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All Things Considered 5 min 23 sec DownloadTranscript   Enlarge image i A scientist removes the nucleus from a human egg using a pipette. This is the first step to making personalized embryonic stem cells. Courtesy of OHSU Photos A scientist removes the nucleus from a human egg using a pipette. This is the first step to making personalized embryonic stem cells.Courtesy of OHSU Photos Scientists say they have, for the first time, cloned human embryos capable of producing embryonic stem cells.The accomplishment is a long-sought step toward harnessing the potential power of embryonic stem cells to treat many...

This interview was conducted by George S. Mack of The Life Sciences Report (5/10/13) Stem cell companies have languished long enough in micro-cap territory. The industry is now approaching highly visible phase 2 and phase 3 catalysts that will produce results never before seen in medicine. Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst Jason Kolbert of the Maxim Group has staked out a select group of nascent cell therapy companies positioned to reap huge gains for investors willing to diversify. In this interview with The Life Sciences Report, Kolbert reflects on the regenerative medicine space following the recent RegenMed Investor Day...

Enlarge Image Young at heart. Cross-sections of mouse ventricles show the visible change in size when old hearts are immersed in young blood. Credit: Francesco Loffredo It's time to turn back the clock on an aging ticker. Drawing on an odd experimental technique invented more than a century ago but rarely done now, researchers have found that a blood-borne protein makes old mouse hearts appear young and healthy again. It's not clear yet whether humans would react the same way, but scientists are hopeful that this discovery may help treat one of the heart's most frustrating ailments. "This is probably...

Scientists flew a plane into high up cirrus clouds and used a sampler that resembled a hair dryer to examine cloud formation © Karl FroydMineral dust that swirls up into the atmosphere from Earth’s surface plays a far more important role in both cloud formation and cloud chemistry than was previously realised. The findings will feed into models of cloud formation and chemistry to help produce more accurate assessments of the role of clouds in climate change.Relatively little is understood about the formation of cirrus clouds, wispy ‘horsetails’ that are made of ice crystals and form at extremely high altitudes...

Researchers harness bacteria to cripple insects that transmit disease. Scientists have engineered mosquitoes to carry a bacterium that confers resistance to the malaria parasite — a long-sought advance that could eventually curb malaria cases in humans. A team led by Zhiyong Xi, a medical entomologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing, infected Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria to produce insects that could pass the infection on to their offspring. Female mosquitoes that carried Wolbachia also bred with uninfected mates, the researchers report today in Science, swiftly spreading the malaria-blocking bacterium to entire insect populations within eight generations1. “This...

Another large study has failed to find any benefits for fish oil supplements. The Italian Risk and Prevention Study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, enrolled 12,513 people who had not had a myocardial infarction but had evidence of atherosclerosis or had multiple cardiovascular risk factors. The patients were randomized to either a fish oil supplement (1 gram daily of n-3 fatty acids) or placebo. After 5 years of followup, the primary endpoint– the time to death from cardiovascular causes or admission to the hospital for cardiovascular causes– had occurred in 11.7% of the fish oil group versus...

A new study led by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK has, for the first time, used genome sequencing technology to track the changes in a bacterial population following the introduction of a vaccine. The study follows how the population of pneumococcal bacteria changed following the introduction of the 'Prevnar' conjugate polysaccharide vaccine, which substantially reduced rates of pneumococcal disease across the U.S. The work demonstrates that the technology could be used in the future to monitor the effectiveness of vaccination or antibiotic use against different species of bacterial...

Enlarge Image Deadly powder. New technology could help bomb-sniffing devices spot black powder. Credit: Lord Mountbatten/Wikimedia Commons The Boston marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly purchased several pounds of black powder explosive before the bombing. Used in fireworks and bullets, the explosive substance is both deadly and widely available. It's also very hard to detect. Now, researchers have modified one bomb-sniffing device to accurately spot very small amounts of black powder, an advance that could make us safer from future attacks. Invented in China as early as the 7th century, black powder is a mixture of charcoal, sulfur,...

Sydney researchers have discovered a new type of immune cell in skin that plays a role in fighting off parasitic invaders such as ticks, mites, and worms, and could be linked to eczema and allergic skin diseases. The team from the Immune Imaging and T cell Laboratories at the Centenary Institute worked with colleagues from SA Pathology in Adelaide, the Malaghan Institute in Wellington, New Zealand and the USA. The new cell type is part of a family known as group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2) which was discovered less than five years ago in the gut and the lung,...

There is not enough evidence to recommend universal screening to find people at risk of suicide, according to a government-backed panel. -- 20 percent to 40 percent of people identified as high-risk would be false positives, according to the researchers.

First-in-humans study introduces next generation cell therapyROCHESTER, Minn. — Translating a Mayo Clinic stem-cell discovery, an international team has demonstrated that therapy with cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) or "smart" stem cells can improve heart health for people suffering from heart failure. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ, paving the way to development of next generation regenerative medicine solutions. Results of the clinical trial appear online of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources are available on the Mayo Clinic News Network. The multi-center,...

This shows lewy bodies. Brown spots are immunostaining using an antibody specifically recognizing an abnormal form of alpha-synuclein. Clumps of α-synuclein protein in nerve cells are hallmarks of many degenerative brain diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease. "No one has been able to determine if Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, hallmark pathologies in Parkinson's disease can be degraded," says Virginia Lee, PhD, director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. "With the new neuron model system of Parkinson's disease pathologies our lab has developed recently, we demonstrated that these aberrant clumps in...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a new protein that controls the presence of the Vel blood group antigen on our red blood cells. The discovery makes it possible to use simple DNA testing to find blood donors for patients who lack the Vel antigen and need a blood transfusion. Because there has not previously been any simple way to find these rare donors, there is a global shortage of Vel-negative blood. The largest known accumulation of this type of blood donor is found in the Swedish county of Västerbotten, which exports Vel-negative blood all over the world....

A mutation that gives people rock-bottom cholesterol levels has led geneticists to what could be the next blockbuster heart drug. When Sharlayne Tracy showed up at the clinical suite in the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas last January, the bandage wrapped around her left wrist was the only sign of anything medically amiss. The bandage covered a minor injury from a cheerleading practice led by Tracy, a 40-year-old African American who is an aerobics instructor, a mother of two and a college student pursuing a degree in business. “I feel like I'm healthy as a horse,”...

Our guts are awash in bacteria, and now a new study fingers them as culprits in heart disease. A complicated dance between the microbes and a component of red meat could help explain how the food might cause atherosclerosis. The work also has implications for certain energy drinks and energy supplements, which contain the same nutrient that these bacteria like chasing after. Red meat is considered bad news when it comes to heart health, although studies aren't consistent about how much can hurt and whether it always does. Furthermore, it's not clear which components of meat are doing harm. Various...

Why is there arsenic in your beer? © ShutterstockThe Germans take the purity of their beer seriously. Back in the 16th century the Reinheitsgebot, or beer purity law, specified that the only ingredients that could be used in beer were water, barley and hops. Once it was realised that yeast was involved in the brewing process that was allowed as well. Today, the Provisional German Beer Law allows slightly different components but it certainly doesn't specify that arsenic can be added to the beer. Mehmet Coelhan of the Weihenstephan research centre at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, however, has...

Gut bacteria may convert a nutrient found in red meat into a compound that can damage the heartThe link between red meat and poor heart health has traditionally been blamed on cholesterol, but new evidence suggests this isn't the whole story. US researchers found that carnitine, a nutrient found in red meat, is converted into a metabolite that promotes cardiovascular disease by gut bacteria. This may mean that the popular practice of taking carnitine supplements to build muscle is unwise.‘The cholesterol and saturated fat content of red meat is not sufficient to account for increased cardiac risk,’ says lead author...

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have made a discovery in neuroscience that could offer a long-lasting solution to eating disorders such as obesity. It was previously thought that the nerve cells in the brain associated with appetite regulation were generated entirely during an embryo's development in the womb and therefore their numbers were fixed for life. But research published today in the Journal of Neuroscience has identified a population of stem cells capable of generating new appetite-regulating neurons in the brains of young and adult rodents. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally. More than 1.4 billion adults...

Study could aid development of more effective vaccines. For the first time, scientists have tracked in a patient the evolution of a potent immune molecule that recognizes many different HIV viruses. By revealing how these molecules — called broadly neutralizing antibodies — develop, the research could inform efforts to make vaccines that elicit similar antibodies that can protect people from becoming infected with HIV. The researchers, led by Barton Haynes of Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, found that broadly neutralizing antibodies developed only after the population of viruses in the patient had diversified — something that...

U. MISSOURI (US) — Vitamin D supplements can help obese children and teens control their blood-sugar levels, which may help lower their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.“By increasing vitamin D intake alone, we got a response that was nearly as powerful as what we have seen using a prescription drug,� says Catherine Peterson, associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri. “We saw a decrease in insulin levels, which means better glucose control, despite no changes in body weight, dietary intake, or physical activity.�For the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers...

Enlarge Image Microbe overhaul. Gastric bypass surgery changes the community of microbes in the gut, and a study suggests the new population might drive weight loss. Credit: Life in View/Science Source Usually, science starts in the lab and then moves to patients. Gastric bypass surgery has taken the opposite path. Originally offered as a radical treatment for severe obesity, the surgery's effects on the digestive system and metabolism have turned out to be far more mysterious and fascinating than anyone expected. Now, a new study probes another of the surgery's effects: its impact on microbes in the gut and...

About 1 in 4 deaths in the United States are due to cancer, but primary tumors are rarely fatal. Instead, it's when tumors metastasize that cancer becomes so deadly. To help patients and physicians make treatment decisions, teams of researchers have been working on various methods to detect cancer's spread – via the bloodstream – before secondary tumors develop. Now, one team reports a nearly perfect method for separating breast cancer cells from blood. They describe their proof-of-concept device in a paper accepted for publication in Biomicrofluidics, a journal of the American Institute of Physics. Detecting and separating circulating tumor...

Experts are puzzled by a new study in which influenza vaccination seemed to provide little or no protection against flu in the 2010-11 season—and in which the only participants who seemed to benefit from the vaccine were those who hadn't been vaccinated the season before. The investigators recruited 328 households in Michigan before the flu season started and followed them through the season. Overall, they found that the infection risk was nearly the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated participants, indicating no significant vaccine-induced protection, according to their report in Clinical Infectious Diseases. That contrasted sharply with several other observational studies...

Drawing on past toxicity problems scientists used an enlarged quinolone to improve selectivity for the malaria parasiteA new class of antimalarial drugs that is effective across various stages of the malaria parasite’s lifecycle has been developed by an international research team. Early indications also show that it may take longer for the parasite to develop resistance to the new molecules than it has for existing drugs targeting the same pathway.Malaria is a devastating disease worldwide, and the ability of the Plasmodium family of parasites that cause the disease to develop resistance to drugs leads to a constant arms race for...

For decades scientists around the world have attempted to regenerate primary liver cells known as hepatocytes because of their numerous biomedical applications, including hepatitis research, drug metabolism and toxicity studies, as well as transplantation for cirrhosis and other chronic liver conditions. But no lab in the world has been successful in identifying and growing liver stem cells in culture -- using any available technique – until now. In the journal Nature, physician-scientists in the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Portland, Ore., along with investigators at the Hubrecht Institute for Developmental Biology...

Scientists are reporting "laboratory resurrections" of several 2-3-billion-year-old proteins that are ancient ancestors of the enzymes that enable today's antibiotic-resistant bacteria to shrug off huge doses of penicillins, cephalosporins and other modern drugs. The achievement, reported in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens the door to a scientific "replay" of the evolution of antibiotic resistance with an eye to finding new ways to cope with the problem. Jose M. Sanchez-Ruiz, Eric A. Gaucher, Valeria A. Risso and colleagues explain that antibiotic resistance existed long before Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic in 1928. Genes that contain instructions for...

Origin of Theiler hepatitis was a century-old puzzle. For almost 100 years, veterinarians have puzzled over the cause of Theiler disease, a mysterious type of equine hepatitis that is linked to blood products and causes liver failure in up to 90% of afflicted animals. A team of US scientists has now discovered that the disease is caused by a virus that shares just 35% of its amino acid sequences with its closest-known relative. The team named it Theiler disease-associated virus (TDAV), and published the discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. Led by Amy Kistler at the...

Enlarge Image Plainly. An event display shows a Higgs candidate decaying to four electrons in the ATLAS detector. New measurements confirm that the Higgs is a Higgs. Credit: ATLAS Collaboration/CERN Eight months ago, physicists working with the world's biggest atom smasher—Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—created a sensation when they reported that they had discovered a particle that appeared to be the long-sought Higgs boson, the last missing piece in their standard model of particles and forces. Today, those researchers reported that the particle does indeed have the basic predicted properties of the standard model Higgs boson, clinching the identification....

Aspirin-related drugs suggest a way towards more effective stem-cell transplants. Aspirin-like drugs could improve the success of stem-cell transplants for patients with blood or bone-marrow disorders, a study suggests. The compounds coax stem cells from bone marrow into the bloodstream where they can be harvested for use in transplantation — and they do so with fewer side effects than drugs now in use. For patients with blood disorders such as leukaemia, multiple myeloma or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, transplantation of haematopoietic stem cells — precursor cells that reside in the bone marrow and give rise to all types of blood cell —...

Recent advances in genomic and post-genomic technologies have facilitated a genome-wide analysis of the insecticide resistance-associated genes in insects. Through bed bug, Cimex lectularius transcriptome analysis, we identified 14 molecular markers associated with pyrethroid resistance. Our studies revealed that most of the resistance-associated genes functioning in diverse mechanisms are expressed in the epidermal layer of the integument, which could prevent or slow down the toxin from reaching the target sites on nerve cells, where an additional layer of resistance (kdr) is possible. This strategy evolved in bed bugs is based on their unique morphological, physiological and behavioral characteristics and has...

Enlarge Image Don't pass the salt. The food flavoring prompts generic T cells like these to specialize into TH17 cells that stimulate autoimmune diseases, new findings suggest. Credit: N. Yosef et al., Nature 495 (6 March) © 2013 Nature Publishing Group For decades, doctors have been admonishing us to cut back on salt to reduce the odds of a heart attack or stroke. Now, there may be a new reason to avoid the seasoning: Studies on rodents and cultured cells, reported today, reveal that dietary salt might promote autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. The...

More than 350 million people worldwide are believed to have diabetes, and for years health experts have debated on what the exact driver of the illness has been. While sugar intake has been viewed as a culprit in many eyes, scientists have long refuted that conjecture and attributed the global health crisis to too much overall food intake and obesity. But a new finding by three California universities – Stanford, UC-Berkeley and UCSF – suggests through compelling evidence that Type 2 diabetes is being largely driven by the rising consumption of sugary foods and drinks. This evidence comes in the...

Microglia eat neural stem cells in developing rat and monkey brains Zombies aren’t the only things that feast on brains. Immune cells called microglia gorge on neural stem cells in developing rat and monkey brains, researchers report in the Mar. 6 Journal of Neuroscience. Chewing up neuron-spawning stem cells could help control brain size by pruning away excess growth. Scientists have previously linked abnormal human brain size to autism and schizophrenia. “It shows microglia are very important in the developing brain,” says neuroscientist Joseph Mathew Antony of the University of Toronto, who was not involved in the research. Scientists have...

JACKSON, Miss. —Doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center said they have cured a baby suffering from HIV and the breakthrough is reverberating worldwide. Related Woman says ex kidnapped her 18-wheeler overturns off of I-20 3 arrested in Jackson drug bust Grenade launcher found during drug bust Fire hydrant testing begins in West... "There is excitement around this," said Dr. Deborah Persaud of John's Hopkins Children's Center. Doctors across the country are heralding the medical breakthrough in Jackson. "We have, perhaps inadvertently, but in fact, cured the child," said Dr. Hannah Gay, associate professor of pediatrics. "We don't know...

Enlarge Image Counting calories. Our bodies may take more energy to process the carbohydrates in garbanzo beans than in cereal, which suggests all carbohydrate calories are not alike. Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock BOSTON—When it comes to weight loss, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. That's been the mantra of nutritionists, dietitians, and food regulators in the United States and Europe for more than a century. But when it comes to comparing raw food with cooked food, or beans with breakfast cereals, that thinking may be incorrect. That was the consensus of a panel of researchers who listed the many...

Having established the presence of fungi in the lungs of patients with asthma, researchers now hope this could lead to new lines of research and eventually, better treatments for sufferers. "In the future it is conceivable that individual patients may have their sputum tested for fungi and their treatment adjusted accordingly," says Hugo van Woerden of Cardiff University. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)CARDIFF U. (UK) — Healthy lungs are full of fungi, but some species are more common in people with asthma, new research finds. Hundreds of tiny fungal particles found in the lungs of asthma sufferers could offer new clues in...

Enlarge Image Blind spot. The parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus (inset) can move to the eyes and cause blindness as in these two patients in Guinea-Bissau. Onchocerciasis is considered a neglected tropical disease. Credit: Harry Anenden/WHO; (inset) CDC A small parasitic worm is one of the leading causes of blindness in the world. But now researchers have discovered a molecule in the urine of African patients that could help diagnose those infected with the parasite and help eliminate the devastating disease known as river blindness. The illness, scientifically known as onchocerciasis, is caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. Black...

People who suffer heart attacks are at increased risk of having a second and potentially fatal occurrence because of the damage the heart attack does to cardiac muscle tissue. Now scientists at the University of California San Diego have developed a new biomaterial - an injectable hydrogel  - that can repair the damage from heart attacks, and help promote the growth of new heart tissue.   Millions of people around the world suffer heart attacks every year and survive. These traumatic events occur when blood supply to the heart muscles is somehow blocked, robbing them of oxygen and causing them...

By offering unproven therapies, a Texas biotechnology firm has sparked a bitter debate about how stem cells should be regulated. Ann McFarlane is losing faith. In the first half of 2012, the Houston resident received four infusions of adult stem cells grown from her own fat. McFarlane has multiple sclerosis (MS), and had heard that others with the inflammatory disease had experienced improvements in mobility and balance after treatment. The infusions — which have cost her about US$32,000 so far — didn't help, but she knew that there were no guarantees. It is McFarlane's experience with Celltex Therapeutics, the company...

A team of political scientists and neuroscientists has shown that liberals and conservatives use different parts of the brain when they make risky decisions, and these regions can be used to predict which political party a person prefers. The new study suggests that while genetics or parental influence may play a significant role, being a Republican or Democrat changes how the brain functions. Dr. Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, has been working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California, San Diego on research that explores the differences in the way the brain...

TB kills more people annually than any other infectious disease besides HIV In a patient's fight against tuberculosis—the bacterial lung disease that kills more people annually than any infectious disease besides HIV— doctors have more than 10 drugs from which to choose. Most of those didn't work for Uvistra Naidoo, a South African doctor who contracted the disease in his clinic. For those who contract the disease now, maybe none of them will. A new paper published earlier this week in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal warns that the first cases of "totally drug-resistant"...

For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report stunning evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads, they say. The study does not mean that mice are useless models for all human diseases. But, its authors said, it does raise troubling questions about diseases like the ones in the study that involve the immune system, including cancer and... --snip-- “That started us thinking,”...

Diets lean on meat and rich in healthy fats like olive oil were most effective at promoting weight loss and lowering blood sugar among people with diabetes in a review of evidence from the last 10 years. Benefits were also seen with diets low in carbohydrates, high in protein or low in simple sugars. "If you look at different types of diets, these four can improve various aspects of diabetes control," lead author Dr. Olubukola Ajala, a diabetes specialist at Western Sussex Hospitals in the UK, told Reuters Health. More than 24 million Americans have type 2 diabetes. People with...

Study of 3 million infants suggests connection between inhaled particles and birth weight. Pregnant women who have been exposed to higher levels of some types of air pollution are slightly more likely to give birth to underweight babies, a large international study has found. The results are published online today in Environmental Health Perspectives1. Low birth weight — defined as a newborn baby weighing less than 2.5 kilogrammes — increases the risk of infant mortality and childhood diseases, and has been associated with developmental and health problems later in life, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Previous studies have looked at...

Forget ancient maps and metal detectors. Those seeking hidden gold might do well to add bacteria to their toolbox. The bacterium Delftia acidovorans secretes a molecule that binds to dissolved gold and turns it into shiny, solid gold, scientists have discovered. The bacterium — and perhaps others like it — might one day process gold at mining sites or create gold nanoparticles with desirable properties, says geomicrobiologist Frank Reith, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide in Australia. In 2006 Reith and his colleagues reported finding biofilms of bacteria growing on solid gold grains in soil. Some of these...

Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide each year. Although antibiotics exist that can ameliorate the symptoms, the courses of therapy last for months and don't completely eradicate the disease, which frequently recurs years or decades after the initial treatment. Now, in a classic case of bench-to-bedside research, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a possible reason for the disease's resistance: The ability of the tuberculosis bacteria to infiltrate and settle down in a particular class of stem cell in the bone marrow. By doing so, the bacteria take advantage of...

Enlarge Image A picture of heat. A high-resolution image of the solar atmosphere at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths (right) reveals details of magnetic processes (middle and lower left; bright features denote intense energy release) likely providing much of the energy that heats the corona to temperatures ranging from 2 million°C to 4 million°C. The upper-left image denotes a region seen in close-up at right. Credit: Amy Winebarger/MSFC/NASA If you thought the exterior of the sun was hot, check out its corona. Although our star's visible surface is less than 6000°C, its atmosphere blazes at up to 4 million°C. Now, thanks...

Scientists at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have for the first time visualised the molecular changes in a critical cell death protein that force cells to die. The finding provides important insights into how cell death occurs, and could lead to new classes of medicines that control whether diseased cells live or die. Cell death, called apoptosis, is important for controlling the number of cells in the body. Defects in cell death have been linked to the development of diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative conditions. Insufficient cell death can cause cancer by allowing cells to become immortal while...

The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued the first-ever guidelines for the management of type 2 diabetes in children and teens. Type 2 diabetes is rising rapidly among children and teens because of soaring obesity rates. It now accounts for up to 1 in 3 new cases of diabetes in those younger than 18. These guidelines are for children between the ages of 10 and 18. "Few providers have been trained in managing type 2 diabetes in children and, to date, few medications have been evaluated for safety and [effectiveness] in children," says co-author Janet Silverstein, MD, professor of pediatrics...

People with one form of IFITM3 more likely to develop pneumonia Chinese people carrying a particular version of an immune system gene are up to six times more likely to develop severe influenza than those lacking the variant. In a previous study involving mostly people of European descent, scientists found that a few individuals carried a particular form of a gene known as IFITM3 and got hit especially hard by the flu. In China, the variant is much more common...