In an era of artificial eggs and Crispr, anyone could become a biological parent to the healthiest baby.
Category: biotech/medical – Page 3,325
Newly-discovered human organ may help explain how cancer spreads
By Jessica Hamzelou
A newly discovered network of fluid-filled channels in the human body may be a previously-unknown organ, and it seems to help transport cancer cells around the body.
This discovery was made by chance, from routine endoscopies – a procedure that involves inserting a thin camera into a person’s gastrointestinal tract. Newer approaches enable doctors to use this procedure to get a microscopic look at the tissue inside a person’s gut at the same time, with some surprising results.
Chinese Scientists Clone Monkeys
This is huge: Chinese scientists have successfully cloned monkeys (via NowThis Future)
This pen can detect cancer in 10 seconds during surgery
This pen can detect cancer in patients with 96.5% accuracy.
Cellular Senescence in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases
Today, we wanted to bring your attention to a new open access paper. The authors here review the role of cellular senescence in the context of the cardiovascular and metabolic diseases of aging. This paper puts special focus on the aging of the vascular system and the role that accumulating numbers of senescent cells play in that process.
What is cellular senescence?
As the body ages, increasing amounts of cells enter a state of senescence. Senescent cells do not divide or support the tissues of which they are a part; instead, they emit a range of potentially harmful signals known collectively as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Senescent cells normally destroy themselves via a programmed process called apoptosis, and they are removed by the immune system; however, as the immune system weakens with age, increasing numbers of these senescent cells escape this process and build up.
Are digital drugs the future of medication?
A drug with the potential to revolutionise medication has been approved in the US.
Harvard Rewinds the Biological Clock
Harvard reminds the biological clock using NAD+ and NaHS!
Investigators at Harvard Medical School have identified the key cellular mechanisms behind vascular aging and its effects on muscle health, and they have successfully reversed the process in animals.
Could reversing the aging of blood vessels hold the key to restoring youthful vitality? If the old adage “you are as old as your arteries” reigns true then the answer is yes, at least in mice.
According to a new study by Harvard Medical School researchers, they have identified the cellular mechanisms that cause the aging of vascular arteries as well as the effects of such aging on the health of muscles. The Medical team was also able to successfully reverse this aging process.
New innovations in cell-free biotechnology
A Northwestern University-led team has developed a new way to manufacture proteins outside of a cell that could have important implications in therapeutics and biomaterials.
The advance could make possible decentralized manufacturing and distribution processes for protein therapeutics that might, in the future, promote better access to costly drugs all over the world.
The team set out to improve the quality of manufactured proteins in vitro, or outside a cell, and found success across a number of fronts.
Genetic switch activates transformation of stem cells into heart muscle cells
The discovery of a genetic switch that triggers stem cells to turn into heart cells is a major step in finding treatment for damaged hearts.
Researchers from A*STAR and their colleagues in India have been investigating the molecular and genetic processes by which human embryonic stem cells differentiate into the body’s many types of cells—in particular, cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells.
“The effort is underway globally to find ways to differentiate these stem cells into beating functional heart muscle cells so that they can be used for cell-based therapies to treat structural abnormalities,” says Prabha Sampath, from the A*STAR Institute of Medical Biology.