Benefits of stem-cell engraftment may not last

The good news is that real, beating cardiomyocytes can be grown from undifferentiated stem cells, and large quantities of these cells with distinctly human characteristics can be obtained from human embryonic stem cells, as Mummery's talk proved. These differentiated cells will permit screens for drugs that bolster the numbers of cardiomyocytes produced and that help cardiomyocytes engraft and survive. Thus, although this progress may not signal the arrival of effective therapies, it may mark the true beginning of their development.

Link

The good news is also that the real work of heart repair is beginning.  The tough answers are beginning to come out.  Now, we can suspect that varying results might be caused by mis-labeling cells. Now, we know that the heart is a difficult but not impossible place to use stem cells, and that stem cells can form heart cells.

Tags: Heart, Cardiomyocytes, Mummery, ISSCR.

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Scientists Create Breakthrough Sensor Capable of Detecting Individual Molecules

This device could make direct observation of single biological events possible.

Applied physicists at the California Institute of Technology have figured out a way to detect single biological molecules with a microscopic optical device. The method has already proven effective for detecting the signaling proteins called cytokines that indicate the function of the immune system, and it could be used in numerous medical applications, such as the extremely early detection of cancer and other diseases, as well as in basic biological research.

Article

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Embryo Screening

The Times's Amy Harmon talks about the increasingly common practice of the embryo screening procedure known as PGD. (Producer: Erik Olsen)

Video

Embryo screening will be much more complex when more than one condition is being checked.  The field should be very interesting.

Tags: Embryo Screening, PGD

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Studies to find better ways to preserve human eggs, ovarian tissue under way

The goal is to make human eggs, ovarian tissue, blood vessels, even whole organs available when needed.

To get there, researchers are directly comparing slow-freezing techniques, used successfully for decades to preserve sperm and embryos, to a more rapid method of cryopreservation that transforms tissues into durable

“Regenerative medicine will help supplement the shortage of organs in the future, and we need technology to preserve those we make.”

Article

Tags: Regenerative Medicine, Cryopreservation, human eggs

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AmpliChip CYP450 Test

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for Molecular Medicine (CMM) today announced it is the first Midwest-based laboratory to offer the FDA-approved AmpliChip(R) CYP450 Test to physicians and hospitals.

This genomics-based, FDA-approved clinical laboratory test provides physicians information that may be used to help determine a patient's unique ability or inability to metabolize a large variety of prescription drugs. AmpliChip CYP450 test results may be used by physicians to make more rational drug prescription decisions, reduce "trial and error" prescription and dosing and guard against dangerous and expensive adverse drug reactions.

Tags: AmpliChip, CYP450

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Heart Failure Drug May Remove Wrinkles

Dr. Xie, a molecular biologist, is a basic scientist. He approached heart failure by looking at the behavior of a tiny doorway found in cell surfaces - a pump, actually, that controls the levels of calcium in the cell, and thereby controls the strength of each heart beat.
Dr. Xie found that the pump is more than a pump. It has a second, completely distinct role in the cell. It is a commander. It can issue instructions to the rest of the cell, and get all kinds of processes moving.
As Dr. Xie looked at how the pump also sends signals, he realized that this meant a class of drugs given to heart failure patients for nearly 200 years - digitalis and drugs like it - probably didn't work the way everyone thought.
"When we started to look at the therapeutic effect of digitalis on cardiac cells, we realized the concentration [of digitalis] we used was too low," Dr. Xie said. There wasn't enough digitalis to affect pumping. Dr. Xie discovered that drugs like digitalis actually turn on the pump's command capabilities. Drs. Shapiro and Xie conducted a series of four experiments to look at how digitalislike substances affect the rat heart. In one experiment, they gave healthy rats low doses of a digitalislike drug. Those rats developed fibrous hearts, which worked inefficiently. They were in heart failure. In another experiment, they gave heathy rats an antibody to block digitalislike drugs, then they injected a digitalislike drug into the rat. The antibody proved protective. Those rat hearts had far less fiber. In a third experiment, they induced kidney disease in rats. These rats developed hearts riven with fibrous tissue, incapable of relaxing completely, and therefore inefficient at refilling. Finally, they gave the rats with experimentally induced kidney disease an antibody to block digitalislike substances. Those rats had far less fibrous tissue. "That study was an eye-opener," Dr. Shapiro said. "It was a smoking gun implicating [digitalislike drugs] in fibrosis."

Tags: Heart Failure, digitalis, kidney failure, Kr. Xie, Molecular Biology

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Doc on a Pole makes House Calls

Or at least makes top flight care available to small rural hospitals.  The May/June Michigan Country Lines, an REA publication, had a great article on the use of telemedicine in the state.  On of the more popular features was Doc on a Pole, a robot terminal with the means to communicate with a distant doctor who did the actual brainwork of the case.

Tags: Doc-on-a-Pole, Telemedicine, Medical Transformation

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Viral Diseas Destroys Heart of Mexican Boy-citizens of Texas React.

Residents of the Texas city raised about $500,000 for the boy, who suffers a viral infection that is eating away at his heart tissue. "In many children, it just gives you a common cold, but in certain settings, it will cause an inflammation of the heart ," said Dr. Elizabeth Frazier, head of the cardiac transplantation program at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "It permanently damages the heart muscle; it actually kills the heart muscle."

This international effort to provide care for one boy shows an aspect of the transformation of medicine over the last several decades. It also speaks about the role of human charity in medical care.

Tags: Viral heart disease, heart transplant

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Foreign Trade and American Health

With China increasingly intertwined in global trade, Chinese exporters are paying a price for unsafe practices. Excessive antibiotic or pesticide residues have caused bans in Europe and Japan on Chinese shrimp, honey and other products. Hong Kong blocked imports of turbot last year after inspectors found traces of malachite green, a possibly cancer-causing chemical used to treat fungal infections, in some fish.

Shipments from China were rejected at the rate of about 200 per month this year, the largest from any country, compared to about 18 for Thailand, and 35 for Italy, also big exporters to the U.S., according to data posted on the FDA's Web site.
Chinese products are bounced for containing pesticides, antibiotics and other potentially harmful chemicals, and false or incomplete labeling that sometimes omits the producer's name

This adds to the creationist required when considering what might be making individuals sicker.

Tags: public health, China, poison, pet food

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TED Blog

TED Blog: "Google has acquired Hans Rosling's Trendalyzer software, which the Swedish demographer and his team at Gapminder have developed since 2005 to generate more useful visualizations of facts and figures.Google has acquired Hans Rosling's Trendalyzer software, which the Swedish demographer and his team at Gapminder have developed since 2005 to generate more useful visualizations of facts and figures."

Statistics and public health will be much easier to document with tools like the one referenced here. Trendalyzer is a tool to watch.

Tragic Mistakes of heTwinning Process

A two-headed toddler died just before her second birthday. The Egyptian girl was born with a parasitic twin head attached to her own, the result of incomplete twinning. The parasitic head "was capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life." The girl survived the head's surgical removal a year ago, plus five additional operations to resolve complications. A brain infection finally killed her. Tragic view: Why couldn't doctors save her? Grateful view: Are you kidding? Head-separation surgery had never been done in the Middle East before, and she's the first kid to survive such surgery anywhere, not to mention five more surgeries and a full additional year. Hats off to her doctors. (For Human Nature's previous takes on twinning and "aberrant products of fertilization," click here and here.)

My question is about whether removing the second head would be murder in this country. What could a doctor legally do in the United States?

Flavanols in cocoa may enhance brain blood flow, improve cognitive health

Flavanols in cocoa may enhance brain blood flow, improve cognitive health: "A new study by boffins at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School has found that cocoa flavanols may enhance brain blood flow and improve cognitive health"

At last, an excuse to eat chocolate. The article reports the finding without description of what is going on.

BREITBART.COM - Science Finding Ways to Regrow Fingers

BREITBART.COM - Science Finding Ways to Regrow Fingers:" ACell Inc., that makes an extract of pig bladder for promoting healing and tissue regeneration.
It helps horses regrow ligaments, for example, and the federal government has given clearance to market it for use in people. Similar formulations have been used in many people to do things like treat ulcers and other wounds and help make cartilage.
The summer before Lee Spievack's accident, Dr. Alan Spievack had used it on a neighbor who'd cut his fingertip off on a tablesaw. The man's fingertip grew back over four to six weeks, Alan Spievack said.
Lee Spievack took his brother's advice to forget about a skin graft and try the pig powder.
Soon a shipment of the stuff arrived and Lee Spievack started applying it every two days. Within four weeks his finger had regained its original length, he says, and in four months 'it looked like my normal finger.'

This is how science used to be done. 'bubble,bubble toil and trouble' It is interesting and needs to be explained using conventional science.

BBC NEWS | Health | Mice cloned from skin stem cells

BBC NEWS Health Mice cloned from skin stem cells: "Mice cloned from skin stem cells

Many cloned mice survived into adulthood
US researchers have cloned healthy mice from skin cells for the first time.
Despite notorious difficulties in producing animals through cloning, nine of 19 mice who were born survived into adulthood.
The scientists replaced the nucleus from an unfertilised egg with the nucleus from an adult skin stem cell. Mice cloned from skin stem cells

Many cloned mice survived into adulthood
US researchers have cloned healthy mice from skin cells for the first time.
Despite notorious difficulties in producing animals through cloning, nine of 19 mice who were born survived into adulthood.
The scientists replaced the nucleus from an unfertilised egg with the nucleus from an adult skin stem cell. "

This method can provide embryos from a male subject. Embryonic stem cells can be derived from that embryo.

Seeing Molecules

http://sciencematters.berkeley.edu/archives/volume4/issue25/story3.php

Yang is developing a better way to study biomolecules in motion. "What we hope is to visualize chemistry one molecule at a time."
For this feat, Yang uses a technique called single-molecule microscopy. The method employs probes that fluoresce red or blue when excited by a photon of light. The blue one can acquire photons from an external light source, while the red one only accepts photons from its blue counterpart. For his experiments, Yang affixes one blue and one red probe to opposite ends of a study enzyme. When the enzyme is relaxed, and both probes are far apart, the assembly glows blue. When the
enzyme closes, the blue probe can pass along its photon, and the assembly glows red.

Ultimately, Yang's work could result in advances in disease research, drug design, turbulence, materials analysis, and even our grasp of basic biochemical reactions. Says Yang, "I hope that in doing these experiments, we will get the chance to know how nature makes these things happen, and take that understanding to improve our quality of life."

Medical transformation is founded on advances like this are fundamental processes can first be observed and confirmed.

First Lady - Truth on Heart Disease by Carey Roberts

First Lady - Truth on Heart Disease by Carey Roberts: "Why the sex difference? Because men more often have high blood pressure and smoke cigarettes. And experts believe men are subtly discouraged from seeking help when heart disease lurks in its early stages. "

Because men have high blood pressure? Because men smoke cigarettes? Somebody is smoking something. I think it is the writer of this article. Men have been kicking the smoking habit recently. Unfortunatly, women have been taking a smoke more frequently.

The whole course of heart disease is different in men. Men tend to get clogged arteries in specific locations. Women get them throughout the arteries-completely. Hormones protect women below a certain age. Men do not have that protection. Additionally, men tend to do the heavy lifting. That is always a good time to test your ability to have a heart attack. Extra strain on the fibrous cap causes it to break and you have a heart attack. Carey Roberts needs to explain the errors of her ways.

Nerve Regeneration with a Twist

Wang, an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, discovered that he could integrate dopamine, a type of neurotransmitter, into a polymer to stimulate nerve tissues to send out new connections. The discovery is the first step toward the eventual goal of implanting the new polymer into patients suffering from neurological disorders to help repair damaged nerves. The findings were published online the week of Oct. 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Self Focusing Glasses in Three Yearshttp://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060403/eyeglasses_tec.html

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060403/eyeglasses_tec.html

April 7, 2006— New eyeglasses that shift focus from distant to near objects could soon replace bifocals and correct other vision problems.
The so-called switchable electro-optic diffractive lenses were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of Arizona in Tucson andf the Georgia Institute of Technology.

This is another example of things I have thought about that are invented almost as quick as you think of them. Could these self focusing glasses take on other roles. Binoculars for example or magnifying glasses. These would be neat if they work.

Australian Experts seek Samantic Nuclear Cell Transfer Rights

Forum chairman and Victoria's Chief Scientist Sir Gustav Nossal wrote: "We affirm that embryonic and adult stem cell research should be pursued as complementary avenues of investigation that hold promise for a better understanding of developmental processes, disease, assisted reproductive technology and stem cell-based human therapeutics. "There have been great advances in embryonic stem cell research in recent years, and sufficient evidence exists in animal models to justify the adoption of recommendations from the Lockhart review to enable the pursuit of this work in human systems."

Respect life activists debate stem cell research ethicshttp://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/local_news/epaper/2006/10/15/s1c_RespectLife_1015

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/local_news/epaper/2006/10/15/s1c_RespectLife_1015.html

This is another appeal to dishonest logic dealing with embryonic stem cells. This approach holds that somehow everyone has missed the fact that adult stem cells are an exact replacement for embryonic stem cells and that any money that is spent on ESC is taken away from adult stem cell work. Of course, stem cell research is not a zero sum game. Adult stem cell research is needed as is ESC. All claims to the contrary are at best ill informed and at worst dishonest.