This article is an excerpt from a report by Partners in Foresight, The Home of the 2020s: Scenarios for How We Might Live in the Post-Pandemic Future.
The resulting implant consists of cells attached to the scaffold, which permits the targeted delivery of therapeutic cells to the diseased region within the eye. A non-cryopreserved formulation of this cellular therapy is being employed in an ongoing Phase I/IIa clinical trial sponsored by RPT. The cryopreserved formulation enabled by the work of Pennington and colleagues will facilitate anticipated Phase IIb and Phase III clinical trials as well as ultimate commercialization and clinical application of the product.
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara, University of Southern California (USC), and the biotechnology company Regenerative Patch Technologies LLC (RPT) have reported new methodology for preservation of RPT’s stem cell-based therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
The new research, recently published in Scientific Reports, optimizes the conditions to cryopreserve, or freeze, an implant consisting of a single layer of ocular cells generated from human embryonic stem cells supported by a flexible scaffold about 3×6 mm in size. This implant is currently in clinical trial for the treatment of AMD, the leading cause of blindness in aging populations. The results demonstrate that the implant can be frozen, stored for long periods and distributed in frozen form to clinical sites where it is designed to be thawed and immediately implanted into the eyes of patients with macular degeneration. The capacity to cryopreserve this and other cell-based therapeutics will extend shelf life and enable on-demand distribution to distant clinical sites, increasing the number of patients able to benefit from such treatments.
The report published by lead author Britney Pennington and colleagues achieves a milestone that brings ocular implants one step closer to the clinic. “This is the first published report that demonstrates high viability and function of adherent ocular cells following cryopreservation, even after long-term frozen storage,” said Pennington, head of process development at RPT and assistant project scientist at UC Santa Barbara.
Not the most informative article, but it does have a map giving you an idea of how many of these facilities exist and in which countries. China is not the only place with labs.
Three of the 23 countries with BSL4 labs (Australia, Canada and the US) have national policies for oversight of dual-use research. At least three other countries (Germany, Switzerland and the UK) have some form of dual-use oversight, where, for instance, funding bodies require their grant recipients to review their research for dual-use implications.
Rising demand for BSL4 labs
That still leaves a large proportion of scientific research on coronaviruses carried out in countries with no oversight of dual-use research or gain-of-function experiments. This is particularly concerning as gain-of-function research with coronaviruses is likely to increase as scientists seek to better understand these viruses and to identify which viruses pose a higher risk of jumping from animals to humans or becoming transmissible between humans. More countries are expected to seek BSL4 labs, too, in the wake of the pandemic as part of a renewed emphasis on pandemic preparedness and response.
The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen. Processed meat includes ham, sausage, bacon, pepperoni; they’re meats that have been preserved with salt or smoke, meat that has been cured, and meat treated with chemical preserves. Other Group 1 carcinogens include formaldehyde, tobacco, and UV radiation. Group 1 carcinogens have ‘enough evidence to conclude that it can cause cancer in humans.’
There is no question whether or not our current meat production complex is inhumane, unsanitary, or bad for the environment. Almost all chickens (99.9%), turkeys (99.8%), and most cows (70.4%) eaten in the United States are raised on factory farms. There are horrific consequences to this practice.
For example, the EPA estimates agriculture is the biggest contaminator of rivers and streams, to the point where feedlots, crop production, and manure runoff have led almost half (46%) of the U.S.’s rivers to be “in poor biological condition.”
Scientific American also explains, “TDM-approved feed containing antibiotics [are] a necessity if [factory farm animals] were to stay healthy in their crowded, manure-gilded home. Antibiotics also help farm animals grow faster on less food, so their use has long been a staple of industrial farming.” Many scientists worry that antibiotics used at such a scale on farms create unstoppable, drug-resistant bacteria that can transfer to humans; think inconveniences like nose infections or UTIs turned deadly because of the lack of antibiotics available to treat them.
Livescience.com|By LiveScience
The five-year survey, conducted across a section of the cosmos known as the nearby universe because of its proximity to our own galaxy, used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. By conducting their survey in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum, rather than the optical part, the astronomers could focus on the faint glow from the dust and gas of the dark and dense molecular clouds, as opposed to the visible light from the young stars birthed by them.
This allowed the researchers to study how a star’s home cloud shapes its formation.
For those who track their diet, eating only the RDA for many nutrients may not optimize health. For example, the RDA for selenium is 55 micrograms per day, but is that amount optimal for reducing risk of death for all causes?
Papers referenced in the video:
The role of mitochondrial DNA mutations and free radicals in disease and ageing.
The agency has put out a request for mission proposals to send people to the International Space Station.
Circa 2013 o.,.o.
Inked fingerprints on paper forms. We’ve come a long way from the days when that was the height of forensic technology.
GE is light years ahead after launching a breakthrough portable DNA scanner at the 25th World Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics in Melbourne in early September.
The scanner uses a new process called microfluidics to present a DNA analysis and database match in only 85 minutes — a process that used to take at least 48 hours.
Only one photo is needed to extract the information about the font and imitate it on any other word you choose to type in.