men health blog 24

Despite the importance of this critical stage, scientists haven't had a good way to explore what can go wrong, or even what must go right, after the newly formed ball of cells implants in the wall of the human uterus. But a new achievement using human stem cells may help change that. Tiny lab-grown structures could give researchers a chance to see what they couldn't before, while avoiding ethical issues associated with studying actual embryos. A team from the University of Michigan reports in  Nature Communications  that they have coaxed pluripotent human stem cells to grow on a specially engineered surface into structures that resemble an early aspect of human development called the amniotic sac. The cells spontaneously developed some of the same structural and molecular features seen in a natural amniotic sac, which is an asymmetric, hollow ball-like structure containing cells that will give rise to a part of the placenta as well as the embryo itself. But the structu...

These regulators are the genes called SPOCK1 and TWIST2. The discovery was made by researchers at the Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute at McMaster University and was recently published online in the journal  Acta Neuropathologica . "Brain metastases are a secondary brain tumour, which means they are caused by cancer cells that escape from primary tumours like lung, breast or melanoma, and travel to the brain," said Mohini Singh, the study's primary author and a PhD candidate in biochemistry at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster. "We set out to find which genes can regulate the cells that initiate brain metastases, which we've termed brain metastasis initiating cells or BMICs. In other words, what are the genes that are sending the signal to these lung BMICs to leave the lung tumour, go into the blood stream, invade the blood-brain barrier and form a tumour in the brain." The study used samples from lung cancer patients wi...

Researchers at the University of Bergen have transformed skin puncture cells from diabetes patients into insulin producing cells, using stem cell techniques. The researchers' aim is to transplant these cells under the skin of people with diabetes. "This study is a step towards discovering how "stand-in" cells can secrete insulin in the body," says Professor Helge Ræder, leader of the stem cell node at the K.G. Jebsen Centre for Diabetes Research, University of Bergen. Automatic insulin regulation In the long run, the researchers´ goal is to replace insulin shots and blood sugar measurements with insulin-secreting cells capable of automatically secreting insulin in response to the blood sugar level. This can become possible by implanting a capsule with tailor made cells in each diabetes patient. "Our study is a step further in the spare part or regenerative medicine, where a lot may go wrong but where a successful approach may cure diabetes,...

Allergy and asthma affect a high p ercentage of the population. Mast cells are specialised immune cells that play an important role not only in these conditions but also in other diseases such as mastocytosis, a haematologic disease involving an increased number of mast cells. It has been commonly understood that the growth factor stem cell factor, which stimulates mast cell development, is essential for the formation of mast cells. Now researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University have shown that this is not the case. The researchers analysed mast cells and their progenitors in blood from patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, a disease of the blood. "When the patients were treated with the drug imatinib (Glivec), which blocks the effect of stem cell factor, the number of mature mast cells dropped, while the number of progenitor cells did not change. We were thus able to conclude that mast cell progenitors did not require stem cell factor," says Professor...

That is Dr. Gurmukh Singh, vice chair of scientific affairs for the Division of Pathology and Walter L. Shepeard Chair in Scientific Pathology on the Medical School of Georgia at Augusta College. Credit score: Phil Jones It is a most cancers of the plasma cells, which usually make an array of antibodies that shield us from an infection. With a number of myeloma, the cells begin primarily producing as a substitute a singular product, known as a monoclonal antibody, or M spike, that leaves sufferers weak for critical infections, like pneumonia, and might even eat away at their bones. Subtle laboratory checks used to each diagnose the illness then comply with remedy response, can ship complicated messages to sufferers and their physicians, significantly after stem cell remedy to attempt to restore a wholesome antibody combine, says Dr. Gurmukh Singh. Singh, vice chair of scientific affairs for the Division of ...

That is DNA harm accumulation (in inexperienced) in outdated mice pores and skin. Credit score: Guiomar Solanas and Francisca Peixoto, IRB Barcelona It's extensively believed that, with the passage of time, stem cells stop to distinguish between day and evening cycles, in different phrases they lose their circadian rhythm, and that this loss promotes ageing. Nevertheless, this has been discovered to not be the case. Two research by scientists on the Institute for Analysis in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), the Pompeu Fabra College (UPF), (each in Spain), and the College of California, Irvine (US) revealed on 10 August within the journal  Cell  reject this speculation. Throughout ageing, stem cells proceed to indicate rhythmic exercise however reprogram their circadian features. "Aged stem cells preserve circadian rhythm however now carry out one other set of features to sort out the issues that come up ...