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Half-Billion-Year-Old Heart Found More Complex than Today’s
April 24, 2024 3:01 pm | by Cynthia Fox | Comments520 million years ago, the first known animal heart, the heart of an ancient shrimp, was formed. Now, it, and its vascular system, have been found to be more complex than that of modern shrimp, researchers report.
Eat More Vegetables, Live a Longer Life
April 23, 2024 1:56 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsWe should eat even more vegetables than our governments— and moms— said. A recent study found that eating seven (or more) servings of veggies and fruits a day extends life by what the authors bill as a “staggering” 42 percent.
Killing Cancer on the Run
April 22, 2024 3:30 pm | by Skip Derra | CommentsA dream solution to cancer metastasis has been to develop a method that can track and kill the cancer cells that are on the move. The complexity at which those cancer cells operate has long been a formidable obstacle to stopping metastases, which cause 90 percent of cancer deaths, but that may change.
Cloning Making a Comeback?
April 18, 2024 1:46 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsCloning has finally generated immunologically compatible embryonic stem cells for older humans: two men aged 35 and 75. It may also generate significantly fewer tumor-causing mutations than the popular induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) method of making ES cells.
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Small Molecules Making Big News in Cancer Treatment
April 17, 2024 2:24 pm | by Neil Canavan | CommentsSize doesn’t matter as long as long as you can get the job done. That said, one may be forgiven the impression that larger molecules—antibodies and related constructs, or T cells themselves being used in immunotherapies—were preferentially presented at American Association of Cancer Research annual conference
Immunotherapies Rock the House
April 16, 2024 2:05 pm | by Neil Canavan | CommentsThe potential of immunotherapies drew large interest at this year's American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting. And the new data are particularly striking for their clinical results—reporting once uncommon at this basic research meeting.
Versatile Nanosponges Now Aimed at MRSA Toxins
April 3, 2024 2:16 pm | by Skip Derra | CommentsIn successful research, any one path can quickly lead to new paths of even more promising results. This branching out of a research project couldn’t be more true than for a team of researchers at the UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. UCSD researchers have developed “nanosponges” that were initially designed as a platform for cancer drug delivery and now are being developed to soak up the dangerous pore-forming toxin produced by MRSA.
Scientist Said He May Have Made STAP Cells—Just As Riken Called Fraud
April 2, 2024 1:23 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsRiken Institute brass want co-authors of the “acid bath” stem cell papers to retract one, after appeal, citing deliberate misconduct. But two developments may complicate this. First, lead author Haruko Obokata refuses to accept it. And Kenneth Lee has become the first scientist outside the co-authors to publicly claim that, following the latest protocol for acid bath cells, he may have made them.
Cancer Stem Cell Camps
March 4, 2024 4:51 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsAt least two camps have formed in the “breast cancer stem cell” world. One camp believes most cancers may come from stem cells—or stem-like progenitors—gone awry. Others agree cancers can be most virulent when reaching a stem cell-like state—but believe they may come from both stem cells and mature cells gone awry.
Multi-Parametric Electrophysiological Imaging of the Mammalian Heart in vivo
February 24, 2024 2:41 pm | by James Joubert, application scientist, Photometrics | Photometrics | CommentsCardiac arrhythmia is one of the most common diseases encountered in clinical cardiology. High-speed electrophysiological imaging using fluorescent probes has yielded tremendous insights into the basic mechanisms of arrhythmias and the effects of anti-arrhythmic drugs. However, optical mapping, as it is known to the cardiac research community, has remained relegated to the isolated (i.e. explanted) heart.
Estrogen Affects Blood Stem Cells, Explaining Pregnancy
February 20, 2024 2:19 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsResearchers have another answer to the question of how females can generate so much blood—enough for two blood systems—during pregnancy. The answer is stem cells, as is so often the case lately when a question has something to do with underlying biological mechanisms.
Binge Drinking Impairs Bone Healing
February 19, 2024 1:54 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsBinge drinking impairs the healing of broken bones. It can do this weeks after a binge. And it can leave in its wake permanently inferior bone, according to recent studies. One reason: alcohol slows down mesenchymal (bone, fat, and cartilage) stem cells (MSCs), in the bloodstream, trying to home to fracture sites. And when MSCs finally reach fracture sites, alcohol keeps them from properly replacing lost cells.
The New Stem Cells
February 10, 2024 1:59 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsLabs globally are electrified by the notion that just “stressing out” ordinary adult cells may turn them into pluripotent stem cells like the “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPSCs) of Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka. But is this about co-opting an evolutionarily conserved, natural way of making young cells out of old? Or is it an unnatural way of hastening old cells’ death?
Getting Old Neural Stem Cells to Make Young Neurons Again
February 6, 2024 1:30 pm | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsWhen the neural stem cells in our brains get older, they create far fewer neurons. This plays a role in neurodegenerative diseases from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s. It also plays a role in our increasingly deficient ability to simply find those car keys. New research is changing that paradigm.
Nuts Were All Our Big Brains Needed Millions of Years Ago
January 22, 2024 9:35 am | by Cynthia Fox | CommentsNuts are in the news: a recent study has offered evidence for a big reason our bodies are so nuts for nuts. They are apparently almost all our big brains needed to survive— thus almost all we ate— from 1.4 to 2.4 million years ago.
