#New transitional stem cells discovered Preeclampsia is a disease that affects 5 to 8 percent of pregnancies in America.
Complications from this disease can lead to emergency cesarean sections early in pregnancies to save the lives of the infants and mothers.
Scientists believe preeclampsia is caused by a number of factors, including shallow placentas that are associated insufficiently with maternal blood vessels.
Now, researchers from the University of Missouri, in an effort to grow placenta cells to better study the causes of preeclampsia,
a Curators Professor of Animal Science and a professor of biochemistry, and his colleagues, says these new stem cells can help advance research on preeclampsia and a number of other areas of the human reproductive process. hese new cells,
which we are calling bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)- primed stem cells, are much more robust and easily manipulated than standard embryonic stem cells,
what causes diseases like preeclampsia and other prenatal problems. Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into a number of different types of cells such as muscle cells, bone cells, skin cells, etc.
They also added two other drugs that temporarily inhibited key biochemical pathways associated with the pluripotent state of the stem cells.
meaning that all the cells in the culture are quite similar to each other in the way they express their genetic information. reviously,
the technology enables swarms of compact UAVS to take off from ships, tactical vehicles, aircraft or other unmanned platforms.
and reconfigurable will manned free aircraft and traditional weapon systems to do more, and essentially multiply combat power at decreased risk to the warfighter.
UAVS reduce hazards and free personnel to perform more complex tasks, as well as requiring fewer people to do multiple missions.
Says Study Angiogenesis inhibitors widely used class of cancer drugs designed to shrink tumors by preventing them from forming new blood vesselsften work in the short term,
and prevent cancer relapse. Working with laboratory models of pancreatic and breast cancer, the scientists found that myeloid cells,
and are part of the body first-line of defensehe so-called nnateimmune systemt first work in concert with the therapy
2015 online issue of Cell Reports, the researchers, under the direction of senior investigator Gabriele Bergers, Phd, UCSF professor of neurological surgery,
and first author Lee B. Rivera, Phd, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar in the Bergers laboratory, also identified a potential way to stop myeloid cells from sabotaging the therapy
In one state, myeloid cells are immunity-enhancing and angiostatic that is, they prevent the formation of new blood vessels. his is important in the early stages of wound healing,
she explained, hen they need to be immune-stimulatory and attack when bacteria, for example, are invading.
During anti-angiogenic therapy, said Bergers, the Neill H. and Linda S. Brownstein Endowed Chair in Brain tumor Research and a member of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center,
he tumor hijacks the second stage of the natural process we see in wound healing for its own advantage.
But we have learned that we can also manipulate this process to make therapy more effective.
which prevents the tumor from forming new blood vessels, thereby shrinking it. The researchers found that during the initial phase of therapy,
VEGF inhibition stimulates myeloid cells within the tumor to release the signaling protein CXCL14, which is angiostatic
and stimulates immunity. During this phase, myeloid cells complement the therapy to prevent the creation of new blood vessels,
and the tumor shrinks. But thenrobably in response to reduced oxygen flow within the tumoryeloid cells switch to their opposite state nd become real bad guys
said Bergers. At this stage the cells activate the PI3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway, which neutralizes CXCL14
and promotes angiogenesis and tumor growth. nce the PI3K pathway is activated, therapy becomes ineffective, and you have said relapse,
she. In breast cancer, Bergers noted, anti-VEGF therapy is not very effective to begin with. his tells us why,
she said. n a laboratory model of breast cancer, about 45 percent of myeloid cells are activated already,
so the cancer just ignores the therapy. The researchers found that targeting specific innate immune cells within the tumor did not reverse the negative effects of PI3K activation.
Eliminating macrophages one type of white blood cell resulted in an increase in neutrophils another type of white blood cell.
But eliminating neutrophils brought on an increase in macrophages. This so-called myeloid-cell oscillation maintained the tumor resistance to the therapy.
Instead, said Bergers, e found that what you need to do is target the central signaling node,
Ultimately, the researchers demonstrated that combining a PI3K inhibitor with anti-VEGF therapy prevented relapse
and significantly increased survival in a mouse model of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. Bergers noted that the discovery potentially gives physicians a way to determine how effective anti-VEGF therapy might be in individual patients
as well as to monitor the course of therapy. n some new patients, we could test to determine how many myeloid cells in the tumor were activated already,
which could tell us to what extent the tumor would still be responsive to anti-VEGF therapy,
she said. In patients undergoing therapy, e could take advantage of the fact that myeloid cells occur not only in the tumor,
but also in the blood, said Bergers. simple blood test would give us a noninvasive biomarker to check on the state of myeloid activation.
Right now, one of the major issues in anti-VEGF therapy is that there are no biomarkers for response and relapse. t
#Protein finding can pave the way for improved treatment of malignant melanoma Researchers from Aarhus University have linked for the first time a new protein with malignant melanomas.
The protein is detected in aggressive malignant melanoma cells and might be used to predict whether and how the cancer will spread.
At the same time, the discovery also opens new doors for future improved treatment of patients with melanomas.
Today it is not possible to predict spreading from malignant melanomas. Melanoma metastases are furthermore extremely difficult to eliminate as traditional treatment such as chemotherapy
and radiotherapy is mostly ineffective. Only ten per cent of the patients survive once they reach an advanced stage with distant metastases.
New research now demonstrates that the presence of the protein megalin in a malignant melanoma is an indicator of cancer cells that are particularly aggressive.
The protein improves the ability of the cancer cells to divide and to survive. Accordingly, it has also been found in a number of metastases from malignant melanomas.
The discovery point towards the possibility of identifying aggressive melanomas at an earlier stage than is currently possible,
Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research. May be Possible to Predict Disease Progression It is the first time that the protein megalin,
which is known otherwise primarily for its function in the kidneys, has been connected with malignant melanomas. The novel knowledge is the result of longstanding research in the field of cell surface receptor proteins at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University. ur studies have shown that the protein megalin is almost always detectable in malignant melanomas,
while it is rarely found in the benign counterparts. We see a clear trend that the more megalin is present
says Associate professor Mette Madsen from the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University. With the new knowledge, the hope is that pathologists
and oncologists at an early stage will be able unlike today to predict whether a patient should expect spreading
Even though we currently see considerable progress and success from novel treatment strategies for patients with metastatic melanoma,
it remains a very serious illness when it reaches later stages with spreading. In a best case scenario, this discovery can pinpoint those patients who will experience a relapse,
which patients the most, says Henrik Schmidt, consultant at the Department of Oncology at Aarhus University Hospital,
either medicine affecting the protein and its function thereby inhibiting the proliferation of the cancer cells and their survival,
and could easily be introduced at the hospitals
#Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere
and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.
Scientists with the U s. Department of energy (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that mimics
the natural photosynthetic process by which plants use the energy in sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.
However this new artificial photosynthetic system synthesizes the combination of carbon dioxide and water into acetate,
the most common building block today for biosynthesis. e believe our system is a revolutionary leap forward in the field of artificial photosynthesis,
a chemist with Berkeley Lab Materials sciences Division and one of the leaders of this study. ur system has the potential to fundamentally change the chemical
Yang, who also holds appointments with UC Berkeley and the Kavli Energy Nanosciences Institute (Kavli-ENSI) at Berkeley
In addition, Chris Chang is a Howard hughes medical institute (HHMI) investigator. See below for a full list of the paper authors.
Yet fossil fuels, especially coal, will remain a significant source of energy to meet human needs for the foreseeable future.
leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass,
says Chris Chang, an expert in catalysts for carbon-neutral energy conversions. n our system, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria,
where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products.
By combining biocompatible light-capturing nanowire arrays with select bacterial populations, the new artificial photosynthesis system offers a win/win situation for the environment:
solar-powered green chemistry using sequestered carbon dioxide. ur system represents an emerging alliance between the fields of materials sciences and biology,
where opportunities to make new functional devices can mix and match components of each discipline,
says Michelle Chang, an expert in biosynthesis. or example, the morphology of the nanowire array protects the bacteria like Easter eggs buried in tall grass
so that these usually-oxygen sensitive organisms can survive in environmental carbon-dioxide sources such as flue gases.
The system starts with an rtificial forestof nanowire heterostructures, consisting of silicon and titanium oxide nanowires,
developed earlier by Yang and his research group. ur artificial forest is similar to the chloroplasts in green plants,
Yang says. hen sunlight is absorbed, photo-excited electron#hole pairs are generated in the silicon and titanium oxide nanowires,
which absorb different regions of the solar spectrum. The photo-generated electrons in the silicon will be passed onto bacteria for the CO2 reduction
while the photo-generated holes in the titanium oxide split water molecules to make oxygen. Once the forest of nanowire arrays is established,
it is populated with microbial populations that produce enzymes known to selectively catalyze the reduction of carbon dioxide.
the Berkeley team used Sporomusa ovata, an anaerobic bacterium that readily accepts electrons directly from the surrounding environment
says Michelle Chang. e were able to uniformly populate our nanowire array with S. ovata using buffered brackish water with trace vitamins as the only organic component.
and catalytic activity that is made possible by the nanowire/bacteria hybrid technology. With this approach, the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0. 38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight,
and 52-percent for the renewable and biodegradable plastic PHB. Improved performances are anticipated with further refinements of the technology. e are currently working on our second generation system
#Fruit fly studies shed light on adaptability of nerve cells An international team of researchers at German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE)
Changes in the functional connections between neurons ynapsescontribute to our ability to adapt to environmental changes.
little was known about the signalling underlying such ynaptic plasticity Now, investigations of fruit flies by researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Tokyo Tech, the National Institute of Genetics in Japan,
The results contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying brain functions such as learning and memory.
Future work may investigate how modifying the Wnt signal can be used to manipulate synaptic plasticity, with possible therapeutic applications for neurodegenerative or mental diseases n
#Researchers Identify Calorie-Burning'Beige'Fat in Humans For the first time, a research team, led by a UC San francisco biologist,
has isolated energy-burning eigefat from adult humans, which is known to be able to convert unhealthy white fat into healthy brown fat.
The scientists also found new genetic markers of this beige fat. The discovery is an important advance in the search for new medications to fight obesity,
said senior investigator Shingo Kajimura, Phd, UCSF assistant professor of cell and tissue biology, School of dentistry, with a joint appointment in the UCSF Diabetes Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center
of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. The finding was published online on March 16
2015 in Nature Medicine. All mammals, including humans, have two types of fat with completely opposite functions:
white, which stores energy and is linked with diabetes and obesity, and brown, which produces heat by burning energy
and is associated with leanness. Human babies are born with brown fat as a natural defense against cold,
and hibernating animals such as bears build up large stores of brown fat for the same reason.
Since 2009, explained Kajimura, it been known that adult humans also have significant amounts of brown fat.
which is engineering fat cells to fight obesity, said Kajimura. e are trying to learn how to convert white fat into brown fat,
is the creation of drugs to turn white fat into brown fat through brown fat recruitment. f you think about obesity,
it generally caused by an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure, Kajimura said. o far,
all of the approved anti-obesity medications reduce energy intake by decreasing appetite. They work in the short term,
If we have a compound that increases energy expenditure by recruiting new brown fat and activating brown fat thermogenesis,
This would be a novel approach to modulating whole-body energy balance. o
#An electronic micropump to deliver treatments deep within the brain Many potentially efficient drugs have been created to treat neurological disorders,
Typically, for a condition such as epilepsy, it is essential to act at exactly the right time and place in the brain.
with the help of scientists at the École des Mines de Saint-Étienne and Linköping University (Sweden) have developed an organic electronic micropump which,
enables localised inhibition of epileptic seizure in brain tissue in vitro. This research is published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Drugs constitute the most widely used approach for treating brain disorders. However, many promising drugs failed during clinical testing for several reasons:
they are diluted in potentially toxic solutions, they may themselves be toxic when they reach organs to which they were directed not initially, the blood-brain barrier,
which separates the brain from the blood circulation, prevents most drugs from reaching their targets in the brain,
Epilepsy is a typical example of a condition for which many drugs could not be commercialised because of their harmful effects,
when they might have been effective for treating patients resistant to conventional treatments 1. During an epileptic seizure,
and Swedish scientists led by Magnus Berggren from Linköping University, have developed a biocompatible micropump that makes it possible to deliver therapeutic substances directly to the relevant areas of the brain.
The micropump (20 times thinner than a hair) is composed of a membrane known as ation exchange, i e.,
the researchers reproduced the hyperexcitability of epileptic neurons in mouse brains in vitro. They then injected GABA,
by allowing very localised action, directly in the brain and without peripheral toxicity. Based on these initial results, the researchers are now working to move on to an in vivo animal model
and the possibility of combining this high-technology system with the microchip they previously developed in 2013.
The chip would be used to detect the imminent occurrence of a seizure, in order to activate the pump to inject the drug at just the right moment.
In addition to epilepsy this state-of-the-art technology, combined with existing drugs, offers new opportunities for many brain diseases that remain difficult to treat at this time a
#Yale scientists apply new tool to explore mysteries of the immune system Why do infected some individuals with the West nile virus develop life-threatening infections
while others never know they had more than a mosquito bite? That medical mystery is just one of the questions that Ruth Montgomery,
associate professor of medicine at Yale School of medicine, seeks to explore with the use of a transformational tool for translational research.
It called Cytof, which stands for cytometry by time-of-flight, and it gives researchers greater insight into the intricacies of immune cells than ever before.
who directs Yale Cytof facility at Yale School of medicine. esearchers who are eager to advance their discoveries are going to want to use the best technology they can.
researchers studying a range of conditions from West Nile to multiple sclerosis to diabetes to cancer can generate an unprecedented level of detailed data about cells from relatively small samples.
The data helps them identify previously undetected cell subsets, deepening their understanding of cell biology and human disease.
SPADE analysis showing the multiple subsets of immune and nonimmune cells that Cytof technology can detect from a single sample.
Image credit: Dr. Yi Yao SPADE analysis showing the multiple subsets of immune and nonimmune cells that Cytof technology can detect from a single sample.
Image credit: Dr. Yi Yao Peering deeper into cell data Prior to the advent of Cytof in 2009, scientists collected data about cell characteristics with an older technology known as flow cytometry.
Using flow cytometry, researchers label cell components, such as surface markers or proteins, with flourescent probes attached to antibodies and pass those cells through lasers.
When the lasers hit them, the fluorescent probes emit different wavelengths of light, which are detected by the cytometer
and converted into readable data. Flow cytometry allows researchers to use 8 to 10 fluorescently labeled markers typically antibodies to capture data about key cell features.
By contrast Cytof employs a technique called mass spectrometry and rare earth metals instead of fluorescent compounds, so scientists can use about 40 markers (and up to 100 in the future).
That translates into four to five times more information. It akin to the difference between looking at the stars with a standard telescope versus an observatory-quality refractor telescope, according to Yale chair of neurology, Dr. David Hafler, who worked with Montgomery to bring Cytof to Yale. t allows
me to go from seeing what on the cell surface, to defining function inside the cell very deeply,
Montgomery applies the technology to her study of how aging impacts the immune response to infections and autoimmune diseases.
Along with Yale colleagues in internal medicine and immunobiology she authored a paper published in the Journal of Immunological Methods in 2014 that demonstrated the technology ability to detect multiple signals from a sample of as little as 1, 000-10,000 cells.
With a panel of 40 markers Montgomery and her colleagues have already been able to discern distinctions between NK cells derived from the two patient groups.
The research may help explain differences in immune response to infection that could potentially benefit those most harmed by the illness, notes Montgomery.
Similarly, in his lab, Hafler applies Cytof to the study of cellular complexities at the root of diseases such as a multiple sclerosis and cancer.
In one current project, his team is investigating specific types of immune cells extracted from brain tumors. ee isolating T cells from brain tumors,
Understanding how multiple molecules function at the same time in a single cell may reveal clues about how brain tumors manage to survive
he said. he more we can define how the tumor is evading the immune system, the more specific we can make the treatment.
we can be more precise in defining the therapy moving forward. Eye on immune therapies and prevention In his lab, professor of immunology Dr. Kevan Herold has used the technology to explore key questions about type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition.
Cytof is helping his team get more data about a limited repertoire of cells specific to type 1 diabetes
which typically appears during childhood. e want to understand the targets of the cells that cause diabetes,
he said. hat turns them on? What turns them off? are involved there pathways that we can target for therapies?
Those are the types of questions wee interested in. The goal is not only to develop immune therapy to treat type 1 diabetes
but potentially to use the data for prevention. here are antigen-reactive T cells that are found in individuals at risk for type 1 diabetes,
said Herold. ome of those individuals go on to develop diabetes; others don. What we want to do is figure out who is going to go on to develop diabetes
in order to prevent it. If he identifies a marker that differentiates between patient types, for example, that finding could point to a target for preventive strategies, notes Herold.
The work of Montgomery, Hafler, and Herold may be just the tip of the iceberg. With this more powerful tool for analyzing cells,
Yale scientists now have the ability to deeply analyze and profile whole populations of immune cells for the study of cancer and other complex diseases.
Their discoveries will contribute to the growing number of peer-reviewed studies involving Cytof and the immune therapies that emerge. e tend to think of our analyses of cells as unidimensional or bi-dimensional.
This now is said 40-dimensional Herold. his approach, where you have many parameters, is probably going to redefine populations of T cells.
#USDA Scientists, International Colleagues Sequence Upland cotton Genome U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) scientists and their partners have sequenced the genome of the world most widely cultivated and genetically complex species of cotton,
The results were published today in two Nature Biotechnology reports. Sequencing the genome of Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) will help breeders develop varieties of cotton that are equipped better to combat the pests,
diseases and higher temperatures and droughts expected to accompany climate change. Cotton growers have experienced a plateau in yields since the early 1990s
and most commercial varieties lack genetic diversity, making cotton vulnerable to natural threats. The findings will help researchers
and breeders in the years ahead develop cotton varieties with improved fiber qualities, higher yields and more tolerance to heat, drought and diseases anticipated due to climate change.
and is a $6 billion crop in the United states. here is untapped a vast reservoir of genes in wild cotton plants that could offer us stronger
They are based in College Station, Texas. ARS scientist Brian Scheffler, based in Stoneville, Mississippi, is a coauthor of the other.
The two teams sequenced the genome of the genetic standard of Upland cotton, Texas Marker-1,
The results will allow scientists to analyze two sets of extensive DNA data, compiled independently of each other, compare the results
and exploit cotton genetic diversity by tapping into the potential of genes found in the 10,000 accessions of exotic and wild cotton plants in the ARS Cotton Germplasm Collection in College Station, Texas t
#Discovery unlocks ion conductor that is 100 times faster than all the others A research group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU),
Department of energy Conversion and storage (DTU Energy) has discovered a new way to stabilize an ion conducting material with a 100 times faster ion conductivity than all previous known ion conductors. he new
and stays stable in environments, which were not possible before says Professor Nini Pryds, head of the research in electro functional materials at DTU Energy and one of the co-authors of this paper.
The strength of bismuth oxide stands in its defects. Particularly the material can hold a very large amount of mobile oxygen defects
which are the basic charges to make the building blocks of ionic devices such as to name only a few can be, fuel cells, electrolysis cells, batteries, gas sensors,
light photo-catalysts and ferroelectric materials in electronics. nalogous to the best metallic conductors such as copper or silver where the current is transported by electron, in d-Bismuth oxide
which is known the best ionic conductor, the current is transported by oxygen ions. There has been enormous interest over the years to use this material in application however;
What we did is stabilized this materials by tuning at the nanoscale with another stable material
and made it work! explains Professor Nini Pryds. Despite the fact that d-Bismuth oxide is made of just 2 elements (bismuth and oxygen),
this compound can appear in different forms so it took several centuries for the mineralogist to identify the compound.
) techniques to create atomically flat layered multi structure, with individual layers of approximately 3 nanometers each. esearchers have tried to stabilize Bismuth oxide for almost a century, but failed.
It took us almost three years but we succeeded due to our great knowledge in growing high quality thin films
and our knowledge in ionic and electronic transport mechanism in these films says Professor Nini Pryds.
The results of this work were patented recently, with the hope that this discovery opens brand new possibilities for usingd-Bismuth as an ion conductor. e have used very advanced fabrication
three long and intense years of work using advance state-of-the-art characterization techniques combined with great team work results in these exciting results continues Dr. Simone Sanna.
the researchers of DTU Energy also managed to give the material new properties, which it didn have before.
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