embryos with human eggs (exploiting women in the process) to get "patient-specific" embryonic stem cells when you can just take an adult cell and reprogram it back to an embryonic-like state? No eggs, no cloning, no creating and destroying embryos.But I knew cloning was just hiding in the shadows waiting to resurface. Scientists are still trying to achieve this "holy grail" of human biology: the creation of human clones. Ones that will generate embryonic stem cells.A team of scientists, including a fertility sp...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - May 15, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Cloning Source Type: blogs

California Bill Would Lift Ban on Paying Women for Eggs
A new bill introduced into the California legislature would lift the ban on paying women for their eggsAB 926, the Reproductive Health and Research Bill, says that to encourage reproductive health and research in the state, women need to be compensated for donating their eggs, a hot commodity in the embryonic stem cell research and infertility arenas....So why would California want more women to go through such a process just for research purposes? AB 926 gives a list of research that would benefit from having more human eggs, which includes reducing the high volume of multiple pregnancies in IVF. But there is some ver...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - May 14, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Human eggs Source Type: blogs

Stem-cell therapy for hyperplastic left heart syndrome
After showing promising results in early-phase trials for ischemic heart disease, stem-cell therapy is now being examined as a possible mechanism to treat congenital diseases such as hyperplastic left heart syndrome. (Source: Blogs@theHeart.org)
Source: Blogs@theHeart.org - May 14, 2013 Category: Cardiology Authors: theheart.org Tags: Mayo Clinic Talks Source Type: blogs

Stem-cell therapy for hypoplastic left heart syndrome
After showing promising results in early-phase trials for ischemic heart disease, stem-cell therapy is now being examined as a possible mechanism to treat congenital diseases such as hyperplastic left heart syndrome. (Source: Blogs@theHeart.org)
Source: Blogs@theHeart.org - May 14, 2013 Category: Cardiology Authors: theheart.org Tags: Mayo Clinic Talks Source Type: blogs

Telomere Length: Cause of Aging or Marker of Aging?
Telomeres are repeating sequences of nucleic acids that cap the ends of chromosomes in the cell nucleus and stop actual gene-coding DNA from being chopped off when a cell divides. The mechanisms of DNA replication require extra leg room at the ends of the strand, a trailing sequence that is not copied over to the new strand under assembly - and the primary role of telomeres is to be the part that is dropped on the floor. A little of their length is thus lost with every cell division. This shortening acts as a clock to count cell divisions, and cells with very short telomeres stop replicating - they either enter cellular se...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 14, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 13th 2013
In this study we used the hMTH1-Tg mouse model to investigate how oxidative damage to nucleic acids affects aging. hMTH1-Tg mice express high levels of the hMTH1 hydrolase that degrades 8-oxodGTP and 8-oxoGTP and excludes 8-oxoguanine from both DNA and RNA. Compared to wild-type animals, hMTH1-overexpressing mice have significantly lower steady-state levels of 8-oxoguanine in both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA of several organs, including the brain. hMTH1 overexpression prevents the age-dependent accumulation of DNA 8-oxoguanine that occurs in wild-type mice. These lower levels of oxidized guanines are associated with in...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Two-year-old girl receives new trachea made from her own stem cells | The Verge
Doctors announced today that two-and-a-half year old Hannah Warren just became the youngest person in history to receive a bioengineered organ transplant, a new windpipe made of a synthetic scaffold and her own stem cells. The nine-hour long procedure was performed April 9th, at Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, but the results were just […] (Source: Biosingularity)
Source: Biosingularity - May 9, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Derya Tags: Biotechnology Source Type: blogs

Parabiosis Points to GDF-11 as a Means to Reverse Age-Related Cardiac Hypertrophy
Parabiosis involves joining the circulatory systems of two animals. This is of interest for a number of studies in which old mice and young mice are linked together, known as heterochronic parabiosis. The young mice acquire a little of the metabolic, cellular, and gene expression changes characteristic of old mice, while in the the old mice some of these measures reverse towards more youthful levels. In stem cell activity in particular, the environment of signals present in the blood seems to dictate age-related decline as much as does any inherent damage to stem cells or their niches. This reinforces the view of stem cell...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

10 Good-for-You Pregnancy Snacks
by Jacqueline Tourville Following a nutritious prenatal diet? Don’t skip snack time! Snacks are a great chance to get in another serving of a fruit, vegetable, or calcium food. you can read more here. and don’t forget to enter our May Sweepstakes Lots of great parent-to-be gifts!! Click here for a free information packet and special coupon for MAZE Cord Blood Laboratories! } (Source: Cord Blood News)
Source: Cord Blood News - May 8, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: joyce at mazelabs.com Tags: babies brain development Cord Blood medical research parents pregnancy stem cells Uncategorized affordable cord blood banking bananas and potassium bone marrow transplant breast feeding cord blood banking information cord blood b Source Type: blogs

Towards a Patch for Damaged Hearts
Progress is noted in the techniques needed to build functional heart tissue: Biomedical engineers have grown three-dimensional human heart muscle that acts just like natural tissue. This advancement could be important in treating heart attack patients or in serving as a platform for testing new heart disease medicines. The "heart patch" grown in the laboratory from human cells overcomes two major obstacles facing cell-based therapies - the patch conducts electricity at about the same speed as natural heart cells and it "squeezes" appropriately. Earlier attempts to create functional heart patches have largely been unable t...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 7, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Prenatal Checkups and Tests
What You need to Know Pamela Brawer Save a Tot Prenatal care is the care you get while you are pregnant. This care can be provided by a doctor, midwife or other health care professional. The goal of prenatal care is to monitor the progress of a pregnancy and to identify potential problems before they become serious for either mom or baby. All mothers-to-be benefit from prenatal care. Women who see a health care provider regularly during pregnancy have healthier babies, are less likely to deliver prematurely, and are less likely to have other serious problems related to pregnancy. During prenatal visits, the health care p...
Source: Cord Blood News - May 6, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: joyce at mazelabs.com Tags: babies brain development Cord Blood medical research parents pregnancy stem cells Uncategorized affordable cord blood banking bananas and potassium bone marrow transplant breast feeding cord blood banking information cord blood b Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 6th 2013
Discussion Latest Headlines from Fight Aging! T-Regulatory Cells More Numerous in the Aged Immune System HMGA1 as a Potential Common Mechanism in Cancer A Skeptical View of Mitochondrial DNA Damage and Aging Protecting Cryonics Patients A Review of Adenylyl Cyclase Type 5 and Longevity in Mice On Extending Mouse Longevity Growth Hormone and IGF-1 in Aging IGF1R Levels in the Brain Correlate With Species Life Span Calorie Restriction and Calorie Restriction Mimetics The Burrill and Buck Aging Meeting, May 20th 2013 SENS RESEARCH FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2012 http://www.fightaging.org/archi...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 5, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Is Serious hair care really worth the price?
RC asks…Is Serious hair care really worth the price? The Beauty Brains respond: We know what you’re thinking…how could a product line created by Sylvester Stallone’s wife NOT be totally awesome? Well, consider this: Serious sells a “Replicate and Renew” hair care trio which gives you 6 ounces of shampoo and conditioner and 4 ounces of hairspray for $85. Seriously???? Serious Skincare Replicate & Renew Hair Care Trio For that kind of cash we’d at least expect the product to CLAIM to do something unique. But aside from some vague mumbo-jumbo about “plant stem cells̶...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - May 4, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

HMGA1 as a Potential Common Mechanism in Cancer
Any mechanism that appears common to all cancers, or even just a wide range of cancers, is worth examination to see if it might serve as the basis for a therapy. Here is an example of speculative research of this nature: [Researchers] have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites. The researchers hope that this so-called "master regulator" gene may be the key to developing a new treatment for tumors resistant to current drugs. "This master regulator is normally turned off in adult cells, but it is ver...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 3, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Healthy Eating Tips During Pregnancy
Jodi Greebel, MS, RD www.citrition.com www.dindinsfood.com There is so much conflicting information out there about what to eat and what not to eat when you are pregnant. Here is a quick guideline of what to eat and what to avoid. What to Include in Your Diet: Variety. A diet with a lot of variety helps you get all the nutrients you need. High fiber foods. Choose foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans/legumes which provide a wide variety of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and can help prevent constipation. Calcium-rich foods. Choose low-fat and nonfat milk, yogurt and cheese to ensure you get adequa...
Source: Cord Blood News - May 2, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: joyce at mazelabs.com Tags: babies brain development Cord Blood medical research parents pregnancy stem cells Uncategorized affordable cord blood banking bananas and potassium bone marrow transplant breast feeding cord blood banking information cord blood b Source Type: blogs

Toddler Gets Windpipe Grown From Her Own Stem Cells
An adorable two year-old has a new lease on life thanks to pioneering doctors, a charitable Catholic hospital and her own stem cells. Little Hannah Warren was born without a trachea, the passageway that leads to the lungs. Although a tube was inserted from her esophagus to her lungs to help her breath, doctors told her parents that she would likely die.Hannah is now recovering from a trachea transplant. The trachea was made from a plastic scaffold and stem cells taken from her bone marrow. Continue reading at LifeNews >> (Source: Mary Meets Dolly)
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - May 1, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Stem cells, Adult Source Type: blogs

Where Are All the New Anti-Craving Drugs?
The dilemma of dwindling drug development. Drugs for the treatment of addiction are now a fact of life. For alcoholism alone, the medications legally available by prescription include disulfiram (Antabuse), naltrexone (Revia and Vivitrol)—and acamprosate (Campral), the most recent FDA-approved entry. A fourth entry, topiramate (Topamax), is currently only approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for other uses. But none of these are miracle medications, and more to the point, no bright new stars have come through the FDA pipeline for a long time. New approvals for drugs in this category, like psychiatric d...
Source: Addiction Inbox - April 30, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs

New Treatment for Degenerative Disk Disease Using Stem Cells and 3D Printing
Dvice.com reports on some promising research being conducted a Cornel University that should, in the fullness of time, result in an effective treatment of Degenerative Disk Disease using stem cells and 3D printing.Contributor: Mark WhittingtonPublished: Apr 28, 2013 (Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content)
Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content - April 28, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Source Type: blogs

More Data on Granulocyte Transplant Cancer Therapies
This study confirmed that the in vivo growth and spread of cancer cells depend on a complex interplay between the cancer cells and the host organism. Here, hereditary components of the immune system, most likely the innate part, played a crucial role in this interplay and lead to resistance to a single experimental cancer type. The fact that leukocytes [could] be transferred to inhibit S180 cancer cell growth in susceptible recipient mice support the vision of an efficient and adverse event free immunotherapy in future selected cancer types. The failure to replicate early work for more than one form of cancer suggests t...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 25, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

A Conversation With My Bone Marrow on Her 10th Birthday
"I suck at being an adult," I said to my bone marrow while we ate our breakfast today: oatmeal prepared on the stove top with ground cinnamon and sliced banana. "Don't be so hard on yourself," my bone marrow replied. "You're a good host, except when you refuse to buy me push-up bras to impress the boy bone marrows." Ten years ago today, on April 24, 2003, I received my umbilical cord stem cell transplant to treat myelodysplasia, my second cancer. My bone marrow donor was an anonymous girl, so my blood has two of the same sex chromosome, XX, instead of XY. I have reared my bone marrow as my child, and my only complaint i...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - April 24, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: cancer-free anniversary imaginative Source Type: blogs

Three and a Half Ways to Cure Cancer
Today's topic is the cure for cancer, something a grail in medicine. It will be challenging to produce, but I think that the difficulty is presently overestimated by much of the public and those in the mainstream of the research community. The reasons for this are understandable: the past half century of cancer research is a story of continually discovered ever greater complexity in cancer biology. It is the sheer exuberant variation in cancer - between types, between tissues, between individuals, and even between tumors in an individual - that makes it such a daunting foe. Every cancer is an evolving mess of broken cells ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 24, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

PhRMA Report: Over 5400 Medicines in Development and 70% are First in Class
According to report released by PhRMA, companies have more than 5,400 medicines in development globally, and more than 70% of therapies in the pipeline are potentially first-in-class and could offer patients new treatment options, and a notable number of potential therapies target diseases with limited treatment options such as ALS and rare diseases. A breakdown of their report offers insight into the various medicines in development for different diseases and populations. Older Americans America’s biopharmaceutical research companies are developing 465 new medicines that target the 10 leading chronic conditi...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 24, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

Brain Cells Direct From Bone Marrow Stem Cells
Sometimes in science the best discoveries are those that are unexpected. Researchers in California were trying to get bone marrow stem cells to grow by introducing an antibodies to the cells. Instead the cells began to form neural cells. U.S. News & World Report has the story: Scientists have discovered an antibody that can turn stem cells from a patient's bone marrow directly into brain cells, a potential breakthrough in the treatment of neurological diseases and injuries.Richard Lerner, of the Scripps Research Institute in California, says that when a specific antibody is injected into stem cells from bone marrowwh...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - April 23, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Stem cells, Adult Source Type: blogs

2013 CR Society Conference, June 5th in California
The CR Society is a long-standing organization that promotes and provides information about the practice of calorie restriction with optimal nutrition, something shown to extend life and greatly improve measures of health in many species. There are some thousands of members, and the Society mailing lists are quite busy. The Society has done well over the years in encouraging research into the long-term health and potential longevity benefits of calorie restriction in humans, and is an excellent example of what can be achieved by building strong ties between health advocates and the scientific community. The next CR Societ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 23, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

The Church Is Not Backward, But Forward
It is as inevitable as the passing of time. Once there is a new pope, the world begins to wonder when the Catholic Church is going to leave its "medieval thinking" behind and join the "modern" age. It is the 21st century after all, and the Church needs to stop being so "backward."I am a cradle Catholic, and, when I was young, I subconsciously believed that the Church was "behind the times" and "out of touch."As I began my career and worked in cutting-edge biotech laboratories, there was always a nagging question: How can my Church, so rooted in the past, have something rele...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - April 22, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Science and Religion Source Type: blogs

Illustrative Advances in Stem Cell Research
The field of stem cell research is very broad, very large, and very well funded nowadays - which we should all be appropriately thankful for, given its necessary part in producing the means to reverse the causes and consequences of aging. Regenerative medicine based on the transplant and manipulation of stem cells will be used for critical repairs in age-damaged tissues, and ultimately to replace or repair the stem cells and stem cell niches that have become too damaged to properly maintain the body. Progress towards stem cell therapies is much faster now than even ten years ago, and what would have been major advances bac...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 22, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Ten Years Cancer-Free in Three Days
Sarah Palin has weighed in on my umbilical cord stem cell transplant, which I received on April 24, 2003, meaning this Wednesday my bone marrow turns 10. When my fellow UVA graduate, Katie Couric, asked Palin whether I should have accepted the stem cells, Palin said, “The only difference between humans and animals is the willingness to sacrifice oneself in the face of sin. Does that answer your question? Wahoowa, Couric.” When Couric informed Palin that an umbilical cord transplant is different than stem cell research and does not involve fetuses, Palin said, “Like I’m going to fall for another one of your tricky ...
Source: I've Still Got Both My Nuts: A True Cancer Blog - April 21, 2013 Category: Cancer Tags: politics Source Type: blogs

Aubrey de Grey on "The Undoing of Aging"
Philanthropy by high net worth individuals has the potential to move the needle on any major biotechnology project these days. The cost of research in the field is falling rapidly, thanks to spectacular ongoing gains in computational power and materials science. There are now thousands of individuals in the world with a net worth sufficient to completely fund a cure for a disease, from a starting point of nothing but ideas through to first human trials. But of course to exchange your entire net worth for a cure, to give up on the whole of the vast process that has been your business life to date, you'd have to be something...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs

Super-Enhancers in Cell Biology: ENCODE's Revenge?
I've linked to some very skeptical takes on the ENCODE project, the effort that supposedly identified 80% of our DNA sequence as functional to some degree. I should present some evidence for the other side, though, as it comes up, and some may have come up. Two recent papers in Cell tell the story. The first proposes "super-enhancers" as regulators of gene transcription. (Here's a brief summary of both). These are clusters of known enhancer sequences, which seem to recruit piles of transcription factors, and act differently from the single-enhancer model. The authors show evidence that these are involved in cell different...
Source: In the Pipeline - April 18, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Biological News Source Type: blogs

Further Research on BubR1, Cellular Senescence, and Aging
The gene BubR1 is of interest to cancer researchers involved in the study of various forms of nuclear DNA damage, the intricate but usually very reliable DNA repair mechanisms that strive to revert that damage, dysfunction in those repair mechanisms, and how these items relate to cancer and aging. Cancer is quite clearly a condition spawned by damage to the DNA in the cell nucleus; the more of that damage you suffer, the more likely it is that one of your cells will undergo the right combination of mutations to turn it into an unfettered, self-replicating cancer seed - something that looks and acts a lot like a stem cell, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 18, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Exploring Genetic Regulation of Heart Regeneration
Will it be possible in years ahead to temporarily adjust the programming of existing cell populations in the body to cause them to regenerate from damage and injuries more effectively than is presently the case? Most likely so, though it is a fair distance from present early explorations to a safe and effective therapy. Here is an example of work presently underway in the laboratory: "We found that the activity of the Meis1 gene increases significantly in heart cells soon after birth, right around the time heart muscle cells stop dividing. Based on this observation we asked a simple question: If the Meis1 gene is deleted ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 18, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Stem Cells and ALS
Most of us know amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by its other name, Lou Gehrig’s disease. After a recent preliminary trial at Emory University yielded positive results, a phase II trial has been approved by the FDA. An article from Newswise described...(read more) (Source: ADVANCE Discourse: Lab)
Source: ADVANCE Discourse: Lab - April 17, 2013 Category: Pathologists Authors: Michael Jones Tags: Current Events Molecular Diagnostics Research Source Type: blogs

The Other Side of CD47: a Way to Spawn Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
CD47 is a cell surface marker that tells immune cells to leave a cell alone. Researchers are presently using CD47 as a target for next-generation cancer therapies - and quite effectively. The marker seems to be present to a greater level that usual in all cancers examined to date, and blocking it frees the immune system to attack the cancer cells. I noticed another research item today in which a group found that removing CD47 triggers the set of genes known to cause normal adult cells to become induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This is a very interesting result given the cancer connection, and given that this manipula...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Woman With Uterus Transplant Confirmed Pregnant
Doctors have announced that the woman that received a womb transplant is now pregnant. From RedOrbit:The Turkish woman who, two years ago, became the first person in the world to have a successful womb transplant from a deceased donor is pregnant, various media outlets are reporting.Twenty-two-year-old Derya Sert, who was born without a womb, had been receiving in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments since the successful transplant, which took place in August 2011 at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkeys southern province of Antalya, the AFP news agency reported on Friday.According to Reuters, the hospital released a st...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - April 16, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Reproductive Technologies Source Type: blogs

Vatican Holds Second Adult Stem Cell Research Conference
This week the Vatican is hosting another adult stem cell conference bringing together some of the top scientists in the field. The conference, the second held by the Vatican, is called "Regenerative Medicine A Fundamental Shift in Science & Culture." It is a collaboration between the Pontifical Council for Culture, NeoStem, an adult stem cell company, STOQ International, a non-profit that encourages dialogue between Church and culture, and The Stem for Life Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to spreading the good news about adult stem cells.According to Dr. Robin Smith, CEO of NeoStem and President of the ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - April 12, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Stem cells, Adult Source Type: blogs

Robust Cancer Therapies Will Mean a Greater Use of Aggressive Stem Cell Therapies
When it comes to medical procedures, everyone has their own definition of acceptable risk. Sadly we're then overruled by faceless bureaucrats at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and similar government bodies - people who have only their own interests in mind, and suffer no consequences from making useful medical technologies illegal or too expensive for commercial use. Fortunately, the FDA doesn't rule the world: there are regions in which medical regulations are less onerous and therapies less costly, and these locations are only a plane flight away. People who undertake medical tourism for stem cell therapies a...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Engineered Stem Cells Show Promise in Heart Therapy Trial
Modest progress is demonstrated in a recent stem cell therapy trial for heart failure, putting some ballpark numbers to the level of benefits obtained by patients in reputable overseas clinics for some years now. It is to be expected that this sort of published result will lend further support for medical tourism while these therapies remain restricted and largely unavailable in countries like the US, thanks to the heavy hand of the FDA and similar regulatory bodies. This trial also shows the scope of remaining progress yet to be achieved if the goal is complete organ repair, something that will likely prove impossible wi...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

"In vitro eugenics" straight from Huxley's Brave New World
I read somewhere that while both George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World contained dystopian futures, Huxley's world, where humans are made in "hatcheries" and the people were kept compliant, not by the threat of Big Brother, but by the numbing of their senses with the pleasure-inducing drug "soma," was a more plausible scenario.After reading "In vitro eugenics" by Dr. Robert Sparrow in the Journal of Medical Ethics, I have to agree. Dr. Sparrow explores the possibility of creating embryos in the lab, then using the stem cells from those embryos to create egg and sperm cells, ...
Source: Mary Meets Dolly - April 10, 2013 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Genetic Engineering Source Type: blogs

Neural Plasticity and the Legions of Stem Cells in the Brain
Neural plasticity - the ability of the brain to generate new neurons and make good use of them in its circuitry - is a topic of growing interest in the research community. That adult brains continue to create and assimilate new neurons was a comparatively recent discovery, first made in the 1960s, but lacking conclusive proof until the 1990s. Unfortunately, the pace at which this happens declines with age. Neurogenesis, the creation of neurons, requires an active neural stem cell population, and as appears to be the case for all stem cell populations, those in the brain decline in their activities with age. At the high lev...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 10, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Building Better Blood Vessels
One of the major hurdles in tissue engineering is populating tissue with blood vessels sufficient to support it. This is absolutely essential to enable the growth of anything more than a tiny amount of tissue. Decellularization has proven to be a useful way to work around present limits, but that requires donor tissue in order to obtain the guiding extracellular matrix structure. When it comes to building tissue from scratch, researchers are still working on techniques to create the necessary blood vessel networks. One of the major obstacles to growing new organs - replacement hearts, lungs and kidneys - is the difficulty...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 10, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Would You Consider the “Nuclear Option” as Your Multiple Sclerosis Treatment?
The very personal decision of which treatment to go on (if any) for multiple sclerosis comes down to rations; Cost-to-Benefit, Risk-to- Benefit, Quality of life-to-Benefit. It all depends on what “place” we are in our course of MS as to how far we may be willing to go with treatment. For those who are fighting an aggressive and ever-progressing form of MS, new information is begging to “leak” out may give hope, but the “risk” part of the equation may be high. We’ve reported on autologous stem cell treatment before. This procedure may be better known as a bone marrow-transplant, but a patient’s own bone mar...
Source: Life with MS - April 3, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: MS treatment multiple sclerosis treatment stem cell treatment Source Type: blogs

10 minute Workout for pregnant women ( who don’t have a lot of time!)
We asked three fitness experts to recommend three workouts you can fit in while baby’s snoozin’ in the afternoon or kicking away in her bouncy seat. Each mini routine is a series of three simple moves that shape up your entire body, especially the core and back muscles you need to strengthen for toting baby around. If you only have 10 minutes, do just a set or two of each exercise and then gradually add sets until you’ve worked up to a 20- or 30-minute workout. Before you move, get into the groove: • Check with your doctor or midwife first before starting to exercise postpartum. Most will recommend that you ...
Source: Cord Blood News - March 22, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: joyce at mazelabs.com Tags: babies brain development Cord Blood medical research parents pregnancy stem cells Uncategorized affordable cord blood banking bone marrow transplant cord blood cost cord blood stem cells exercise while pregnancy new baby parent Source Type: blogs

New e-books
Antibiotics and antiseptics in periodontal therapy / Dumitrescu, Alexandrina L. Heidelberg ; New York: Springer, 2011. Periodontal diseases are the major cause of tooth mortality in many industrialized countries and most developing nations. The significance of microorganisms in the development of virtually all types of periodontal disease is indisputable. This book is an encyclopedic collection of data from scientific papers and textbooks that form a sound basis for a thorough understanding of the antibiotics and antiseptics used in periodontal therapy. Treatment of periodontal disease / Frank A. Scannapieco.(ed)...
Source: DentistryLibrary@Sydney - March 14, 2013 Category: Dentists Tags: New books E-books Source Type: blogs

Nature: 14 March 2013
This week, the opening of the world’s most sophisticated radio telescope, how painkillers could improve stem cell transplants, how much we know about quasars and the biology behind the new coronavirus. (Source: Nature Podcast)
Source: Nature Podcast - March 13, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Nature Publishing Group Source Type: blogs