Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Japan has given the green light to a controversial research process involving implanting animals with human stem cells that could eventually help grow human organs for transplant inside animal hosts.

Japan has given the green light to a controversial research process involving implanting animals with human stem cells that could eventually help grow human organs for transplant inside animal hosts. The decision by the education and science ministry Friday to revise its guidelines means Japanese researchers can now apply for permits to carry out studies employing the technique, a ministry official told AFP. The process involves implanting embryonic animals, likely first pigs, with human "induced pluripotent stem" (iPS) cells, which can transform into the building blocks of any part of the body. The idea is for the iPS cells to grow into transplantable human organs inside the animal embryos. Japan had previously required researchers to terminate animal embryos implanted with human cells after 14 days "due to ethical concerns over the vague line between human beings and animals," the official said. The old regulations also prevented researchers from...

Robert Geoffrey Edwards, who developed in vitro fertilization (IVF) in humans, will receive this year's  Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Human oocyte Image:wikimedia commons/Ekem The initially controversial technology has since produced more than 4 million babies worldwide to otherwise infertile parents. When Edwards, now professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, started his research on infertility in the 1950s, scientists had already successfully fertilized eggs from rabbits in test tubes and produced young. It didn't take much time for Edwards to realize that fertilization outside of the uterus could be a viable option for human couples who were having issues conceiving. While on the road to developing IVF, Edwards made myriad discoveries that have contributed to researchers' understanding of the maturation of the human egg cell. For example, he deciphered how different hormones control the development of the egg, as well as when the egg is most ...

At the White House signing this afternoon of an executive order to overturn the previous administration's ban on using human embryonic stem cells in research, US President Barack Obama also signed a memorandum that he said is aimed at insulating science from politics. Obama said today that the Scientific Integrity Presidential Memorandum charges the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with development of "a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making." He said that his administration will "base our public policies on the soundest science …[and] appoint scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology." In addition, Obama said that his administration will be "open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions." He also said that promoting science is about more than providing resources, but also involves "ensuring that scientif...

In their current study, published in the online edition of the journal Nature , Conboy and her team found that old muscle produces elevated levels of a molecule called TGF-beta, which is known to inhibit muscle growth. The researchers then showed that the muscle-deteriorating effects of TGF-beta can be reversed by blocking its pathway in old mice. In the experiments, the researchers used RNA interference, which can silence specific genes, to inhibit the molecules that act downstream of TGF-beta to prevent cells from multiplying. They then locally injured the muscles of treated mice, as well as untreated old and young mice, by injecting a small amount of snake venom, which killed muscle tissue in the immediate vicinity. After five days, the team found that the young mice were able to produce healthy cells to replace damaged tissue. The treated older mice, whose inhibitory pathways were suppressed, were able to regenerate new cells in much the same way. Not surprisingly, old untreate...

The last time i blogged on stem cells it was rather about a challenge in Fresh hurdle for stem cell hunt , but this time its more on a positive note and fairly quite an interesting and welcome news... a SERENDIPITY! Inspired by a chance discovery during another experiment, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have created a small molecule that stimulates nerve stem cells to begin maturing into nerve cells in culture. "This provides a critical starting point for neuro-regenerative medicine and brain cancer chemotherapy," said Dr. Jenny Hsieh, assistant professor of molecular biology and senior author of the paper, Small-molecule activation of neuronal cell fate, Jay W Schneider, Zhengliang Gao, Shijie Li, Midhat Farooqi, Tie-Shan Tang, Ilya Bezprozvanny, Doug E Frantz, Jenny Hsieh SUMMARY: We probed an epigenetic regulatory path from small molecule to neuronal gene activation. Isoxazole small molecules triggered robust neuronal differentiation in adult neural ...

Previously blogging on the topic of regenerative medicine in Regenerative Medicine Start-Up Created out of ORNL . A Nobel Prize-winning scientist says it could be tougher than first thought to harness the healing power of stem cells in medicine. It had been hoped a single "master" cell could potentially be used to repair all damage in a single organ. Stem cells may be more varied than previously thought. Professor Mario Capecchi , from the University of Utah, found surprising clues that different stem cells might be working together in the same organ. This means experimental treatments relying on the wrong type might fail. Professor Capecchi, writing in the Nature Genetics, said the finding suggested stem cell biology could be "more complicated" than previously thought, which could be bad news for patients hoping for the swift arrival of new therapies. Bmi1 plays an essential part in the self-renewal of hematopoietic and neural stem cells. To investigate its role...

Battelle Ventures has spun out a firm from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), with an initial $1.5 million seed investment. The company, called NellOne Therapeutics, will develop regenerative medicines. The funding will be tranched based on key technical milestones. Towards a "holy grail" in human medicine: the ability to restore organs damaged through trauma, disease, cancer, or even the normal aging process. Tissue or organ repair has been the ultimate goal of surgery from ancient times to the present day. Clearly, there is a lot of interest in the regeneration of tissues, and tissue repair in organisms is within reach. However, we are a long way from understanding how to coax the human body into regenerating complex body parts after injury or disease. As an example, regeneration of amputated limbs in amphibians - “epimorphic” regeneration which includes cellular dedifferentiation in the injured tissues of the limb stump and proliferat...

British researchers have identified two common genetic mutations that increase the risk of osteoporosis and related bone fractures, according to a study released on Tuesday. These changes were present in 20 percent of the people studied and highlight the potential role of screening for the bone-thinning. Talking about Osteoporosis, other related bone diseases affecting bone formation and repair. There has been increased interest both in academia and industry in tissue regeneration and working towards understanding the biological processes involved in self regeneration. The key to success is in understanding basic developmental processes focused on tissue regeneration (including bone formation and repair). One such key resource researchers might be interested in, is Receptome – a knowledgebase of functional endogenous ligand-receptor pairs in developmental processes . Few key applications areas are : to identify major mediators, roles in cellular processes, expression and role of...

A research team at the Umeå Center for Molecular Medicine (UCMM) in Sweden, led by Professor Leif Carlsson, has managed to specifically establish and isolate the tissue-specific stem cell that produces blood cells (blood stem cell) by using genetically modified embryonic stem cells. to know more

Talking about novel receptor genes expressed in human tissues . This morning's news featured, An international team of cell biologists has created heart tissue — complete with beat — in a test tube. The tissue culture contains three distinct cell types, each of which is important in functioning hearts, and is thus a step towards the advent of lab-grown heart-tissue transplants. To day, research is considerably accelerated by the use of scientific knowledgebase and informatics tools which aid researchers significantly minimize time and effort spent on knowledge transfer across their teams and in scientific study. Thanks to such tools which supplement lab work and act as comprehensive repertoire that make optimal use of the plethora of data available in literature and centralize it as a searchable tool to investigate the characteristics of functional ligand-receptor pairs and their potential use and applications. The research team led by Gordon Keller of the McEwen Centre for Regen...