HUMODS

Researchers discover a key gene that controls chronic inflammation, accelerated aging and cancer.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 25 May 2012 22:58:00 +0000

A new study by researchers at the NYU School of Medicine reveals that AUF1, a family of four related genes, not only controls the inflammatory response, but also maintains the integrity of chromosomes by activating the enzyme telomerase to repair the ends of chromosomes, thereby simultaneously reducing inflammation, preventing rapid aging and the development of cancer, Dr. Schneider explained.
“AUF1 is a medical and scientific trinity,” said principal investigator Robert J. Schneider, PhD. “Nature has designed a way to simultaneously turn off harmful inflammation and repair our chromosomes, thereby suppressing aging at the cellular level and in the whole animal.”
With this new information, Dr. Schneider and colleagues are examining human populations for specific types of genetic alterations in the AUF1 gene that are associated with the co-development of certain immune diseases, increased rates of aging and higher cancer incidence in individuals to determine exactly how the alterations manifest and present themselves clinically.

Keeping your stem cells forever young, so they can keep you forever young.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:13:00 +0000

Stem cells are essential building blocks for all organisms, from plants to humans. They can divide and renew themselves throughout life, differentiating into the specialized tissues needed during development, as well as cells necessary to repair adult tissue. They can therefore, be considered immortal, in that they recreate themselves and regenerate tissues throughout a person's lifetime, but that doesn't mean they don't age. They do, gradually losing their ability to effectively maintain tissues and organs.But now researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have uncovered a series of biological events that implicate the stem cells' surroundings, known as their "niche," as the culprit in loss of stem cells due to aging.
"The findings suggest, for example, that putting new or young stem cells into an old environment—that of an aged patient—might not lead to the best outcome in tissue regeneration," says the study's senior investigator, Leanne Jones, associate professor in Salk's Laboratory of Genetics.
Stem cells reside within a microenvironment of other cells–the niche–that is known to play a role in stem cell function. For example, after a tissue is injured, the niche signals to stem cells to form new tissue. It is believed that stem cells and their niche send signals to each other to help maintain their potency over a lifetime. But while the loss of tissue and organ function during aging has been attributed to decreases in stem cell function, it has been unclear how this decline occurs. Jones' lab has been investigating a number of possible scenarios, such as whether the loss of tissue function is due to a decrease in the number of stem cells, to the inability of stem cells to respond to signals from their niche, or to reduced signaling from the niche.
To explore stem cell aging, Jones uses cells found in the testes of the male fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which are remarkably similar to those found in humans. The researchers show how signals from the niche that act to maintain the vitality of the flies' stem cells are lost over time, leading to a decline in the number of stem cells available to maintain the tissue. They also show that restoring those signals revitalizes the cells.
"Stem cell behavior is similar between flies and humans, so our findings have major implications for breakthroughs in using tissue stem cells to treat age-related tissue decline or regeneration after an injury," says one of the paper's first authors, Hila Toledano, a former Salk investigator who is now at the University of Haifa in Israel.
The Salk researchers discovered that as the stem cell niche ages, the cells produce a microRNA (a molecule that plays a negative role in the production of proteins from RNA) known as let-7. This microRNA is known to exist in a number of species, including humans, and helps time events that occur during development. This increase in let-7 leads to a domino effect that flips a switch on aging by influencing a protein known as Imp, whose function is to protect another molecule, Upd, which is secreted from a key area of the niche.
In short, Upd promotes the signaling that keeps stem cells active and in contact with the niche so that they can self-renew. And as aging advances, increasing expression of let-7 ultimately leads to lower Upd levels, decreasing the number of active stem cells in the niche. What leads to accumulation of let-7 in the niche of aged flies still remains an open question.
The researchers also demonstrated they could reverse this age-related loss of stem cells by increasing expression of Imp. "We turned the aging switch off," says Jones.

New study shows that a high-fructose diet makes you stupid, significantly inhibiting your brain's ability to learn and remember.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:16:00 +0000

"Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think," said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain's ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage."
While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain. The UCLA team zeroed in on high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"We're not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants," explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA's Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. "We're concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative."
The researchers studied two groups of rats that each consumed a fructose solution as drinking water for six weeks. The second group also received omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which protects against damage to the synapses — the chemical connections between brain cells that enable memory and learning. "DHA is essential for synaptic function — brain cells' ability to transmit signals to one another," Gomez-Pinilla said. "This is the mechanism that makes learning and memory possible. Our bodies can't produce enough DHA, so it must be supplemented through our diet."
The researchers found that after just six weeks on a high-fructose diet, brain function was significantly degraded. "The second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that did not receive omega-3 fatty acids," Gomez-Pinilla said. "The DHA-deprived animals were slower, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting the rats' ability to think clearly and recall the route they'd learned six weeks earlier."

It's nature not nurture -- your genes are the key factors in determining your success in life.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:04:00 +0000

A new study of more than 800 sets of twins found that genetics are more influential in shaping key traits like self-control, decision making or sociability, than a person's home environment and surroundings. Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh who carried out the study, say that genetically influenced characteristics could well be the key to how successful you are in life. The research team found that identical twins, whose DNA is exactly the same, were twice as likely to share success of failure influencing character traits, as compared with non-identical twins.

Brain chip allows thought control of much more complex bots than previously possible.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:36:00 +0000

A team led by John Donoghue, a neuroscientist at Brown University, who previously designed an interface that allowed paralyzed patients to drive the movement of cursors on a screen. Now have developed a much more sophisticated brain-machine interface that is capable of handling far more complicated tasks. "Not only can people control a computer cursor, they can control really complex devices like a robotic arm that can carry out the functions that our own arm can do," says Donoghue.
The brain implant is a small array only four millimeters on each side or "about the size of a baby aspirin," said Donoghue. The device features 96 hairlike electrodes, which extend from one side of the device implanted on the surface of the brain, with each electrode penetrating the arm-controlling region of the motor cortex by one millimeter.

Mouse lifespan extended up to 24% with a single gene therapy treatment.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:53:00 +0000

Scientists at Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have successfully tested the first anti-aging gene therapy (pdf link). The therapy proved able to reverse age-related decline by induce cells to express telomerase, the enzyme which prevents the chromosome damage that has been found to cause many if not most of the negative effects of aging.
The researchers say their latest research provides “proof-of-principle” that their technique is a feasible, effective and safe approach to extending lifespan in mammals. Not just lifespan but healthspan, not just longer life but with the health of youth.
A number of previous studies have shown that it is possible to lengthen the average life of individuals of many species, including mammals, by acting on specific genes. To date, however, this has meant altering the animals’ genes permanently from the embryonic stage – an approach impracticable in humans. The new research, led by Centre director María Blasco, has proved that mouse lifespan can be extended by the application in adult life of a single treatment acting directly on the animal’s genes.
Their age reversing gene therapy has proven safe and effective in rejuvenating both adult (one-year-old) and aged (two-year-old) mice. Adult mice lived 24% longer than normal and aged mice lived 13% longer. And in both case the treatment produced an appreciable improvement in the animals’ health, effectively delaying the onset of age-related diseases.

High pixel density artificial eye features photoreceptors powered by light.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:43:00 +0000

Scientists at Stanford University in California create artificial, light powered eye prostheses. Abstract: Retinal degenerative diseases lead to blindness due to loss of the ‘image capturing’ photoreceptors, while neurons in the ‘image-processing’ inner retinal layers are relatively well preserved. Electronic retinal prostheses seek to restore sight by electrically stimulating the surviving neurons. Most implants are powered through inductive coils, requiring complex surgical methods to implant the coil-decoder-cable-array systems that deliver energy to stimulating electrodes via intraocular cables. We present a photovoltaic subretinal prosthesis, in which silicon photodiodes in each pixel receive power and data directly through pulsed near-infrared illumination and electrically stimulate neurons. Stimulation is produced in normal and degenerate rat retinas, with pulse durations of 0.5–4 ms, and threshold peak irradiances of 0.2–10 mW mm−2, two orders of magnitude below the ocular safety limit. Neural responses were elicited by illuminating a single 70 µm bipolar pixel, demonstrating the possibility of a fully integrated photovoltaic retinal prosthesis with high pixel density.

Scientists engineer calcium phosphate nanoparticles able to regenerate teeth damaged by decay.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:42:00 +0000

Scientists using nanotechology at the University of Maryland School of Dentistry have created the first cavity-filling composite that can regenerate tooth structure lost to bacterial decay.
Rather than just limiting decay with conventional fillings, the new composite is a revolutionary dental weapon to control harmful bacteria, which co-exist in the natural colony of microorganisms in the mouth, says professor Huakun (Hockin) Xu.
Xu says a key component of the new nanocomposite and nano-structured adhesive is calcium phosphate nanoparticles that regenerate tooth minerals. The antibacterial component has a base of quaternary ammonium and silver nanoparticles along with a high pH. The alkaline pH limits acid production by tooth bacteria. "We are continuing to improve these materials," said Xu. "Making them stronger in their antibacterial and remineralizing capacities."

Researchers rejuvenate old hematopoietic stem cells to be functionally young again.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:45:00 +0000

Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the Ulm University Medicine in Germany have achieved a significant breakthrough in lifespan extension research. Rejuvenated aged hematopoietic stem cells to be functionally younger once again. The research points the way to therapies that might one day fend off many effects of old age. The new research disproves the broad consensus that the aging of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) was locked in by nature and not reversible by therapeutic intervention. As humans and other species age, HSCs become more numerous but less effective at regenerating blood cells and immune cells, causing many of the negative effects of aging.

Study finds that regular jogging massively increases your life expectancy.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:59:00 +0000

Undertaking regular jogging increases the life expectancy of men by 6.2 years and women by 5.6 years, reveals the latest data from the Copenhagen City Heart study. Reviewing the evidence of whether jogging is healthy or hazardous, Peter Schnohr, the chief cardiologist of the Copenhagen City Heart Study told delegates at a recent heart conference that the study's most recent analysis shows that between one and two-and-a-half hours of jogging per week at a "slow or average" pace delivers optimum benefits for longevity. "The results of our research allow us to definitively answer the question of whether jogging is good for your health," said Schnohr. "We can say with certainty that regular jogging increases longevity. The good news is that you don't actually need to do that much to reap the benefits."

MicroRNA gene 'switch' regenerates damaged heart cells in animal study.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:36:00 +0000

For the first time, researchers have converted scar tissue that forms after a heart attack into regenerated heart muscle using microRNA. After a heart attack, heart muscle doesn't easily regenerate and it accumulates scar tissue, made up of cells called fibroblasts — increasing risk for heart failure. "Researchers have tried various approaches, including the use of stem cells, to regenerate damaged heart muscle tissue," said Victor J. Dzau, M.D., the study's senior author and James B. Duke Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. "This is the first study to use microRNA, which are small molecules that control gene expression, to reprogram fibroblasts into heart muscle cells. We have not only shown evidence of this tissue regeneration in cell cultures, but also in mice. This research represents a major advance in regenerative medicine overcoming the difficulties encountered with stem cells, and may be applied to other conditions of tissue damage such as stroke and spinal cord injury." MicroRNAs serve as master switches. Each microRNA regulates genes, turning them on or off. Dzau's team identified a combination of three microRNA types that convert fibroblasts to muscle cells. The team will next study whether microRNAs repair damaged hearts in larger animals and improve heart function. If those studies prove safe and effective, they will start human studies.

Large scale study shows that eating more berries can delay your cognitive decline by up to 2.5 years.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:54:00 +0000

Blueberries and strawberries, which are high in flavonoids, appear to reduce cognitive decline according to a new study. The research team used data from the Nurses' Health Study, 121,700 female, registered nurses between the ages of 30 and 55 who completed health and lifestyle questionnaires beginning in 1976. The study results suggest that your cognitive aging can be delayed by up to 2.5 years by consuming greater amounts of the flavonoid-rich berries. Flavonoids are compounds found in plants that generally have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Experts believe that stress and inflammation contribute to cognitive impairment and that increasing consumption of flavonoids can mitigate the harmful effects. Previous studies of the positive effects of flavonoids, particularly anthocyanidins, are limited to animal models or very small trials in older persons, but have also shown greater consumption of foods with these compounds improve cognitive function.

Research pinpoints what goes wrong in your brain to cause trouble coping with the unfamiliar as you age.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:15:00 +0000

A new brain-mapping study has found that people's ability to make decisions in novel situations decreases with age and is associated with a reduction in the integrity of two specific white-matter pathways that connect an area in the cerebral cortex called the medial prefrontal cortex with two other areas deeper in the brain. "The evidence that this decline in decision-making is associated with white-matter integrity suggests that there may be effective ways to intervene," said Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin, the post-doctoral fellow in Vanderbilt's psychology department and Institute of Imaging Science, who is the study's first author.

Researchers identify key genes that switch off with ageing, highlighting them as potential targets for anti-ageing therapies.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:26:00 +0000

Researchers at King’s College London have identified a group of ‘ageing’ genes that are switched on and off by natural mechanisms called epigenetic factors, influencing the rate of healthy ageing and potential longevity. The study also suggests these epigenetic processes – that can be caused by external factors such as diet, lifestyle and environment – are likely to be initiated from an early age and continue through a person’s life. The researchers say that the epigenetic changes they have identified could be used as potential ‘markers’ of biological ageing and in the future could be possible targets for anti-ageing therapies.

Three separate studies in mice show that normal function can be restored to hair, eye and hearts using stem cells.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Three studies published this week show that introducing stem cells into mice can replace diseased cells, whether hair, eye or heart, and help to restore the normal function of tissue and organs that have decline due to disease or aging. These proof-of-principle studies now have researchers setting their sights on clinical trials to see if the procedures could work in humans.

Up-modding humanity from a planetary to a solar system civilization.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:52:00 +0000

A new paper from four scientists at NASA's Kennedy Space Center explains how affordable bot technologies could quickly take our kind to the next level of development. Planets are molten when they form, so the valuable metals sink to the core, where they aren't recoverable. The metals we have mined to create our civilization came from asteroids that hit the earth after a crust formed. Vastly more mineral wealth exists in the asteroid belt than can ever be recovered on earth. At least until we reach the point where we can deconstruct a planet and use the materials to create a ring world. Here is the abstract from the research paper describing how bots can help our civilization become hundreds of times more wealthy by exploiting the mineral wealth available in our system:
Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game‐changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self‐sustaining, self‐expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was developed to identify the main parameters of successful bootstrapping. This indicates that bootstrapping can be achieved with as little as 12 metric tons (MT) landed on the Moon during a period of about 20 years. The equipment will be teleoperated and then transitioned to full autonomy so the industry can spread to the asteroid belt and beyond. The strategy begins with a sub‐replicating system and evolves it toward full self‐sustainability (full closure) via an in situ technology spiral. The industry grows exponentially due to the free real estate, energy, and material resources of space. The mass of industrial assets at the end of bootstrapping will be 156 MT with 60 humanoid robots, or as high as 40,000 MT with as many as 100,000 humanoid robots if faster manufacturing is supported by launching a total of 41 MT to the Moon. Within another few decades with no further investment, it can have millions of times the industrial capacity of the United States. Modeling over wide parameter ranges indicates this is reasonable, but further analysis is needed. This industry promises to revolutionize the human condition.

Regular oral doses of C60 fullerene found to almost double the normal lifespan of rats.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Here we show that oral administration of C60 dissolved in olive oil (0.8 mg/ml) at reiterated doses (1.7 mg/kg of body weight) to rats not only does not entail chronic toxicity but it almost doubles their lifespan. The effects of C60-olive oil solutions in an experimental model of CCl4 intoxication in rat strongly suggest that the effect on lifespan is mainly due to the attenuation of age-associated increases in oxidative stress. Pharmacokinetic studies show that dissolved C60 is absorbed by the gastro-intestinal tract and eliminated in a few tens of hours. These results of importance in the fields of medicine and toxicology should open the way for the many possible -and waited for- biomedical applications of C60 including cancer therapy, neurodegenerative disorders, and ageing.

New 3-D printer will let you whip up any chemical compound on-demand at home.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:26:00 +0000

A new 3D printing process developed at the University of Glasgow could revolutionise the way scientists, doctors and even the general public create chemical compounds. Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry at the University, believes his research could lead to the development of home chemical fabricators which consumers could use to design and create medicine at home. Add this technology to the breakthroughs in RNA/DNA sequencing devices and humods hacking your own mind and body with the very latest open source mind amplification or lifespan extension technologies becomes as easy as downloading the latest compound/RNA/DNA designs.

One letter in your DNA determines how big your brain grows and how smart you become.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:58:00 +0000

An international team of over 200 scientists has found the genetic code that determined how big your brain grows and how smart you become. In the world's largest brain study to date, the genes that control individual differences in brain size and intelligence have been found.

"Our individual centers couldn't review enough brain scans to obtain definitive results," said said senior author Paul Thompson, professor of neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "By sharing our data with Project ENIGMA, we created a sample large enough to reveal clear patterns in genetic variation and show how these changes physically alter the brain."

In the past, neuroscientists screened the genomes of people suffering from a specific brain disease and combed their DNA to uncover a common variant. In this study, Project ENIGMA researchers measured the size of the brain and its memory centers in thousands of MRI images from 21,151 healthy people while simultaneously screening their DNA.

In poring over the data, Project ENIGMA researchers explored whether any genetic variations correlated to brain size. In particular, the scientists looked for gene variants that deplete brain tissue beyond normal in a healthy person. The sheer scale of the project allowed the team to unearth new genetic variants in people who have bigger brains as well as differences in regions critical to learning and memory.

When the scientists zeroed in on the DNA of people whose images showed smaller brains, they found a consistent relationship between subtle shifts in the genetic code and diminished memory centers. Furthermore, the same genes affected the brain in the same ways in people across diverse populations from Australia, North America and Europe, suggesting new molecular targets for drug development.

In an intriguing development, Project ENIGMA investigators discovered genes that explain individual differences in intelligence. They found that a variant in a gene called HMGA2 affected brain size as well as a person's intelligence.

DNA is comprised of four bases: A, C, T and G. People whose HMGA2 gene held a letter "C" instead of "T" on that location of the gene possessed larger brains and scored more highly on standardized IQ tests.

"This is a really exciting discovery: that a single letter change leads to a bigger brain," said Thompson. "We found fairly unequivocal proof supporting a genetic link to brain function and intelligence. For the first time, we have watertight evidence of how these genes affect the brain. This supplies us with new leads on how to mediate their impact."

Because disorders like Alzheimer's, autism and schizophrenia disrupt the brain's circuitry, Project ENIGMA will next search for genes that influence how the brain is wired. Thompson and his colleagues will use diffusion imaging, a new type of brain scan that maps the communication pathways between cells in the living brain.

A logic-gated nanobot for targeted transport of molecular payloads to your cells.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 02:13:00 +0000

Scientists from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School describe an autonomous DNA nanobot capable of transporting molecular payloads to your cells. The DNA bot can sense cell surface inputs for conditional, triggered activation and then reconfiguring its structure for payload delivery. The device can be loaded with a variety of materials in a highly organized fashion and is controlled by an aptamer-encoded logic gate, enabling it to respond to a wide array of cues. We implemented several different logical AND gates and demonstrate their efficacy in selective regulation of nanorobot function. As a proof of principle, nanorobots loaded with combinations of antibody fragments were used in two different types of cell-signaling stimulation in tissue culture. Our prototype could inspire new designs with different selectivities and biologically active payloads for cell-targeting tasks.

Researchers say that your brain is organized in more of a grid pattern.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:52:00 +0000

Your brain is organized more like a grid than the tangle of neurons once thought, say scientists from Harvard University, MIT's Division of Health Sciences Technology, Boston University, University Hospital Center & University of Lausanne in Switzerland, Vanderbilt University and National Taiwan University College of Medicine. The group worked together using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to map the three-dimensional, scaffold fiber architecture of the brain. This technology, used for the first time in this manner, determined that the pathways of the brain pass through tissue that resembles a grid-like structure.
"By looking at how the pathways fit in the brain, we anticipated the connectivity to resemble that of a bowl of spaghetti, a very narrow and discreet object," said Van J. Wedeen, associate professor of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. "We discovered that the pathways in the top of the brain are all organized like woven sheets with the fibers running in two directions in the sheets and in a third direction perpendicular to the sheets. These sheets all stack together so that the entire connectivity of the brain follows three precisely defined directions."

Project Glass - Google officially unveils their long rumored RES (Reality Enhancement System).

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:22:00 +0000

RES technologies will eventually turn the net into a mind augmentation device. Imagine being able to focus on any person, place, sound or object and instantly learn as much about the focus of your attention as you care to know. Enhancing your perception of your local reality with all the data available in the cloud. This is a big step in that direction.
Google's brief announcement said: A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.

Chemists announce a breakthrough in regenerating age-related damage to your body.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:35:00 +0000

Chemists have announced the development of new strands and gels made of proteins that can allow your body to be regenerated to reverse many of the issues that develop with aging.
One type is a spaghetti-like filament developed by Dr. Samuel I. Stupp's team that is a nanostructure of small bits of protein that glue themselves together spontaneously. These nanofilaments are so small that more than 50,000 would fit across the width of a human hair, and they can serve as smart scaffolds for many uses. For example, Stupp attached to these fibers signaling substances that mimic a powerful substance called VEGF that can promote the formation of new blood vessels. The VEGF-mimic caused new blood vessels to form in mice to replace damaged blood vessels. "When VEGF itself was used in clinical trials on humans, it didn't work, despite a lot of laboratory research that suggested otherwise," said Stupp. "The problem was that VEGF was quickly broken down in the body. The nanofilament scaffold, however, lasts in the body for weeks, which allows the VEGF-mimic more time to grow vessels." Eventually, the nanofilaments break down and disappear, leaving only the new blood vessels behind.
His group has also developed so-called "noodle gels," which are nanofibers that form long, noodle-like gels when they are heated, cooled and then squeezed out from a pipette (much like frosting from a piping bag) into salty water. These gels, which are visible with the naked eye, can solve a long-standing problem in regenerative medicine. Delivering proteins, biological signals and stem cells in a specific direction to target precisely the damaged parts of the heart, brain, spinal cord or other organs has been a problem. But noodle gels can align stem cells in the linear fashion needed for proper repair of damaged tissue. Those strings could also serve as "spaghetti highways" to guide cells in your body to a specific location where regeneration is needed. Alternatively, the noodle gels containing aligned filaments could deliver signaling proteins and other beneficial substances to diseased locales.

Activating a tiny number of neurons can trigger an entire memory.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 04:13:00 +0000

In a new MIT study, researchers used optogenetics to show that memories really do reside in very specific brain cells, and that simply activating a tiny fraction of brain cells can recall an entire memory. "We demonstrate that behavior based on high-level cognition, such as the expression of a specific memory, can be generated in a mammal by highly specific physical activation of a specific small subpopulation of brain cells, in this case by light," says Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT and lead author of the study.

Scientists find way to repair mutations in human mitochondria.

noreply@blogger.com (Editor) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:08:00 +0000

Researchers at the UCLA stem cell center have identified, for the first time, a generic way to correct mutations in human mitochondrial DNA by targeting corrective RNAs. Mutations in the human mitochondrial genome are implicated in neuromuscular diseases, metabolic defects and aging. There currently are no methods to successfully repair or compensate for these mutations, said study co-senior author Dr. Michael Teitell, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and a researcher with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

Mitochondria are described as cellular power plants because they generate most of the energy supply within a cell. In addition to supplying energy, mitochondria also are involved in a broad range of other cellular processes including signaling, differentiation, death, control of the cell cycle and growth.

The findings from the current study provide a form of gene therapy for mitochondria by compensating for mutations that cause a wide range of diseases. One potential use for the new method would be to repair mitochondrial defects in reprogrammed, embryonic or adult-type stem cells for use in regenerative medicine therapies.