Misc

The first reports of the successful reprogramming of adult human cells back into so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which by all appearances looked and acted like embryonic stem cells, created a media stir. But the process was woefully inefficient: Only one out of 10,000 cells could be persuaded to turn back the clock.

Now, a team of researchers led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, succeeded in boosting the reprogramming efficiency more than 100-fold, while cutting the time it takes in half. In fact, they repeatedly generated iPS cells from the tiny number of keratinocytes attached to a single hair plucked from a human scalp.

"Having a very efficient and practical way of generating patient-specific stem cells, which unlike human embryonic stem cells, wouldn't be rejected by the patient's immune system after transplantation brings us a step closer to the clinical application of stem cell therapy," says Belmonte, PhD., a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and director of the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain.

Of course brain atrophy is never a good thing, but when you read a story like this, you just can't worry as much about losing a few percent. This little girl had half her brain removed, and she's coping.

I was sent a link to this site, which has a discussion of why MS and Lyme might be caused by the same underlying cause. Not sure what to make of it, but some of you may find it of interest.

In a promising finding for the field of regenerative medicine, stem cell researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have identified a source of adult stem cells found on the walls of blood vessels with the unlimited potential to differentiate into human tissues such as bone, cartilage and muscle.

The scientists identified cells known as pericytes that are multipotent, meaning they have broad developmental potential. Pericytes are found on the walls of small blood vessels such as capillaries and microvessels throughout the body and have the potential to be extracted and grown into many types of tissues.

art: and then this popped up - stem cells from testicles. The article says "men's testicles" so that you don't think it might be from women's testicles, but you get the idea.

Health and life insurance companies have access to a powerful new tool for evaluating whether to cover individual consumers: a health "credit report" drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200 million Americans.

This article has a brief description of a new MS genetics study, looking at a couple of areas with high incidence of MS. They provide an interesting table of MS rates for countries around the world.

This page has a silly little quiz about MS you can use to test what dogma about the disease you've absorbed. But don't worry if you get the "what causes MS?" question wrong - it's totally broken.

This is a quick overview of the possible role of pathogens in neurodegenerative diseases, including MS. For a more complete treatment of the subject, you can read our Pathogens track documents from our Cure Map here.

A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that, if persuaded to differentiate into more healing cells and fewer scarring cells following an injury, may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries.

Full text available here.

More than half of Americans would rather die than live with a severe disability, according to a survey.

In the online poll commissioned by Disaboom, a Web site and social network for people affected by disabilities, 52 percent of the 1,000 "nationally represented" adults chose death over losing the ability to live an independent life.

Scientists discovered that watermelon has an effect similar to well-known drug Viagra. The positive effect is attributed to an ingredient citrulline found in watermelons.

I wonder if watermelon sales will sky-rocket now?