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The word "antibacterial" generally refers to some sort of chemical substance that kills bacteria. Like antibacterial soap. Cicadas, which don't always have access to antibacterial soap (the insect market is woefully under served by household cleaning products), have evolved a way to kill bacteria that's built right into the structure of their wings.
Under an electron microscope, cicada wings are covered with forests of tiny nanopillars, smaller than bacteria. These are pillars, not spikes, with blunt tops as opposed pointy ones. When a bacterium comes in contact with the wing surface, it sticks to these nanopillars, which hold it up in some places but not in others. The bacterial membrane then sags into the spaces between the pillars, and if it sags enough, it'll rupture, killing the bacterium.
Scientists have now cured diabetes – at least in a group of dogs – and they used a gene therapy to do it. Amazingly, only a single therapy session was needed to return the dogs’ blood sugar levels to normal. It wasn’t the first time the researchers used the therapy to cure diabetes – they’d done the same previously in a group of mice. But the fact that the treatment worked in the larger canine is a promising sign that it might also one day work in those even much larger animals: humans.
The therapy used in the study actually included two different genes: one for glucokinase, an enzyme that acts as a “glucose sensor” in the muscle, and another for insulin, the hormone that causes sugar in the blood to be absorbed into cells to be used for energy. The genes worked in concert to detect high blood sugar levels and then produce insulin to promote the uptake of blood glucose into cells.
Training Immune Cells To Combat Disease | Chemical & Engineering NewsSome biologists would like to train patients’ own immune systems to treat diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders. They envision programming immune cells to destroy tumor cells or to stop immune system attacks on healthy tissue. Now a team of German researchers reports a method that traps immune cells in microscopic water droplets and exposes the cells to chemical signals that could teach them the difference between friend and foe (J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ja311588c).
In our immune systems, T cells play many key roles in preventing disease. They attack invaders such as viruses, help hold the immune system’s memory of past infections, and even prevent other immune cells from attacking the body’s own tissue. Joachim P. Spatz and Ilia Platzman, researchers atMax Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, in Stuttgart, Germany, study how T cells mature and get trained in a particular task. Many types of T cells interact with antigen-presenting cells, which gather up and display fragments of proteins from viruses, bacteria, and other invaders. Through these cellular interactions, the T cells learn how to identify threats and help the immune system eliminate them.
Immunologists believe it will be possible to treat diseases by mimicking this process outside the body. For example, a doctor could isolate a cancer patient’s own T cells, expose the cells to antigens specific to the cancer, and then transplant the cells back to direct the immune system to attack the tumor.
Previously developed techniques have exposed T cells to flat, relatively rigid surfaces patterned with antigens. But some researchers think a more optimal approach would involve exposing the T cells to an environment that mimics the three-dimensional curvature and squishiness of real cells.
The Max Planck Institute group thought they could create such an environment by enclosing T cells within droplets of water in oil. The inner surface of these droplets contains surfactant molecules that produce a fluid and mechanically soft surface, like that of a cell membrane. The team also developed a way to anchor biomolecules to the surfactants, to mimic the surfaces of antigen-presenting cells.
The researchers make the droplets by mixing two streams of liquid in a microfluidic system: an oil solution of the surfactants and a water-based mixture of T cells and culture medium. When the two streams meet, droplets form, with the T-cell mixture trapped inside bubbles of surfactant. The researchers attach gold nanoparticles decorated with antigens to the water-facing end of the surfactants. These particles act like the surfaces of antigen-presenting cells. The droplets can be as small as 10 µm wide, and can hold up to six cells each.
In a proof of concept experiment, the scientists coated the gold particles with protein fragments known to interact with T cells. When they looked at the droplets under a microscope, they saw that the T cells adhered to the droplets’ inner surfaces. In droplets made with undecorated gold nanoparticles, the cells floated around randomly within the bubbles.
The cells can survive inside the droplets for five days, after which time Platzman believes they run out of food, since the volume of the droplets is extremely small—just a few picoliters. The researchers next plan to use these droplets to expose T cells to disease-related antigens.
David A. Weitz, an applied physicist at Harvard University, thinks the method’s ability to control both the T cell’s spatial and chemical environment will help biologists better understand the cells’ training process. “It’s a very clever combination of biological and nonbiological systems,” he adds.
A quick and simple breath test can diagnose stomach cancer, study findings reveal.
Scientists from Israel and China found the test was 90% accurate at detecting and distinguishing cancers from other stomach complaints in 130 patients.
The British Journal of Cancer says the test could revolutionise and speed up the way this cancer is diagnosed.
About 7,000 UK people develop stomach cancer each year and most have an advanced stage of the disease.
Two-fifths of patients survive for at least a year, but only a fifth are still alive after five years, despite treatment.
Mar. 6, 2013 — The flip of a single molecular switch helps create the mature neuronal connections that allow the brain to bridge the gap between adolescent impressionability and adult stability. Now Yale School of Medicine researchers have reversed the process, recreating a youthful brain that facilitated both learning and healing in the adult mouse.
By grafting human glial cells into the brains of mice, neuroscientists were able to "sharply enhance" their cognitive capacities. These improvements included augmentations to memory, learning, and adaptive conditioning. It's a breakthrough that could yield important insights into the treatment of human brain disorders.
To conduct the experiment, the scientists created human chimeric mice — mice that were endowed with human glial cells.
Within the next 10 years, routine preventive healthcare for adults may include genetic testing alongside the now familiar tests for cholesterol levels, mammography and colonoscopy.
As genomic testing prepares to enter the realm of general medical care, an interdisciplinary team of researchers is suggesting in the latest issue of Genetics in Medicine that now is the time to explore genetic testing to identify people at high risk for carefully selected, preventable disease.
The technology is available, and the price is coming down so rapidly that it will soon be possible and practical to offer a carefully selected panel of genetic tests, able to avert disastrous health consequences in people at high risk for serious life-threatening diseases. That's according to James Evans, Ph.D, Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics & Medicine, at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Editor-in-Chief of Genetics in Medicine. The commentary authors, experts in both genetics and public health, believe it is time to start looking at genetic testing through the lens of disease prevention. There are enough genetic conditions that are both preventable and strongly predispose people to specific cancers or to a catastrophic vascular event that it is sensible to try to identify those people early, so they can seek preventive care, the researchers argue.
"Added together, the number of people walking around, who unknown to them, have mutations that greatly predispose them to serious but eminently preventable disease, comes out to roughly 1 percent of the population," says Evans.
For example, about 1 in 400 people in the United States carry an inherited genetic predisposition to develop colon cancer at an early age. Currently, people carrying this genetic risk would be unaware of it, unless enough close family members develop colon cancer prompting their doctor to suggest genetic testing, or it is identified by analysis of their own or a family member's tumour. If, instead, at-risk people could be identified before cancer has occurred, a program of early, regular colonoscopy screening would help prevent the disease in the first place, the researchers argue.
Dentists may one day be able to replace missing teeth with ones newly grown from gum cells, say UK researchers.
The team from King's College London took cells from adult human gum tissue and combined them with another type of cell from mice to grow a tooth.
They say using a readily available source of cells pushes the technology a step nearer to being available to patients.
But it is still likely to be many years before dentists can use the method.
Other work has focused on using embryonic stem cells to create "bioteeth".
It proved it could be done but is expensive and impractical for use in the clinic, the researchers said.
In the latest study they took human epithelial cells from the gums of human patients, grew more of them in the lab and mixed them with mesenchyme cells from mice.
According to findings by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed. The finding is an important step toward developing a vaginal gel that may prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The new drugs are synthetic versions of resveratrol which is found in red wine and is believed to have an anti-ageing effect as it boosts activity of a protein called SIRT1.
Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has been testing the medications on patients suffering with medical conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
The work proves that a single anti-ageing enzyme in the body can be targeted, with the potential to prevent age-related diseases and extend lifespans.
The most common naturally-occurring activator is resveratrol, which is found in small quantities in red wine, but synthetic activators with much stronger activity are already being developed.
Despite this, there have already been promising results in some trials with implications for cancer, cardiovascular disease and cardiac failure, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, fatty liver disease, cataracts, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, sleep disorders and inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and colitis.
Professor Sinclair said: 'In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has never been a drug that tweaks an enzyme to make it run faster.'
Four thousand synthetic activators, which are 100 times as potent as a single glass of red wine, have been developed - with the best three being used in human trials.
While any drug would be strictly prescribed for certain conditions, Professor Sinclair suggests that one day, they could be taken orally as a preventative.
They could therefore be used in the same way as statin drugs are commonly prescribed to prevent, instead of simply treating, cardiovascular disease.
In animal models, overweight mice given synthetic resveratrol were able to run twice as far as slim mice and they lived 15 per cent longer.
'Some of us could live to 150, but we won't get there without more research.'
Researchers find conclusive proof that resveratrol delays agingResearchers have found what they say is conclusive evidence that the red wine compound resveratrol directly activates a protein that improves health and longevity in animal models. What's more, the researchers have uncovered the molecular mechanism for this interaction, and show that a class of more potent drugs currently in clinical trials act in a similar fashion. Pharmaceutical compounds similar to resveratrol may potentially treat and prevent diseases related to aging in people, the authors contend.
Two weeks after the revelation that a baby has been "cured" of HIV, reports suggest that a similar treatment can cure some adults too. Early treatment seems crucial, but does not guarantee success.
Asier Sáez-Cirión of the Pasteur Institute's unit for regulation of retroviral infections in Paris analysed 70 people with HIV who had been treated with antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) between 35 days and 10 weeks after infection much sooner than people are normally treated.
All of the participants' drug regimes had been interrupted for one reason or another. For example, some people had made a personal choice to stop taking the drugs, others had been part of a trial of different drug protocols.
Researchers have discovered that deleting a specific gene in mice prevents them from becoming obese, even on a high fat diet, a finding they believe may be replicated in humans.
"When fed a diet that induces obesity, these mice don't get fat," said Professor James McManaman, Ph.D., lead author of the two-year study and vice-chairman of research for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "It may be possible to duplicate this in humans, using existing technology that targets this specific gene."
The research team created a strain of mice without the Plin2 gene which produces a protein that regulates fat storage and metabolism. They immediately found that the mice were resistant to obesity. Usually, mice fed a high fat diet will eat voraciously, yet these showed an unusual restraint. Not only did they eat less, they were more active.
Their fat cells were also 20 percent smaller than typical mice and did not show the kind of inflammation usually associated with obesity, the study said. Obesity-associated fatty liver disease, common in obese humans and rodents, was absent in the mice without the Plin2 gene.
Coffee or green tea drinker? Don't put that cup down: Those beverages may lower your stroke risk if they're a regular part of your daily diet.
Researchers discovered that people who drank at least one cup of coffee a day lowered their stroke risk by about 20 percent compared to those who drank it rarely.
Compared to those who rarely drank either beverage, those who drank at least one cup of coffee or two cups of green tea a day had a 32 percent lower chance of having an intracerebral hemorrhage, a type of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel bursts and bleeds inside the brain. Intracerebral hemorrhages account for 13 percent of strokes.
It’s not exactly news that China is setting itself up as a new global superpower, is it? While Western civilization chokes on its own gluttony like a latter-day Marlon Brando, China continues to buy up American debt and lock away the world’s natural resources. But now, not content to simply laugh and make jerk-off signs as they pass us on the geopolitical highway, they’ve also developed a state-endorsed genetic-engineering project.
At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000 of the world’s smartest people and are sequencing their entire genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles which determine human intelligence. Apparently they’re not far from finding them, and when they do, embryo screening will allow parents to pick their brightest zygote and potentially bump up every generation's intelligence by five to 15 IQ points. Within a couple of generations, competing with the Chinese on an intellectual level will be like challenging Lena Dunham to a getting-naked-on-TV contest.
Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist and lecturer at NYU, is one of the 2,000 braniacs who contributed their DNA. I spoke to him about what this creepy-ass program might mean for the future of Chinese kids.
The mummy Hatiay is scanned in Cairo, Egypt, where it was found to have evidence of extensive vascular disease by CT scanning. (Dr. Michael Miyamoto/AP Photo)
March 11, 2013
Long thought to be a modern disease related to contemporary lifestyles, atherosclerosis was common among ancient people as well, a new study found.
Whole body CT scans of 137 mummies from four different ancient populations revealed heart and vascular calcifications consistent with atherosclerosis, reported Dr. Randall Thompson of St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., and colleagues.
The Lazarus Project team says they have been able to recover cell nuclei of the extinct gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silus,
from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer.
The genome of
Rheobatrachus silus, extinct since 1983, has been revived and reactivated by a team of scientists using
somatic cell nuclear transfer
to implant a "dead" cell nucleus into a fresh egg from another frog species.
(Reuters) - A donated human liver has been kept alive, warm and functioning outside a human being on a newly-developed machine and then successfully transplanted into patients in a medical world first.
A British team of doctors, engineers and surgeons announcing the achievement on Friday said it could be common practice in hospitals across the developed world within a few years, up to doubling the number of livers available for transplant.
So far the procedure has been performed on two patients on Britain's liver transplant waiting list and both are making excellent recoveries, the medical team told a news conference.
"It was astounding to see an initially cold, grey liver flushing with color once hooked up to our machine and performing as it would within the body," said Constantin Coussios, a professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford University and one of the machine's co-inventors.
"What was even more amazing was to see the same liver transplanted into a patient who is now walking around."
Currently livers destined for transplant are kept "on ice" in a process which cools them to slow down their metabolism and does not keep them functioning as they would inside a body.
This system has worked for several decades, but can also often lead to livers becoming damaged and rendered unfit for use in patients who need them.
Surgeons say keeping livers "on ice" beyond 14 hours starts becoming risky, although they can last up to 20 hours.
Hepatitis infection, alcohol abuse and drug-induced cholestasis - a blockage in the flow of bile from the liver - can all cause liver failure. Some patients with liver cancer can also benefit from a transplant.
Around 13,000 liver transplants are carried out each year in Europe and the United States, but there is a combined waiting list of around 30,000 patients who need a new liver.
Experts say up to a quarter of these patients die while they are waiting. At the same time, more than 2,000 livers are discarded every year because they are either damaged by oxygen deprivation or do not survive the cold preservation process.
The new technology, developed by Coussios together with Peter Friend, director of the Oxford Transplant Centre, preserves the liver at body temperature and "perfuses" it - supplying it with oxygenated red blood cells to keep it alive.
"This device is the very first completely automated liver perfusion device of its kind," Coussios said. "These first clinical cases confirm that we can support human livers outside the body, keep them alive and functioning on our machine and then, hours later, successfully transplant them into a patient."
"I FEEL SO ALIVE"
Whole brain cellular-level activity mapping in a second : MethagoraIt is now possible to map the activity of nearly all the neurons in a vertebrate brain at cellular resolution. What does this mean for neuroscience research and projects like the Brain Activity Map proposal?
In an Article that just went live in Nature Methods, Misha Ahrens and Philipp Keller from HHMIs Janelia Farm Research Campus used high-speed light sheet microscopy to image the activity of 80% of the neurons in the brain of a fish larva at speeds of a whole brain every 1.3 seconds. This representsto our knowledgethe first technology that achieves whole brain imaging of a vertebrate brain at cellular resolution with speeds that approximate neural activity patterns and behavior.
Biotech?s therapy to regenerate tissue, organs for chronic kidney disease, bladder cancer faces financial test | MedCity NewsA biologics startup developing a way to help patients with bladder cancer by using their own cells to regenerate tissue and to reconstruct a urinary tract has expanded a Phase 1 trial to five sites and has performed the procedure on its seventh patient. But despite getting a $15 million private placement last fall, Tengion is facing an uncertain future if it cannot secure more investment before May.
