Archive for the ‘Skin Stem Cells’ Category

Genetically engineered skin cells grafted onto mice can treat the animals diabetes and obesity, according to new research published August 2, 2017 in Cell Stem Cell.

Researchers edited skin stem cells from newborn mice using CRISPR-based technology so that the cells secreted a peptide that regulates blood sugar. Transplanting the cells onto mice showed the grafts increased insulin secretion and reversed weight gain from a high-fat diet, as well as overturned insulin resistance. The result is a small step toward developing a safe and durable gene therapy to treat diabetes in humans.

Weve had this idea for a long time, so its exciting to see that, indeed, it can work to deliver therapeutics, coauthor Xiaoyang Wu, a stem cell biologist at the University of Chicago, tells GEN.

In the study, Wu and colleagues worked with skin because it is a large organ and easily accessible. The cells multiply quickly and are easily transplanted. And, transplanted cells can be removed, if needed. Skin is such a beautiful system, Wu says, noting that its features make it a perfect medium for testing gene therapies.

The team worked with the gene that produces glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), a hormone that stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin. The additional insulin takes excessive glucose out of the bloodstream, which regulates complications from diabetes. The hormone can also decrease appetite. Using the genetic engineering tool CRISPR, the team inserted a mutation, adding an antibody fragment to the gene that would make the GLP-1 last longer in the blood and an additional modification to the targeting vector that would also attach an inducible promoter. This switch turns the gene on, as needed, to make more GLP-1. The switch would be triggered by the administration of the antibiotic doxycycline.

Wu and colleagues then inserted the altered gene into skin cells and grew the cells in a culture. Once the skin cells had grown into multiple layers, the team transplanted the patches onto mice with intact immune systems. Surprisingly, the mice didnt reject the graftsa feat in itselfsince human skin transplants are far more advanced than mice grafts, partly due to the animals furry skin.

Next, the team fed the mice small amounts of doxycycline. As a result, the animals released GLP-1 into the blood and had higher levels of insulin and lower levels of glucose. When fed a high-fat diet, the mice gained weight and became obese. But when the mice also were fed doxycycline so they secreted GLP-1, they gained less weight, showing the gene therapy was successful.

This kind of therapy could be potentially effective for many metabolic disorders, Wu says. The grafts could be used in patients who cant process protein or in individuals with hemophilia. The team is now testing the gene-therapy technique in combination with other medications.

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CRISPR Gene Therapy via Skin Grafts Treats Obesity and Diabetes in Mice - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Immunofluorescence imaging shows normal skin differentiation and tissue architecture of transplanted skin grafts. Credit: Wu Laboratory, University of Chicago

A research team based at the University of Chicago has overcome challenges that have limited gene therapy and demonstrated how their novel approach with skin transplantation could enable a wide range of gene-based therapies to treat many human diseases.

In the August 3, 2017 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers provide "proof-of-concept." They describe a new form of gene-therapy - administered through skin transplants - to treat two related and extremely common human ailments: type-2 diabetes and obesity.

"We resolved some technical hurdles and designed a mouse-to-mouse skin transplantation model in animals with intact immune systems," said study author Xiaoyang Wu, PhD, assistant professor in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago. "We think this platform has the potential to lead to safe and durable gene therapy, in mice and we hope, someday, in humans, using selected and modified cells from skin."

Beginning in the 1970s, physicians learned how to harvest skin stem cells from a patient with extensive burn wounds, grow them in the laboratory, then apply the lab-grown tissue to close and protect a patient's wounds. This approach is now standard. However, the application of skin transplants is better developed in humans than in mice.

"The mouse system is less mature," Wu said. "It took us a few years to optimize our 3D skin organoid culture system."

This study, "Engineered epidermal progenitor cells can correct diet-induced obesity and diabetes," is the first to show that an engineered skin graft can survive long term in wild-type mice with intact immune systems. "We have a better than 80 percent success rate with skin transplantation," Wu said. "This is exciting for us."

They focused on diabetes because it is a common non-skin disease that can be treated by the strategic delivery of specific proteins.

The researchers inserted the gene for glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1), a hormone that stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin. This extra insulin removes excessive glucose from the bloodstream, preventing the complications of diabetes. GLP1 can also delay gastric emptying and reduce appetite.

Using CRISPR, a tool for precise genetic engineering, they modified the GLP1 gene. They inserted one mutation, designed to extend the hormone's half-life in the blood stream, and fused the modified gene to an antibody fragment so that it would circulate in the blood stream longer. They also attached an inducible promoter, which enabled them to turn on the gene to make more GLP1, as needed, by exposing it to the antibiotic doxycycline. Then they inserted the gene into skin cells and grew those cells in culture.

When these cultured cells were exposed to an air/liquid interface in the laboratory, they stratified, generating what the authors referred to as a multi-layered, "skin-like organoid." Next, they grafted this lab-grown gene-altered skin onto mice with intact immune systems. There was no significant rejection of the transplanted skin grafts.

When the mice ate food containing minute amounts of doxycycline, they mice released dose-dependent levels of GLP1 into the blood. This promptly increased blood-insulin levels and reduced blood-glucose levels.

When the researchers fed normal or gene-altered mice a high-fat diet, both groups rapidly gained weight. They became obese. When normal and gene-altered mice got the high-fat diet along with varying levels of doxycycline, to induce GLP1 release, the normal mice grew fat and mice expressing GLP1 showed less weight gain.

Expression of GLP1 also lowered glucose levels and reduced insulin resistance.

"Together, our data strongly suggest that cutaneous gene therapy with inducible expression of GLP1 can be used for the treatment and prevention of diet-induced obesity and pathologies," the authors wrote. When they transplanted gene-altered human cells to mice with a limited immune system, they saw the same effect. These results, the authors wrote, suggest that "cutaneous gene therapy for GLP1 secretion could be practical and clinically relevant."

This approach, combining precise genome editing in vitro with effective application of engineered cells in vivo, could provide "significant benefits for the treatment of many human diseases," the authors note.

"We think this can provide a long-term safe option for the treatment of many diseases," Wu said. "It could be used to deliver therapeutic proteins, replacing missing proteins for people with a genetic defect, such as hemophilia. Or it could function as a metabolic sink, removing various toxins."

Skin progenitor cells have several unique advantages that are a perfect fit for gene therapy. Human skin is the largest and most accessible organ in the body. It is easy to monitor. Transplanted skin can be quickly removed if necessary. Skins cells rapidly proliferate in culture and can be easily transplanted. The procedure is safe, minimally invasive and inexpensive.

There is also a need. More than 100 million U.S. adults have either diabetes (30.3 million) or prediabetes (84.1 million), according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 2 out of 3 adults are overweight. More than 1 out of 3 are considered obese.

Explore further: Injectable solution may provide weeks of glucose control

More information: "Engineered Epidermal Progenitor Cells Can Correct Diet-Induced Obesity and Diabetes" Cell Stem Cell (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2017.06.016 , http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(17)30274-6

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Gene therapy via skin could treat many diseases, even obesity - Medical Xpress

We lost an American icon Thursday with the death of actor and playwright Sam Shepard. He had ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), more commonly known in the U.S. as Lou Gehrigs disease. Its an invariably fatal neurological disease that robs individuals of their ability to move muscles, their ability to swallow, and eventually, their ability to breathe.

ALS often starts in a fairly nonspecific way, with weakness in a persons hand or foot. Although I never examined the late Mr. Shepard, even in public photos from 2016, the atrophy of his hand muscle was evidenta hallmark of the loss of muscle that occurs in ALS.

In about 90% of cases diagnosed by neurologists, ALS happens out of the blueits sporadic, and the cause isnt known. About 10% of the time, ALS is inherited through a defective gene; that is, a patient has a family member who also had the disease. We can readily diagnose inherited ALS with a relatively simple blood test.

Five years ago, we learned that even in some patients who have no family history of ALS, a defect in a gene known as C9orf72 underlies the disease. In some patients, the disease may be initially diagnosed incorrectly as a nerve problem in the hands or wrist (carpel tunnel syndrome), or a pinched nerve in the neck or back. But those conditions are commonly associated with painALS is not generally a painful disease.

The weakness typically progressesslowly over many years in some patients, or rapidly over a few months in othersprogressing from one hand to the other, from hand to foot, or foot to hand. Eventually it affects ones ability to chew, swallow, and breathe. The weakness of the breathing muscles is what makes ALS fatal. Unlike cancer, with its rare but real remissions, ALS is always fatal. Patients might choose to have a ventilator artificially breathe for them; that intervention delays death, but not the progressive weakening and paralysis of all muscles.

As treating physicians, we have a paucity of options to slow down the disease and have no real effective drug to halt its relentless progression or to recover functionno cure. ALS is not really one disease, but a combination of different genetic, even environmental, insults, that culminate in this horribly disabling and life-ending malady. Not unlike what we have learned about cancers, there may be many different causesgenetic, molecular, biochemicalthat underlie the disease. In cancers, sampling the actual diseased tissue, commonly through tissue biopsies, has provided a trove of clues about what underlies the basis of the different cancers and how to approach the different forms, sometimes quite successfully. But with ALS, we cannot readily take a chunk of someones brain or spinal cord, so we are often left guessing as to what may underlie the cause of the disease and how to best treat it. That antiquated approach may soon end.

Advances in the generation of stems cells from individual patients provide the most powerful way to generate their own brain cells. We are now able to take a small tube of blood or skin and turn those cells into stem cells (by a procedure that won the Nobel prize several years ago), and then, by adding a few more chemicals and special genes, turn those cells into motor neuronsbrain and spinal cord cells that die in ALS.

This procedure, which in essence creates a biopsy of the brain/spinal cord of ALS patients, will allow us to achieve what has been so successful in cancerto truly understand the different kinds of ALS, to use our patients brain cells to discover their individual disease causes, and to develop a more individualized pathway for drug therapy. We aim to personalize ALS therapywhat we call Answer ALS. That is the hope on the horizon for ALS, along with drugs now already under development or in clinical trials that are specifically targeted to patients with known genetic mutations. How far that horizon is in the distance, we dont know, but we can see it. We only wish Mr. Shepard and all our past patients could have reached that hopeful horizon.

Jeffrey D. Rothstein MD, PhD, a neurologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University, is the director of the universitys Brain Science Institute, ALS clinic and Robert Packard Center for ALS Research.

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Sam Shepard Died of ALS. Here's Why It's so Difficult to Treat. - Fortune

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Random differences between cells early in development could be the key to making different cells in the body, according to new research from a team co-led by Professor Wolf Reik. Different cell types - brain, blood, skin, gut etc. - all have unique and vital roles, yet they all start out the same. Cells become different as a result of a long sequence of biochemical choices made before we're born. For us to be healthy, these choices need to ensure we get the right number of each cell type.

Scientists at the Babraham Institute, EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Stem Cell Institute examined the genetics of stem cells from embryos at the earliest stages of development. Typically, cells of the same type have matching patterns of gene activity - many of the same genes are turned off or on in all cells. This latest research, published in the journal Cell Reports reveals that when cells start specialising into different cell types their gene activity becomes more 'noisy' - each cell starts to turn different groups of genes on or off.

The results, which focus on two choices near the start of embryo formation, show that, when cells are making decisions about what to become, there is greater variation in the activity of the genes in different cells - the same genes may be turned on in some cells and off in others. By chance this noise will make some cells more likely to become one type of cell, whilst others will start to favour an alternative.

The paper's co-first authors were Hisham Mohammed, Irene Hernando-Herraez and Aurora Savino. Dr Mohammed at the Babraham Institute, said: "Our analyses suggest that elevated transcriptional noise at two key points in early development coincides with cell fate decisions. By contrast, after these decisions cells become highly synchronised and grow rapidly. Our study systematically charts transcriptional noise and uncovers new processes associated with early lineage decisions."

This process of making similar cells become different is called symmetry breaking. This study marks the first time that a technique called single-cell sequencing has been used to examine individual cells from mouse embryos in the early stages of development. Previous research has only examined groups of cells, so it has been impossible to investigate the differences between cells during symmetry breaking.

Co-senior author Professor Jennifer Nichols at the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Stem Cell Institute, said: "Our data allow us to study gene activity in individual cells to an unprecedented level of precision. This detail has allowed us to observe substantial differences between cells. Regulating noisy gene activity during development may be a key part of how cells make decisions about their future. In the future we hope to discover how this process is controlled to better understand how noise shapes early development."

As the lead computational scientist on the paper, Dr John Marioni at EMBL-EBI, said: "Making sense of the data generated in studies like this is only possible thanks to ongoing advances in computational biology. With more than 10,000 pieces of data being collected about each individual cell, modern computers are essential in achieving the level of sensitivity needed for this type of research."

Explore further: Controlling gene activity in human development

More information: Cell Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.07.009

Journal reference: Cell Reports

Provided by: Babraham Institute

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Noise helps cells make decisions: Team reveals the importance of ... - Phys.Org

Treatment for acne scars comes to central Arkansas

Winnie Wright , KTHV 10:58 PM. CDT August 01, 2017

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - For those with acne scars, there can be a lot of problems. People deal with bigger pores, rosacea, even difficulty sweating, but sometimes find little to no solutions.

But a new treatment has shown up in central Arkansas that is a little unusual.

Acne scars have been an unfortunate part of April Bisbee's life for decades.

"I'm still carrying around things from when I was a teenager," said the 37-year-old. "I didn't really notice how much that affected me as an adult until I started doing something to improve it.

She began those improvements with two micro needling treatments, which are exactly what they sound like. A tool with tiny needles is drawn across the face to break up the scar tissue which helps to heal old wounds.

After seeing the results, she decided to take it a step further. Now she is trying a Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) Facial. The process uses her own blood plasma to heal her scars.

"The way that I describe it to patients is that the plasma is our own body's liquid gold," said Monica Cooper, a license aesthetician at SeiBella Med Spa. "It is the closest thing that we have to stem cells. It regenerates faster. So as we are doing the micro needling, it's going to heal the wound much faster than anything used as a synthetic."

Bisbee's blood is drawn by a nurse and it is put into a centrifuge to separate the blood from the plasma.

"I'm going to take the first bit of the plasma and I'm just going to wipe it all in the area where we are going to start, at her forehead, Cooper explained.

As the needles break the surface of her skin, it bleeds a little, but Cooper said a little blood is good. That's how she knows she's made it below the scarring.

"It feels a bit like getting a tattoo without the ink," Bisbee said about the process.

If you're not too keen on the idea of having blood plasma rubbed on your face, Cooper said there are other formulas available to make you feel less like a vampire.

"It is still going to give you the scar reduction. It is going to help with aging, fine lines, she said.

Before the PRP facial, many with facial sensitivities had few options. Cooper explained that all patients need to be evaluated to be sure the PRP Facial is a fit. Those who are prone to keloid scars, for example, would not want to undergo this procedure.

In about a week, Bisbee will be fully healed, but even now, she can wear a special SPF makeup and go back to work.

"I'm feeling good. I'm glad I did it, Bisbee said.

She said that already her skin is less red with the treatment than it was with her previous micro needling treatments.

Each PRP Facial treatment is around $700. Cooper said she suggests Bisbee and other patients continue coming back for treatments every few weeks until they no longer see their skin progressing. She also said the results should be permanent unless new acne scars develop.

2017 KTHV-TV

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Unusual treatment for acne scars uses your own plasma - THV 11

Kristin Comella, Chief Science Officer

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, and is projected to be the third by 2020. COPD is associated with an exaggerated chronic inflammatory response causing airway abnormalities. Patients typically undergo a progression of declining lung function, characterized by an increase of cough, shortness of breath, and mucus production. Extra-pulmonary manifestations of COPD include osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, skeletal muscle abnormalities, and depression. There is currently no cure and the manifestations can only be treated symptomatically. It afflicts more than 5% of the population in many countries and accounts for more than 600 billion in health care costs, morbidity, and mortality.

Adult stem cells are found in every part of the body and their primary role is to heal and maintain the tissue in which they reside. Stem cells are unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves by cell division. In addition, they have the ability to differentiate into specialized cell types. Adult stem cells can be harvested from a patients own tissue, such as adipose (fat) tissue, muscle, teeth, skin or bone marrow. One of the most plentiful sources of stem cells in the body is the fat tissue. In fact, approximately 500 times more stem cells can be obtained from fat than bone marrow. Stem cells derived from a patients own fat are referred to as adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs). Adipose derived stem cells have been explored with respect to their activity in diseases involving significant inflammatory or degenerative components. More recently, adult stem cells have been identified as having the potential to reverse the effects of diseases like COPD.

The mixed population of cells that can be obtained from fat is called a stromal vascular fraction (SVF). The SVF can easily be isolated from fat tissue in approximately 30-90 minutes in a clinic setting (under local anesthesia) using a mini-lipoaspirate technique. The SVF contains all cellular elements of fat, excluding adipocytes. Tens to hundreds of millions of ADSCs can be obtained in the context of the SVF acquired from 20-200 ml of adipose tissue during this out-patient procedure. This sets the stage for their practical use at the point-of-care, in which a preparation of ASC can be provided for infusion or injection after the mini-liposuction. COPD patients who have undergone stem cell therapies often express the willingness to receive additional cell infusions if possible, due to a feeling of well-being associated with the injection. There is early evidence of feasibility and safety of infusions into the patients with COPD. In relevant studies, intravenous infusion of cultured adipose stem cells has been demonstrated to remarkably improve the onset and progression of smoke exposure-induced emphysema in rodents.

Stem cells possess enormous regenerative potential. The potential applications are virtually limitless. Patients can receive cutting edge treatments that are safe, compliant, and effective. Our team has successfully treated over 7000 patients with very few safety concerns reported. One day, stem cell treatments will be the gold standard of care for the treatment of most degenerative diseases. We are extremely encouraged by the positive patient results we are seeing from our physician-based treatments. Our hope is that stem cell therapy will provide relief and an improved quality of life for many patients. The future of medicine is here!

For additional information on Stem Cell Centers of Excellences South Miami clinic, visit http://www.stemcellcoe.com.

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Stem Cells Offer New Solutions for Lung Disease - Miami's Community Newspapers

Scientists in Australia have used a 3D printer to create nerve cells found in the brain using a special bio-ink made from stem cells.

The research takes us a step closer to making replacement brain tissue derived from a patients own skin or blood cells to help treat conditions such as brain injury, Parkinsons disease, epilepsy and schizophrenia.

The bio-ink is made of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which have the same power as embryonic stem cells to turn into any cell in the body, and possibly form replacement body tissues and even whole organs.

3D printing with bio-ink (ABC News)

[Jeremy Crookfrom the University of Wollongong stated]many neuropsychiatric disorders result from an imbalance of key chemicals called neurotransmittersFor example, he said, defective serotonin and GABA-producing nerve cells are implicated in schizophrenia and epilepsy[Thus] the team used 3D printing to make neurones involved in producing GABA and serotonin.

Apart from providing customized transplants, 3D printed tissue could be useful for medical research.

For example, tissue from a patient with epilepsy or schizophrenia could be created, specifically to study their particular version of the condition.

You can compare how neuronal networks form differently compared to healthy patient, said Dr Crook.

[Read the full study here]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Scientists create 3D-printed brain-like tissue from stem cells

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3D printed brain-like tissue made from stem cells offers hope to address neurological disorders - Genetic Literacy Project

Over the past twenty years, Jamie Sherrill has become one of the most in-demand skincare gurus in Hollywood. But you may not know her name--she goes by the moniker Nurse Jamie, which is also the name of her line of cult-favorite beauty tools and potions, as well as her Los Angeles spa, Nurse Jamie Beauty Park. Before you ask--yes, Sherrill is, in fact, a nurse, but she's also a certified aesthetician, which means she can offer her devoted clients, who range from Jessica Alba to Ruby Rose, a wide-range of services that promise flawless skincare through some very unique methods that can be done both at home and in the office. "At Nurse Jamie Beauty Park, our vision is simple to offer not only the best non-surgical beauty solutions available on the market, but also a customized combination of the most cutting-edge technical advances in anti-aging, skincare and beauty today," Sherrill explains. "High-tech tools, devices and home-based care are a big part of my regiment and I make everyone participate."

Here, Sherrill offers insight into the most in-demand celebrity beauty desires, and offers tips on improving your complexion at home.

You have a wide range of high profile clients, all unique with their own concerns and skincare regimens. What are the most common concerns you hear?Celebrities come in all shapes, sizes and ages, so everyone is going to have a different treatment plan. This year body sculpting is big from banning the bra strap fat to firming the tush, while laser hair removal, Botox, fillers and glowing skin are year round trends. Those requests never go out of style.

What types of treatments are most requested before a red carpet appearance?Some are genetically blessed and don't really do more than an oxygen facial and an electric facial"to be fully red carpet ready. But that said--we start to lose collagen production and skin elasticity starting at 25, so we will typically use a range of key technologies in lasers for skin texture and complexion.TheACELLeratorat home beauty tool is idealto help serums and product be absorbed for a lifting and tightening effect, and has a great anti-inflammatory property. You can use every day but specifically just before an event for a more open eye look or more defined cheek even if you just flew in!This works well for the face and body, so it helps with stretch marks and skin smoothing for waistline, hips and thighs. Trust me this is acelebsecret. If you don't believe me, do one side of your face for just one minute then look into a mirror.

But don't forget red carpet prep needs to happen every day, too. Eat well, sleep well on the right pillow, take off make-up at night and use good quality products with the best raw ingredients. Home care matters as much as in office does.

When your clients are on location for months at a time, what tips do you give them?Think maintain, not reclaim and always try to be preventative.Think of the rules of eating that are good for your body; most apply to your skin as well. It is the largest organ of the body so treat it like one.Be consistent with taking off makeup nightly and never with a washcloth. Use a hypoallergenic and antibacterial surface to cleanse your skin. Exfoliate regularly, manually or with a tool, but gently and consistently.

Invest in a beautytool to help increase absorption of products like my Instant Uplift or ACELLerator Ultra. Just like the machines we have in office, they increase absorption and efficacy of your products while helping to improve and maintain tone. Also, wear sunscreen.It seems basic, but all helps. At-home devices are the future of beauty -- you can have the best raw ingredients in the world, but as skin is the largest organ of the body its main function is to protect. The number one cause of aging is UV damage, the number two is smoking, and the third is sleeping on a traditional pillow.Use satin only and a shape that will help you train to sleep on your back, so that the most delicate areas around the eyes, cheeks and neck do not form permanent wrinkles.

It's the middle of summer. Other than sunscreen and hats, what other advice do you have for fending off skin discoloration?Use good quality products with the best raw ingredients. Old school skincare was to use aggressive products that caused chemical cell turnover reaction, which can make you more susceptible to sun damage. (Retin-A is so 1980s!) My opinion is to use retinol ingredients sparingly. Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) - causes cell turnover and has significant effects on delaying the aging process - including preserving skins cells and skins overall vitality and radiance, without leaving you red, flaky, and shiny. I hate the shiny face -it kills meovertime I see I can spot theglare from across the room.The Nurse Jamie tools that you incorporate into your treatments seem to have a loyal following of their own. Like the Beauty Stamp, for example. How does that work?The Beauty Stamp may very well be the best investment anyone can make. A small pad features a cross section of micro needles in a grid that helps with micro exfoliation, opens channels for product delivery and efficacy and aids in the body process of collagen andelastinproduction. It is my triple threat. For day of events you need to focus on complexion and texture in a non-invasive way or only protocols with no downtime and no risk. Don't try something new with a high risk to low reward for the day of an event. Nothing worse than redness or inflammation when you are dressed to impress and need your face to match! How about the Accelerator Ultra?TheACELLeratorat home beauty tool is ideal for a daily regimentto help serums and product be absorb lifting and tightening effect and has a great anti-inflammatory property.You can use every day but specifically just before an event for a more open eye look or more defined cheek--even if you just flew in! This works well for face and body so it helps with stretch marks and skin smoothing for waistline, hips and thighs, too. Trust me, this is acelebsecret dont believe me? Do one side of your face for just one minute then look into a mirror.What is your top selling tool?UpLift Massaging Beauty Roller. It has a huge celebrity following.Are there any foods or vitamins that you recommend for vibrant skin?A B12 Energy Shot. Close to a decade ago I injected Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie with it right in their bums on national television forThe Simple Life,and in turn injectable vitamins became one of our most popular treatments...

What are the biggest skincare mistakes people make?Side sleeping and over exfoliating. We need to treat our skin like a silk fabric not a piece of leather. When youoverexfoliate(physically and chemically) and withtoo much frequency it destroys the protective barrier that your skin has - once it is removed or compromised you are you exposing your skin to environmental toxins, sun damage pre-mature aging, acne, etc. It's very common.

What is your personal daily skin routine?Taking off my make-up--I can't go to bed with my make-up on. Period. The UpLift Facial Massaging Beauty Roller, EGF Stem Cell Complex--I dont go anywhere without this cream. I would bathe in it if I could--and I use my ACELLerator for 10 minutes each night on both sides of my face while I sit in bed.I practice what I preach.That way I can give them my best face - and tell them it is what I do and mean it! Ive dedicated my life to skin and created my line for products that I felt that were missing in the marketplace. As a busy working mom of three toddlers Im proud to say that Im my own client.

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Celebrity Skincare Guru Nurse Jamie on Why At-Home Beauty Tools Are the Future - W Magazine

Malfunctioning glial cells that keep nerve cells from forming working communication networks may be the basis of the wiring problems in the brains of people with schizophrenia, new research suggests.

The inability of these cells to do their jobappears to be a primary contributor to the disease.

When researchers transplanted human brain cells generated from individuals diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia into mice, the animals nerve cell networks did not mature properly and the mice exhibited the same antisocial and anxious behaviors seen in people with the disease.

The findings of this study argue that glial cell dysfunction may be the basis of childhood-onset schizophrenia, says neurologist Steve Goldman, co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and lead author of the study.

The inability of these cells to do their job, which is to help nerve cells build and maintain healthy and effective communication networks, appears to be a primary contributor to the disease.

Glia are an important family of support cells found in the brain and play a critical role in the development and maintenance of the brains complex interconnected network of neurons. Glia includes two major types: astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.

Astrocytes are the brains principal support cells, while oligodendrocytes are responsible for producing myelin, the fatty tissue that, like the insulation on electrical wires, wraps the axons that connect different nerve cells. The source of both these cells is another cell type called the glial progenitor cell (GPC).

Astrocytes perform several functions in the brain. During development, astrocytes colonize areas of the brain and establish domains in which these cells help direct and organize the network of connections between nerve cells.

Individual astrocytes also send out hundreds of long fibers that interact with synapsesthe junction where one neurons axon meets anothers dendrite. The astrocytes help facilitate the communication between neurons at the synapses by regulating the flow of glutamate and potassium, which enable neurons to fire when they are communicating with each other.

In the new study, the researchers obtained skin cells from individuals with childhood-onset schizophrenia and reprogrammed the cells to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) which, like embryonic stem cells, are capable of giving rise to any cell type found in the body. Next, the team manipulated the iPSCs to create human GPCs.

The human GPCs were then transplanted into the brains of neonatal mice. These cells out-competed the animals own native glia, resulting in mice with brains comprised of animal neurons and human GPCs, oligodendrocytes, and astrocytes.

The researchers observed that human glial cells derived from schizophrenic patients were highly dysfunctional. The development of oligodendrocytes was delayed and the cells did not create enough myelin-producing cells, meaning signal transmission between the neurons was impaired.

The development of astrocytes was similarly tardy so that the cells were not present when needed and were thus ineffective in guiding the formation of connections between neurons. The astrocytes also did not mature properly, resulting in misshapen cells that could not fully support the signaling functions of the neurons around them.

The astrocytes didnt fully mature and their fibers did not fill out their normal domains, meaning that while they provided control to some synapses, others had no coverage, says Martha Windrem, also with the Center for Translational Neuromedicine and first author of the study. As a result, the neural networks in the animals became desynchronized and uncoordinated.

The researchers also subjected the mice to a series of behavioral tests. They observed that the mice with human glial cells from individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia were more fearful, anxious, anti-social, and had a variety of cognitive deficits compared to mice transplanted with human glial cells obtained from healthy people.

The studys authors point out that the new research provides scientists with a foundation to explore new treatments for the disease. Because schizophrenia is a unique to humans, until now scientists have been limited in their ability to study the disease. The new animal model developed the by the researchers can be used to accelerate the process of testing drugs and other therapies in schizophrenia.

The study also identifies a number of glial gene expression flaws that appear to create chemical imbalances that disrupt communication between neurons. These abnormalities could represent targets for new therapies.

Additional coauthors of the study are from the University of Rochester, the University of Copenhagen, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, and Case Western University.

The study appears in the journal Cell. Funding from National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation, the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, and the Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck Foundations supported the research.

Source: University of Rochester

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Glial cells botch wiring in childhood schizophrenia - Futurity: Research News

Advertising forstem cell therapies not supported by clinical researchoftenmadedirectly to patients and sometimes promoted as a cure for diseases like multiple sclerosis or Parkinsons is a growing problem that needs to be addressed and regulated, a team of leading experts say, calling suchstem cell tourism potentially unsafe.

Stem cell tourism is the unflattering name given to the practice of encouragingpatients totravel outside their home country to undergo suchtreatment, typicaly at a private clinic.

The article, titledMarketing of unproven stem cellbased interventions: A call to actionandrecently published inthe journal Science Translational Medicine, was co-authored by scientistswith universities and hospitals in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Belgium, Italy, Japan, and Australia. It focuses on the global problem of thecommercial promotion of stem cell therapies and ongoing resistance to regulatory efforts.

Its authors suggest that a coordinated approach, at national and international levels, be focused on engagement, harmonization, and enforcement in order to reduce risks associated with direct-to-consumer marketing of unproven stem cell treatments.

Treatments involving stem cell transplants are now being offered by hundreds of medical institutions worldwide, claiming efficacy in repairing tissue damaged by degenerative disorders like MS, even thoughthose claim often lack or are supported bylittle evidence .

They alsonoted that the continued availability of these treatments undermines the development of rigorously tested therapies, and potentially canendanger a patients life.

The researchers emphasizethat tighter regulations on stem cell therapy advertising are needed, especiallyregarding potential clinical benefits. They support the establishment ofinternational regulatory standards for the manufacture and testing of human cell and tissue-based therapies.

Many patients feel that potential cures are being held back by red tape and lengthy approval processes. Although this can be frustrating, these procedures are there to protect patients from undergoing needless treatments that could put their lives at risk, Sarah Chan, a University of Edinburgh Chancellors Fellow and report co-author, saidin anews release.

Chan and her colleagues are also calling for the World Health Organization to offer guidance on responsible clinical use of cells and tissues, as it does for medicines and medical devices.

Stem cell therapies hold a lot of promise, Chan said, but we need rigorous clinical trials and regulatory processes to determine whether a proposed treatment is safe, effective and better than existing treatments.

According to the release, the report and its recommendationsfollowed the death of two children at a German clinic in 2010. The clinichas since been shut down.

Certainstem cell therapies mostly involving blood and skin stem cells have undergone rigorous testing in clinical trials, the researchers noted. A number of theseresulted in aprovedtreatments for certain blood cancers, and to grow skin grafts for patients with severe burns.

Information about the current status of stem cell research andpotential uses of stem cell therapiesis availableon the websiteEuroStemCell.

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Experts Call for Tighter Regulation of Stem Cell Therapies in Use at Clinics Worldwide - Multiple Sclerosis News Today

According to recent study, advancements in materials from this study could potentially help patients requiring stem cell therapies for spinal cord injuries, stroke, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease, arthritic joints or any other condition requiring tissue regeneration. Earlier research revolved around the role of autoimmunity in terms of a treatment.

Its important in the context of cell therapies for people to cure these diseases or regenerate tissues that are no longer functional, shared Samuel I. Stupp, director of Northwesterns Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology and Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine and Biomedical Engineering.

Cells in our bodies are constantly being signalled with many types of instructions coming from proteins and other molecules present in the matrices that surround them. For example, these can be cues for cells to express specific genes so they can proliferate or differentiate into several types of cells leading to growth or regeneration of tissues. One of the marvels of this signalling machinery is the built-in capacity in living organisms to make signals stop and restart as needed, or to switch off one signal and activate a different one to orchestrate very complex processes.

The new technology manipulates cells by converting the skin cells to cure a patient with Parkinsons disease. (Shutterstock)

Building artificial materials with this type of dynamic capacity for regenerative therapies has been virtually impossible so far. The new work published today reports the development of the first synthetic material that has the capability to trigger reversibly this type of dynamic signalling. The platform could not only lead to materials that manage stem cells for more effective regenerative therapies, but will also allow scientists to explore and discover in the laboratory new ways to control the fate of cells and their functions.

One of the findings is the possibility of using the synthetic material to signal neural stem cells to proliferate, then at a specific time selected by the operator, trigger their differentiation into neurons and then return the stem cells back to a proliferative state on demand. The paper also reports that spinal cord neural stem cells, initially grouped into structures known as neurospheres, can be driven to spread out and differentiate using a signal.

But when this signal is switched off, the cells spontaneously regroup themselves into colonies. This uncovers strong interactions among these cells that could be important in understanding developmental and regenerative cues. The potential use of the new technology to manipulate cells could help cure a patient with Parkinsons disease. The patients own skin cells could be converted to stem cells using existing techniques.

The new technology could help expand the newly converted stem cells in vitro in the lab and then drive their differentiation into dopamine-producing neurons before transplantation back to the patient. In the new technology, materials are chemically decorated with different strands of DNA, each designed to display a different signal to cells.

People would love to have cell therapies that utilize stem cells derived from their own bodies to regenerate tissue. In principle, this will eventually be possible, but one needs procedures that are effective at expanding and differentiating cells in order to do so. Our technology does that, noted Stupp. While this process is currently only done in vitro with the vision of then transplanting cells, Stupp said in the future it might be possible to perform this process in vivo.

The stem cells would be implanted in the clinic, encapsulated in the type of material described in the new work, via an injection and targeted to a particular spot. Then the soluble molecules would be given to the patient to manipulate proliferation and differentiation of transplanted cells. The study was published in journal Nature Communications.

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Cells may hold key to treating Parkinson's disease - Hindustan Times

NEW YORK & PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RenovaCare, Inc., (OTCQB:RCAR), has announced that its approach to isolating a patients own stem cells for subsequent spray onto burns and wounds has been validated by researchers in Differentiation, a leading peer-reviewed scientific publication. According to their findings, the methodology, which has been adopted by RenovaCare, successfully isolates those specific cell populations with the greatest regenerative capacity to support the growth of fully-functioning skin.

Todays announcement follows recent highlights from an independent analysis of treatment results on a variety of wide-area and severe burn injuries published in Burns, the peer-reviewed Journal of the International Society for Burn Injuries. The treatment method, adopted by RenovaCare, involved isolating and spraying the patients own skin stem cells on the burn wounds, and it is the technology underlying the companys patented CellMist and SkinGun.

(Click here to see before-after photos of severe second-degree burn patients who received skin stem cell spray grafting treatment; Journal Burns.)

RenovaCare harvests a patients stem cells from a small area of skin, as little as one-inch square. These cells are placed in a water-based suspension and delicately sprayed onto the wound using the RenovaCare SkinGun, where the cells begin growing new skin.

As in the case of state trooper Matt Uram, one of dozens of burn victims treated with autologous skin stem cell spray, patients are able to leave the hospital within only a few days rather than the many weeks required by alternative treatments such as in-vitro cultured epithelial grafts.

In contrast to the speed and effectiveness of the RenovaCare procedure -- taking as little as 90-minutes -- in-vitro cultured grafts require harvesting cells from a patient, which are then transported to a specialized external laboratory where they take weeks to form sheets of skin. These fragile sheets must then be sent back to the hospital for surgical stitching onto a patients wounds, a process that is complicated, time-consuming and expensive.

Its very exciting to have this scientific validation that our approach is ideal for rapid and natural skin regeneration, explained Mr. Thomas Bold, President and CEO of RenovaCare, Inc. Weve always had confidence that our methodology isolates the bodys most regenerative cell population before spray application with our ultra-gentle SkinGun.

In the 2015 article published in Differentiation, researchers identified the advantages of freshly-isolated cells and compared their regenerative properties against the concept of culturing skin cells, used to grow sheets of skin.

Findings demonstrate that, under the tested conditions, freshly-isolated skin cells have far greater regenerative capacity than cells which have been repeatedly cultured. Cultured cells lose specific cell populations which support skin regeneration, necessary to healing.

In the RenovaCare approach, adopted from the study, freshly isolated cells derived from the basal layer grow both in size and number and include rapid-cycling cells responsible for quick healing. The high presence of these cells assures entirely natural regeneration of the skin without the use of external chemical support, growth factors, and drugs -- important advantages highlighted by RenovaCare.

According to authors of the Differentiation publication, the approach of applying freshly isolated stem cells to the wound is, A concept that is thought to preserve the proliferative and regenerative capabilities of basal layer derived cells for the patient's wound healing in a more physiological way than applying the cells to the same wound only after several weeks of in vitro culture.

The paper further concludes that by directly applying these freshly-isolated cells onto the wound, the patients own body can provide the nutrients and vascular support needed in order to promote skin regeneration.

The article titled, In vitro keratinocyte expansion for cell transplantation therapy is associated with differentiation and loss of basal layer derived progenitor population, by: Roger Esteban-Vives, Matthew T. Young, Patrick Over, Eva Schmeltzer, Alain Corcos, Jenny Ziembicki, and Jrg Gerlach, was published in June 2015 by Elsevier in Differentiation. (doi: 10.1016/j.diff.2015.05.002.)

Copies of the article are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Elseviers Newsroom at newsroom@elsevier.com or +31 20 485 2492.

Study authors, Dr. Roger Esteban-Vives and Dr. Jrg Gerlach currently have a financial interest in the SkinGun spray-grafting technology through payments from RenovaCare, Inc. Dr. Esteban-Vives, currently Director of Cell Sciences at RenovaCare, Inc., was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh when this work was conducted and did not have such financial interest at that time.

*RenovaCare products are currently in development.They are not available for sale in theUnited States.There is no assurance that the companys planned or filed submissions to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, if any, will be accepted or cleared by the FDA.

AboutBurns

Burnsaims to foster the exchange of information among all engaged in preventing and treating the effects of burns. The journal focuses on clinical, scientific, and social aspects of these injuries and covers the prevention of the injury, the epidemiology of such injuries, and all aspects of treatment including development of new techniques and technologies and verification of existing ones. Regular features include clinical and scientific papers, state of the art reviews, and descriptions of burn-care in practice.

About RenovaCare, Inc.

RenovaCare, Inc. is developing first-of-its-kind autologous (self-donated) stem cell therapies for the regeneration of human organs. Its initial product under development targets the bodys largest organ, the skin. The companys flagship technology, the CellMist System, uses its patented SkinGun to spray a liquid suspension of a patients stem cells the CellMist Solution onto wounds. RenovaCare is developing its CellMist System as a promising new alternative for patients suffering from burns, chronic and acute wounds, and scars. In the US alone, this $45 billion market is greater than the spending on high-blood pressure management, cholesterol treatments, and back pain therapeutics.

For additional information, please call Drew Danielson at: 888-398-0202 or visit: http://renovacareinc.com

To receive future press releases via email, please visit: https://renovacareinc.com/register/

Follow us on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/Renovacareinc or follow us on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/renovacarercar

For answers to frequently asked questions, please visit our FAQs page: https://renovacareinc.com/faqs/

Social Media Disclaimer

Investors and others should note that we announce material financial information to our investors using SEC filings and press releases. We use our website and social media to communicate with our subscribers, shareholders, and the public about the company, RenovaCare, Inc. development, and other corporate matters that are in the public domain. At this time, the company will not post information on social media that could be deemed to be material information unless that information was distributed to public distribution channels first. We encourage investors, the media, and others interested in the company to review the information we post on the companys website and the social media channels listed below:

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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

No statement herein should be considered an offer or a solicitation of an offer for the purchase or sale of any securities. This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although RenovaCare, Inc. (the Company) believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements, which involve assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies, and expectations, are generally identifiable by use of the words may, will, should, could, expect, anticipate, estimate, believe, intend, or project or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including but not limited to: the timing and success of clinical and preclinical studies of product candidates, the potential timing and success of the Companys product programs through their individual product development and regulatory approval processes, adverse economic conditions, intense competition, lack of meaningful research results, entry of new competitors and products, inadequate capital, unexpected costs and operating deficits, increases in general and administrative costs, termination of contracts or agreements, obsolescence of the Company's technologies, technical problems with the Company's research, price increases for supplies and components, litigation and administrative proceedings involving the Company, the possible acquisition of new businesses or technologies that result in operating losses or that do not perform as anticipated, unanticipated losses, the possible fluctuation and volatility of the Company's operating results, financial condition and stock price, losses incurred in litigating and settling cases, dilution in the Company's ownership of its business, adverse publicity and news coverage, inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans, loss or retirement of key executives and research scientists, and other risks. There can be no assurance that further research and development will validate and support the results of our preliminary research and studies. Further, there can be no assurance that the necessary regulatory approvals will be obtained or that the Company will be able to develop commercially viable products on the basis of its technologies. In addition, other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed in the Company's most recent Form 10-Q and Form 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These reports and filings may be inspected and copied at the Public Reference Room maintained by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. You can obtain information about operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission at 1-800-SEC-0330. The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission also maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission athttp://www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect the events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

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Peer-Reviewed Publication Validates RenovaCare Approach to Rapidly-Processing Stem Cells for Burns and Wounds - Business Wire (press release)

July 10, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have a potential solution for how to kill tumor cells that have metastasized to the brain. The team has developed cancer-killing viruses that can deliver stem cells via the carotid artery, and applied them to metastatic tumors in the brain of clinically relevant mouse models. The investigators report the elimination of metastatic skin cancer cells from the brain of these preclinical models, resulting in prolonged survival. The study, published online this week in the journal PNAS, also describes a strategy of combining this therapy with immune check point inhibitors.

"Metastatic brain tumors - often from lung, breast or skin cancers - are the most commonly observed tumors within the brain and account for about 40 percent of advanced melanoma metastases. Current therapeutic options for such patients are limited, particularly when there are many metastases," says Khalid Shah, MS, PhD, director of the Center for Stem Cell Therapeutics and Imaging (CSTI) in the BWH Department of Neurosurgery, who led the study. "Our results are the first to provide insight into ways of targeting multiple brain metastatic deposits with stem-cell-loaded oncolytic viruses that specifically kill dividing tumor cells."

In their search for novel, tumor-specific therapies that could target multiple brain metastases without damaging adjacent tissues, the research team first developed different BRAF wild type and mutant mouse models that more closely mimic what is seen in patients. They found that injecting patient-derived, brain-seeking melanoma cells into the carotid artery of these preclinical models resulted in the formation of many metastatic tumors throughout the brain, mimicking what is seen in advanced melanoma cancer patients. The injected cells express markers that allow them to enter the brain and are labelled with bioluminescent and fluorescent markers to enable tracking by imaging technologies.

To devise a potential new therapy, the investigators engineered a population of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells loaded with oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV), which specifically kills dividing cancer cells while sparing normal cells. Previous research by Shah and his colleagues shows that different stem cell types are naturally attracted toward tumors in the brain. After first verifying that stem cells injected to the brain would travel to multiple metastatic sites and not to tumor-free areas in their model, the team injected stem cells loaded with oHSV into the carotid artery of metastasis-bearing mice.. Injecting the stem cells loaded with oHSV into the carotid artery, a likely strategy for clinical application, led to significantly slower tumor growth and increased survival, compared with the models that received unaltered stem cells or control injections. The oHSV loaded stem cells are ultimately killed by oHSV mediated oncolysis, preventing the engineered cells from persisting within the brain, which is an important safety component in the therapeutic use of these stem cells.

Due to an increasing body of evidence which suggests that the host immune response may be critical to the efficacy of oncolytic virotherapy, Shah and his colleagues also developed an immunocompetent melanoma mouse model and explored treating with both stem cell loaded oHSV and immune checkpoint blockers such as the ones that target the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway. They found that PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade significantly improved the therapeutic efficacy of stem cell based oncolytic virotherapy in melanoma brain metastasis.

"We are currently developing similar animal models of brain metastasis from other cancer types as well as new oncolytic viruses that have the ability to specifically kill a wide variety of resistant tumor cells," said Shah, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School and a principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. "We are hopeful that our findings will overcome problems associated with current clinical procedures. This work will have direct implications for designing clinical trials using oncolytic viruses for metastatic tumors in the brain."

Explore further: Stem-cell-based therapy promising for treatment of breast cancer metastases in the brain

More information: Wanlu Du el al., "In vivo imaging of the fate and therapeutic efficacy of stem cell-loaded oncolytic herpes simplex virus in advanced melanoma," PNAS (2017). http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1700363114

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Stem cell-based therapy for targeting skin-to-brain cancer - Medical Xpress

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Stem cell science is an area of medical research that continues to offer great promise. But as this weeks paper in Science Translational Medicine highlights, a growing number of clinics around the globe, including in Australia, are exploiting regulatory gaps to sell so-called stem cell treatments without evidence that what they offer is effective or even safe.

Such unregulated direct-to-consumer advertising typically of cells obtained using liposuction-like methods not only places the health of individuals at risk, but could also undermine the legitimate development of stem cell-based therapies.

Many academic societies and professional medical organisations have raised concerns about these futile and often expensive cell therapies. Despite this, national regulators have typically been slow or ineffective in curtailing them.

As well as tighter regulations here, international regulators such as the World Health Organisation and the International Council on Harmonisation need to move on ensuring patients desperate for cures arent sold treatments with limited efficacy and unknown safety.

Hundreds of stem cell clinics post online claims that they have been able to treat patients suffering from a wide range of conditions. These include osteoarthritis, pain, spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and infertility. The websites are high on rhetoric of science often using various accreditation, awards and other tokens to imply legitimacy but low on proof that they work.

osteoporosis strong bones workout old lady

Donna McWilliam/APRather than producing independently verified results, these clinics rely on patient testimonials or unsubstantiated claims of improvement. In so doing these shonky clinics understate the risks to patient health associated with these unproven stem cell-based interventions.

Properly administered informed consent is often overlooked or ignored, so patients can be misled about the likelihood of success. In addition to heavy financial burdens imposed on patients and their families, there is often an opportunity cost because the time wasted in receiving futile stem cells diverts patients away from proven medicines.

The many recent reports of adverse outcomes demonstrate the risks of receiving unproven cell therapies are not trivial. In the USA three women were blinded following experimental stem cell treatment for macular degeneration (a degenerative eye disease that can cause blindness). One man was rendered a quadriplegic following a stem cell intervention for stroke. And a woman whose family sought treatment for her dementia died in Australia.

Other notorious cases involving the deaths of patients include the German government shutting down the X-Cell Centre and the Italian government closing the Stamina Foundation it had previously supported.

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REUTERS/Juan Carlos UlateAt present, the only recognised stem cell treatments are those utilising blood stem cells isolated from bone marrow, peripheral blood (the cellular components of blood such as red and white blood cells and platelets) or umbilical cord blood.

Hundreds of thousand of lives have been saved over the last half-century in patients with cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, as well as rare inherited immune and metabolic disorders.

A few types of cancer and autoimmune diseases may also benefit from blood stem cells in the context of chemotherapy. Different stem cells are also successfully used for corneal and skin grafting.

All other applications remain in the preclinical research phase or are just starting to be evaluated in clinical trials.

Often dismissed by for-profit clinics as red tape hampering progress, the rigour of clinical trials allows for the collection of impartial evidence. Such information is usually required before a new drug or medical device is released into the marketplace. Unfortunately, in the case of for-profit stem cell clinics, their marketing has gazumped the scientific evidence.

Action is required on many fronts. Regulators at both an international and national level need to tackle regulatory loopholes and challenge unfounded marketing claims of businesses selling unproven stem cell interventions.

Researchers need to more clearly communicate their findings and the necessary next steps to responsibly take their science from the laboratory to the clinic. And they should acknowledge that this will take time.

Patients and their loved ones must be encouraged to seek advice from a trained reputable health care professional, someone who knows their medical history. They should think twice if someone is offering a treatment outside standards of practice.

The stakes are too high not to have these difficult conversations. If a stem cell treatment sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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Private clinics are peddling untested stem cell treatments it's unethical and dangerous - Yahoo News UK

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We know from experience that patients having scars find them particularly unattractive and mentally stressful. Scars form after wounds have finished healing, when deeper skin layers have been injured. Skin injuries can be caused by an accident, a skin disease or burns. So-called pregnancy stretch marks are also scars.

At first, scars will be red due to the large number of blood vessels. The scar tissue then gradually lightens in color, because the amount of collagenous fibers increases over time. From a medical point of view, scar tissue is an inferior kind of tissue and if put under a certain amount of pressure, so-called scar hernias can be a result thereof.

The formation of scars cannot be prevented after the deeper skin layers have been injured. The chances of the scar healing without too many traces increase, if the wound is treated well during the healing process.

If your wound healing process is already completed and scar tissue has formed, further treatment depends on the cause of the injury and type of scarring. In any case, we require your autologous stem cells obtained from your body fat. It is necessary to extract a small amount of your bodys own fat in order to obtain the stem cells. In accordance with your wishes, liposuction is carried out with microcannulas or regular cannulas.

The question as to whether the scars will be treated with stem cells only or if scar tissue has to be removed depends on the scar itself:

Post-surgery care is minimal: Treatment is on an outpatient basis; afterwards, you are fully mobile and normally can go back to work without any restrictions. We will provide you with individual recommendations for your post-treatment care according to the extent and type of area treated and will give you support during the healing process.

Schedule consultation appointment

Last updated: February 24, 2015

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Treatment of Scars with Stem Cells :: Stem Cell Skin ...

Sick people seeking unproven stem cell treatments are putting their lives at risk, experts warn, amid calls to urgently tighten global regulations on the potentially deadly "stem cell tourism treatments".

Stem cell tourism sees patients buy heavily marketed but largely unproven and potentially dangerous treatments. Some travel overseas and several have died, including a woman in Australia.

Writing in Science Translational Medicine, 15 experts from Australia, the UK, U.S, Canada, Belgium, Italy and Japan say the global marketing of unproven stem cell based treatments is growing in the likes of Japan, Australia and the U.S.

This is despite a lack of clinical evidence and public concern expressed by scientific organisations.

"Moreover, often, providers acknowledge neither this deficit nor the potential harms to patients who receive them," the paper read.

Contributors included Associate Professor Megan Munsie, a University of Melbourne stem cell scientist and co-author of 'Stem Cell Tourism and the Political Economy of Hope' (Palgrave Macmillan), and Professor Jane Kaye, a lawyer holding positions at Melbourne Law School and the University of Oxford.

Munsie said if a patient's own cells are used, Australia's industry is "virtually unregulated".

"We need immediate action in Australia and a coordinated international regulatory effort to curb this exploitative but growing industry."

Australian authorities issued warnings about unproven stem cell treatments in 2014 after Brisbane mother-of-two Kellie van Meurs died of a heart attack while undergoing the treatment for a rare neurological disorder in Moscow, Russia.

Some countries, such as Italy and Germany, have reportedly taken action against stem cell treatment providers. But the authors say such examples are rare.

"Effective measures for regulating this sector both nationally and internationally are urgently needed," the paper read.

The authors said stem cell treatments must be fully evaluated and regulated before use. Most countries, however, do not have clear rules or regulations.

"Evidence standards in the context of commercial advertising, market authorisation, and standard of care often vary considerably, as do the enforcement options available to national regulators," the paper read.

Some treatments using blood and skin stem cells have been rigorously tested and found they could treat certain types of cancer and grow skin grafts for burns patients.

But other potential therapies are only in the earliest stages of development and have not been approved.

"Stem cell therapies hold a lot of promise, but we need rigorous clinical trials and regulatory processes to determine whether a proposed treatment is safe, effective and better than existing treatments," one of the 15 experts, Sarah Chan of Britain's University of Edinburgh, told Reuters.

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Experts Warn Against Medical Tourism For Unproven Stem Cell Treatments - Huffington Post Australia

By Reuters By Reuters July 8 at 8:47 AM

Stem cell tourism in which patients travel to developing countries for unproven and potentially risky therapies should be more tightly regulated, according to a group of international health experts.

With hundreds of medical centers around the world claiming to be able to repair tissue damaged by conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinsons disease, tackling unscrupulous advertising of such procedures is crucial.

These therapies are advertised directly to patients with the promise of a cure, but there is often little or no evidence to show they will help or that they will not cause harm, the 15 experts wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Some types of stem cell transplant mainly using blood and skin stem cells have been approved by regulators after full clinical trials found they could treat certain types of cancer and grow skin grafts for burn patients.

But many other potential therapies are only in the earliest stages of development and have not been approved by regulators.

Stem cell therapies hold a lot of promise, but we need rigorous clinical trials and regulatory processes to determine whether a proposed treatment is safe, effective and better than existing treatments, said one of the 15, Sarah Chan of Britains University of Edinburgh.

The experts called for global action, led by the World Health Organization, to introduce controls on advertising and to agree on international standards for the manufacture and testing of cell- and tissue-based therapies.

The globalization of health markets and the specific tensions surrounding stem cell research and its applications have made this a difficult challenge, they wrote. However, the stakes are too high not to take a united stance.

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'Stem-cell tourism' needs tighter controls, say medical experts - Washington Post

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LIMA Employers in the greater West Central Ohio region will collect $33 million in rebates from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation in checks that will be mailed beginning next week.

BWC Administrator/CEO Sarah Morrison, in Lima to present a ceremonial check to local business leaders, said employers are free to spend their rebates as they wish, but she hopes they will consider investing in workplace safety.

We work with employers all over Ohio to prevent injuries and illness in the workplace, and they will tell you that investing in safety is a wise business decision, said Morrison, speaking at a press conference at the Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce. Safe workplaces mean fewer injuries, fewer medical claims and a stable workforce, all of which leads to a healthy bottom line for a business.

Morrison was joined by chamber President/CEO Jed Metzger and Tony Daley of Limas Spallinger Millwright Services Inc. Metzger and Daley accepted the check on behalf of employers in the entire region, which includes Allen, Auglaize, Shelby, Hancock, Putnam, and Van Wert counties.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich proposed the rebate in March. Its the third such rebate in the last four years, made possible by an improving safety climate, prudent fiscal management and strong investment returns. The plan to distribute rebates to more than 200,000 Ohio employers during the month of July was approved by BWCs Board of Directors in April. Visitbwc.ohio.govfor more details and eligibility requirements.

The plan also includes a $44 million investment innew health and safety initiativesto promote a healthy workforce and a culture of safety in every Ohio workplace. This includes a new wellness program for small employers, funding for programs to help firefighters and those who work with children and adults with disabilities, and an education campaign to address common injuries at work and in the home.

A healthy economy depends on a strong and healthy workforce, Morrison continued. And when the economy is healthy, we all benefit.

Rebate checks will be mailed in phases starting July 10.

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Cialis and penile size - High blood pressure specialists - Van Wert independent

LONDON Stem-cell tourism involving patients who travel to developing countries for treatment with unproven and potentially risky therapies should be more tightly regulated, international health experts said on Wednesday.

With hundreds of medical centers around the world claiming to be able to repair damaged tissue in conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, tackling unscrupulous advertising of such procedures is crucial.

These therapies are advertised directly to patients with the promise of a cure, but there is often little or no evidence to show they will help, or that they will not cause harm, the 15 experts wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Some types of stem cell transplant mainly using blood and skin stem cells have been approved by regulators after full clinical trials found they could treat certain types of cancer and grow skin grafts for burns patients.

But many other potential therapies are only in the earliest stages of development and have not been approved by international regulators.

"Stem cell therapies hold a lot of promise, but we need rigorous clinical trials and regulatory processes to determine whether a proposed treatment is safe, effective and better than existing treatments," said one of the 15, Sarah Chan of Britain's University of Edinburgh.

The experts called for global action, led by the World Health Organization, to introduce controls on advertising and agree international standards for the manufacture and testing of cell and tissue-based therapies.

"The globalization of health markets and the specific tensions surrounding stem cell research and its applications

have made this a difficult challenge," they wrote. "However, the stakes are too high not to take a united stance."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by John Stonestreet)

LONDON, July 7 At least three people worldwide are infected with totally untreatable "superbug" strains of gonorrhoea which they are likely to be spreading to others through sex, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

(Reuters Health) - Young women who suffer a concussion may be at increased risk of menstrual irregularities, at least for a few months, suggests a new U.S. study.

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'Stem-cell tourism' needs tighter controls, say medical experts - Reuters

High-tech beauty tools on the market are going futuristic to help you look your best.

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Typically, only between 1 percent and 10 percent of skin care topicals are absorbed into the skin, and the rest is wasted. The JeNu PLUS Ultrasonic Infuser emits 365,000 pulses of ultrasonic energy per second to push more skin care product into skin for maximum absorption; increasing absorption by up to 75x. Use with a proprietary MicroSphere Gel (sold separately) to maximize skin care product absorption. You can purchase the infuser at https://www.jenu.com/infuser-plus

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HiMirror is the worlds first smart beauty mirror its like having a virtual beauty consultant! The intuitive, touch-free design gives you a beauty, skin, and health analysis. The Smart Body Scale is an accessory to the HiMirror, and it measures weight, body fat percentage, body mass index, total body water, skeletal muscle mass, bone mass, and basal metabolic rate. All data is displayed on a simple interface. You can purchase the products at https://www.himirror.com/us_en/home

For more beauty tips, tricks and product recommendations, subscribe to Beauty News with Angela Cruz at http://www.youtube.com/AngelaCruzTube.

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High-tech beauty products - WPTV.com

A U.S. biomedical researcher believes most babies will be made in the lab instead of the bedroom within the next two to three decades -- a bold prediction that could halt genetic predisposition to certain diseases and introduce a new plane of biological inequality.

Hank Greely, the director of Stanford Law Schools Center for Law and the Biosciences, told attendees at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this week that replacing sex as the primary means of baby-making will save women from undergoing fertility treatments, reduce health care costs, and give non-traditional families more avenues to have children.

Greely predicts most prospective parents will soon opt to choose from a range of embryos created by taking female skin samples and using stem cells to create eggs, which are then fertilized with sperm.

The range of embryos would be audited for genetically transmitted diseases such as Huntingtons, and perhaps even DNA indicators for breast cancer and Alzheimers. The process could also allow for the selection of cosmetic features, like hair and eye colour, and even complex traits such as intelligence.

Some of this can already take place through costly pre-implantation genetic diagnostics and in vitro fertilization. But Greely imagines, in the future, such selection will become commonplace as the technology becomes cheaper and perhaps even subsidized due to the offset in other medical costs.

University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman warns that widespread adoption of multiple embryo selection would be quite a deviation from the status-quo, and would mark a shift that makes longstanding fears about genetic predetermination a reality.

It could lead to inequality. Who could afford such a technique? he asked CTV News Channel on Thursday. When we have some people that are selected to the point of almost being enhanced, weve got more inequality added on top of that.

Beyond the issue of cost and the ethical taboo of so-called designer babies, Bowman points to the moral implications of creating additional embryos with the knowledge that some will be discarded.

What are you going to do with them? He (Greely) seems to be talking about a very large amount of embryos. That is one concern, Bowman said.

With that in mind, however, he expects many people will embrace the rise of scientific intervention in human reproduction for the mere possibility of diminishing the risk of disease.

If you could prevent a child being born into a life of suffering, most people would be very supportive of that, Bowman said. Historically, weve thrown the dice.

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Sex for procreation will be obsolete in 30 years, researcher says - CTV News

Equine mesenchymal stromal cells have been shown to have antibacterial properties, raising the possibility they could aid in healing troublesome skin wounds in humans and horses.

Mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, are multipotent connective-tissue cells that can differentiate into a variety of cell types, including bone cartilage, muscle and fat.

Chronic skin wounds in humans are common and their treatment is often complicated by pathogenic bacteria. Therefore, safe and innovative treatments to reduce the bacterial load in such wounds are needed.

MSCs have been reported to provide local hormonal signals that promote healing in skin wounds. However, the effects of equine MSCs on the growth of bacteria commonly found in skin wounds has not, until now, been explored.

Researchers from the College of Veterinary Medicine at New Yorks Cornell University have been the first to show that equine MSCs possess antimicrobial properties which stymied the growth of Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).

The MSCs did so in part by secreting antimicrobial peptides and depolarizing the bacterial cell membranes.

Rebecca Harman, Gerlinde Van de Walle, Steven Yang, and Megan He, writing in the journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy, said they focused on the antibacterial properties of MSCs from horses, as this animal model offered a readily translatable model for therapies in humans.

The study team described the laboratory experiment they set up, in which MSCs were isolated from the blood of healthy horses. The bacteria were cultured in the presence of MSCs and an MSC conditioned medium a processed fluid containing all factors secreted by the cells.

They found that both the MSCs and the MSC conditioning medium inhibited the growth of both bacteria, and that the conditioning medium depolarized the cell membranes of these bacteria.

The conditioning medium was found to contain four antimicrobial peptides, cystatin C, elafin, lipocalin 2, and cathelicidin. These appeared to be at least partially responsible for the antibacterial action.

They also looked for the presence of beta defensin 2 in equine MSCs since it has been found to be secreted by human umbilical cord-derived MSCs. It belongs to a widespread family of antimicrobial peptides found in most mammals, including horses. To the surprise of the research team, they could not detect beta defensin 2 in equine MSCs.

Our results, they concluded, demonstrate that equine MSCs inhibit bacterial growth and secrete factors that compromise the membrane integrity of bacteria commonly found in skin wounds.

There appeared to be a difference in the underlying mechanisms targeting each species, withdifferent secreted factors appearing to target different bacteria.

It will be interesting, they said, to study the effects of the MSC conditioning medium on additional bacterial species commonly found in equine skin wounds. The findings will likely be relevant to human as well as veterinary medicine, they said.

Since we found that equine MSCs secrete a variety of antimicrobial peptides that appear effective against both gram-positive [S. Aureus]and gram-negative [E.Coli] bacteria, these cells may serve as a broad-spectrum treatment to control bacterial growth and kill bacteria, without leading to resistance.

The study team said they now intended to evaluate the effectiveness of equine MSCs in healing both acute and chronic wounds.

Antimicrobial peptides secreted by equine mesenchymal stromal cells inhibit the growth of bacteria commonly found in skin wounds Rebecca M. Harman, Steven Yang, Megan K. He and Gerlinde R. Van de Walle Stem Cell Research & Therapy 2017 8:157 DOI: 10.1186/s13287-017-0610-6

The study, published under a Creative Commons License, can be read here.

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Mesenchymal stromal cells from horses show potential for healing skin wounds - Horsetalk

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UCI-led study to advance understanding of the role of micoglia in Alzheimers disease

Using human skin cells, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists and their colleagues have created a method to generate one of the principle cell types of the brain called microglia, which play a key role in preserving the function of neural networks and responding to injury and disease. The finding marks an important step in the use of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for targeted approaches to better understand and potentially treat neurological diseases such as Alzheimers. These iPS cells are derived from existing adult skin cells and show increasing utility as a promising approach for studying human disease and developing new therapies. Skin cells were donated from patients at the UCI Alzheimers Disease Research Center. The study, led by Edsel Abud, Wayne Poon and Mathew Blurton Jones of UCI, used a genetic process to reprogram these cells into a pluripotent state capable of developing into any type of cell or tissue of the body.

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Skin Stem Cells Used to Generate New Brain Cells - AANS ...

Scientists have discovered that microscopic 'vampire' amoebae existed hundreds of millions of years ago, and they may have been some of the first predators on Earth. By examining ancient fossils with an electron microscope, paleobiologist Susannah Porter from UC Santa Barbara discovered tiny holes which may have been drilled by vampiric microbes. The tiny creatures are believed to be the ancestors of modern Vampyrellidae amoebae, and punctured holes in their prey before sucking out the contents of their cells

Susannah Porter

An Earth-like planet orbiting a star 1,200 light years away could have conditions suitable for life, say scientists. Kepler 62f is about 40 per cent larger than the Earth and may possess surface oceans. It is the outermost of five planets circling a star that is smaller and cooler than the sun discovered by the American space agency Nasa's Kepler space telescope in 2013

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Scientists have taken a leaf out of the script of The Martian by showing how easy it would be to grow your own veg on the Red Planet. In the hit Ridley Scott film, a stranded astronaut played by Matt Damon uses his botanical skills to cultivate potatoes. Now his success has been emulated by researchers in the Netherlands who harvested tomatoes, peas, rye, rocket, radish and cress raised on simulated Martian soil supplied by Nasa

An ancient Roman estate complete with its own wine press and bathhouse has been unearthed in Jerusalem. A series of buildings dating back at least 1,600 years were discovered underneath the city's famous Schneller Orphanage which operated on the site from 1860 until the end of the Second World War, when it was turned into an army base. The ruins were discovered by archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority who were excavating the site ahead of building new flats for the city's Orthodox Jewish community

Scientists believe they may have found a new species of octopus likened in appearance to Casper, the friendly cartoon ghost. Researchers with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made the discovery by chance as they searched the seabed on an unrelated mission collecting geological samples. Teams were operating an unmanned submarine on the Pacific Ocean floor at depths of more than four kilometres (two-and-a-half miles) in the Hawaiian Islands when they spotted the unusual creature

Astronomers have captured a black hole eating a star and then sicking a bit of it back up for the first time ever. The scientists tracked a star about as big as our sun as it was pulled from its normal path and into that of a supermassive black hole before being eaten up. They then saw a high-speed flare get thrust out, escaping from the rim of the black hole. Scientists have seen black holes killing and swallowing stars. And the jets have been seen before.But a new study shows the first time that they have captured the hot flare that comes out just afterwards. And the flare and then swallowed star have not been linked together before

Brains cannot be categorised into female and male, according to the first study to look at sex differences in the whole brain. Specific parts of the brain do show sex differences, but individual brains rarely have all male traits or all female traits. Some characteristics are more common in women, while some are more common in men, and some are common in both men and women, according to the study

A British scientist has uncovered the fossil of a dog-sized horned dinosaur that roamed eastern North America up to 100 million years ago. The fragment of jaw bone provides evidence of an east-west divide in the evolution of dinosaurs on the North American continent. During the Late Cretaceous period, 66 to 100 million years ago, the land mass was split into two continents by a shallow sea. This sea, the Western Interior Seaway, ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Dinosaurs living in the western continent, called Laramidia, were similar to those found in Asia

A huge asteroid is set to skim by Earth on Halloween, just three weeks after it was first spotted. The rock is travelling through space at 78,000 miles per hour, and will fly past the Earth at a distance of only 300,000 miles only slightly further away than our moon, and easily close enough for Nasa to class it a potentially hazardous object. The asteroid is bigger than a skyscraper

Life may have come to earth 4.1 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of years earlier than we knew. The discovery, made using graphite that was trapped in ancient crystals, could mean that life began "almost instantaneously" after the Earth was formed. The researchers behind it have described the discovery as a potentially transformational scientific advance. Previously, life on Earth was understood to have begun when the inner solar system was hit by a massive bombardment from space, which also formed the moon's craters

Earth could be in danger as our galaxy throws out comets that could hurtle towards us and wipe us out, scientists have warned. Scientists have previously presumed that we are in a relatively safe period for meteor impacts, which are linked with the journey of our sun and its planets, including Earth, through the Milky Way. But some orbits might be more upset than we know, and there is evidence of recent activity, which could mean that we are passing through another meteor shower. Showers of meteors periodically pass through the area where the Earth is, as gravitational disturbances upset the Oort Cloud, which is a shell of icy objects on the edge of the solar system. They happen on a 26-million year cycle, scientists have said, which coincide with mass extinctions over the last 260-million years

Chinese scientists have created genetically-engineered, extra-muscular dogs, after editing the genes of the animals for the first time. The scientists create beagles that have double the amount of muscle mass by deleting a certain gene, reports the MIT Technology Review. The mutant dogs have more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications, Liangxue Lai, one of the researchers on the project. Now the team hope to go on to create other modified dogs, including those that are engineered to have human diseases like muscular dystrophy or Parkinsons. Since dogs anatomy is similar to those of humans, intentionally creating dogs with certain human genetic traits could allow scientists to further understand how they occur

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae or dark patches on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts.

With warmer summers, flowers in the Rockies have become shallower and more suited to shorter-tongued bees

The titular alien character from 2011's 'Paul' - a poll has found the majority of the public in Britain, Germany and the US believe that intelligent life is out there in the universe

Scientists say that the new dinosaur, known as Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, challenges everything we thought about a dinosaurs physiology. Florida State University professor of biological science Greg Erickson said: It creates this natural question. How did they survive up here?

New research has become the first to isolate the particular scent of human death, describing the various chemicals that are emitted by corpses in an attempt to help find them in the future. The researchers hope that the findings are the first step towards working on a synthetic smell that could train cadaver dogs to be able to more accurately find human bodies, or to eventually developing electronic devices that can look for the scent themselves.

Researchers in the Middle East have asked for seeds including those of wheat, barley and grasses, all of which are chosen because especially resistant to dry conditions. It is the first withdrawal from the bank, which was built in 2008. Those researchers would normally request the seeds from a bank in Aleppo. But that centre has been damaged by the war while some of its functions continue, and its cold storage still works, it has been unable to provide the seeds that are needed by the rest of the Middle East, as it once did.

Illustrations of the Earth and moon show the two to be quite close together, Mr Overstreet said. This is inaccurate, the reason being that these images are not to scale.

People lie more convincingly if they have a full bladder, according to research by academics at California State University. Iris Blandn-Gitlin's team asked 22 students to lie to a panel of interviewers. Half were given 700ml to drink before the interview and the other half, just 50ml. The students with the full bladders showed fewer signs that they were lying and their untrue answers were longer and more detailed, meaning interviewers were less able to detect that they were telling porkies. PM David Cameron has previously attested to giving speeches on a full bladder.

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Within 30 years we will no longer use sex to procreate, says Stanford professor - The Independent

Within three decades, we won't be making babies naturally, apparently.

That's the opinion of one Stanford University professor, who believes thatmaking a baby will be carried out in a lab.

Hank Greely, the director of Stanford's Centre of Law and Biosciences claims that the reproductive process will start by parents choosing from a rangeof embryos with their DNA.

Even though this already takes place for people who struggle to conceive, Hank thinks it will become cheaper and the safest option in the long run.

The process would involve taking a female's skin sample to make stem cells, which would then be used to create eggs.

The eggs are then fertilised by sperm cells, which produce the embryos.

"I think one of the hardest things about this will be all the divorces that come about when she wants embryo number 15 and he wants embryo number 64, Hanksaid at Aspen Ideas Festive,Tribunereported.

I think the decision making will be a real challenge for people. How do you weigh a slightly higher chance of diabetes with slightly lower risk of schizophrenia against better musical ability and a much lower risk of colon cancer? Good luck.

Well, it'll certainly be interesting to see.

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In 30 years we won't be having sex to make babies, says science - SHEmazing