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In an earlier post, we took a quick look at the amount of food wasted around the world each year. On the heels of this news, there’s been a new food-related issue gaining attention in the media. Brace yourself, because it might sound crazy: What if we grew meat in labs? I know, I know: [...]
The skin gun appears to be a computer controlled Air Brush that, instead of spraying paint, sprays skin stem cells over a burn. As you watch this video, the results are incredible: The burns on his arm and face are completely, seamlessly healed. The technology has been under development for some time, as this 2008 [...]
How Parkinson’s Disease Works – An interview with Michael J. Fox
by Marshall Brain | December 1, 2010
Michael J. Fox has become a spokesperson for Parkinson’s disease and gives an in-depth interview on CNN where he discusses his disease and its effects: This video offers a simple explanation of what is going on in a brain affected by Parkinson’s disease: One of the most promising treatments in the pipeline is stem cell [...]
Two recent stem cell successes really are amazing. This first video shows a patient with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy who has been treated with stem cells: The problem for someone with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a lack of dystrophin, a protein that is essential to normal muscular function. Since the heart is a muscle, many MDM [...]
Top 5 Stocking Stuffers for Scientists: Stem Cell Lines
by Allison Loudermilk | December 22, 2009
Up until now, our holiday gift suggestions have been catering to the physics fanatics and the space geeks. It’s time to turn to the biologists toiling amid the scientific ranks and contemplate what might make a good gift for them. I’m thinking a holiday tin full of stem cells. 2009 was a banner year for stem cell research in the United States, with President Obama issuing Executive Order (EO) 13505, which essentially removed barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells.
Before the executive order was issued, U.S. scientists doing federally funded research could access 21 lines created before Aug. 9, 2001, according to NPR. That number was blown to bits just within the past month. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has approved 40 new lines that are eligible for use in federally funded research. At least 11 of them are compliments of one George Q. Daley, an M.D., Ph.D. and stem cell scientist at Harvard.
Tick tock, Tick Tock, TICK TOCK, the female biological clock practically screams as we female mammals age. Unlike male mammals, like, say, Indian farmer Nanu Ram Jogi, who fathered a child at 90 (his 21st), according to Mental Floss, females are born with a limited cache of eggs, which diminishes with age. Once the last one’s gone, menopause grimly marches forward and the prospect of bearing a child vanishes forever. Or so we thought.
Not so, according to fascinating research headed by Ji Wu at Shanghai Tong University and published online by Nature Cell Biology. Wu and his team removed mice ovaries, searching them for a specific type of stem cell capable of growing into eggs or sperm. They found them, grew them in the lab, injected them in sterile female mice, let the females get busy with the males, and — ta-da! — healthy mice babies emerged.
With all this talk about stem cells and whether it’s, in President Obama’s words, “dangerous and profoundly wrong” to research human cloning, I can’t help but think of the HeLa cell line that has played such a vital role in everything from eradicating polio to to early space shuttle missions.
And talk about profoundly wrong — the cells’ owner was never told that her tissue was going to a medical center at Johns Hopkins for special analysis, much less the role she would unwittingly play in the future of medicine.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old black mother of five in 1950s Baltimore, Md. When she went in for a routine biopsy, the doctors discovered a tumor with most unusual cell activity: they were essentially immortal. Normally, cellular samples have a limited shelf life in a laboratory. They’ll only divide a certain number of times before the chromosomes reach their Hayflick limit.
Obama Frees Federal Funding for Stem Cells
by Allison Loudermilk | March 9, 2009
Somewhere former First Lady Nancy Reagan is dancing a little jig. Reagan, along with legions of scientists and other advocates, lobbied hard to lift the federal ban on embryonic stem cell research. Today, President Obama obliged.
According to the accompanying executive order, the president’s action will “expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research” among other things. MSNBC writes that reactions to the announcement fell predictably along party lines, with Reagan standing apart from critical Republicans.
She might want to bond with Gov. Schwarzenegger, who calls the order a “huge win,” according to MSNBC. Or Michael J. Fox, who writes on the Michael J. Fox Foundation Web site, “I could not be more thrilled to see President Obama live up to his commitment to get politics out of science.” Other organizations, such as the Family Research Council, called the decision “misguided.” And probably a whole lot worse.
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