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

Read the rest here:
Gene therapy via skin could treat many diseases, even obesity - Medical Xpress

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

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.

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

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

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.

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

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Despite best efforts to do no harm, clinicians should be prepared to respond to patients who experience adverse outcomes even if everything is done right. Often thought to refer only to medical error, the term iatrogenesischaracterizes a wider range of possible health care outcomes that are, as the Greek etymology suggests,physician-generated. Iatrogenic outcomes are particularly fraught in pediatrics, due to childrens inherent vulnerability as patients who typically lack decision-making authority.

This months issue of theAMA Journal of Ethicsgrapples with neglected clinical and ethical questions about pediatric iatrogenesis, including how clinicians communicate iatrogenic risks to patients parents or guardians, how clinicians manage therapies with inevitable iatrogenic harms, as well as how clinicians might consider, respond to, and mitigate iatrogenic consequences of their practices.

Take a moment to consider this question: A 12-year-old girl identifies as a boy, has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria (GD), and wants to begin gender transitioning with prepuberty hormone therapy. Her physician worries about the long-term iatrogenic risks of therapy. How should the physician respond?

Give your answer and find responses to this question in theAugust issueof theAMA Journal of Ethics,which features numerous perspectives on ethical questions related to pediatric iatrogenesis.

Articles include:

Should Clinicians Medicate Against Structural Violence? Potential Iatrogenic Risks and the Need for Social Interventions.Physicians should weigh not only the iatrogenic risks of off-label antipsychotic medications but also the possible consequences of failing to treat related, complicating social factors. Advocates must address structural violence and failures of imagination in their efforts to improve mental-health equity among vulnerable youth.

How Should Physicians Help Gender-Transitioning Adolescents Consider Potential Iatrogenic Harms of Hormone Therapy?Counseling and treatment of transgender youth can be challenging for mental-health practitioners, as increased availability of gender-affirming treatments in recent years raises ethical and clinical questions. In cases involving adolescents, it is critical that clinicians communicate appropriate expectations about the effectiveness and limitations of hormone therapy, as well as the risks of psychological and physical iatrogenic effects.

Are Physicians Blameworthy for Iatrogenic Harm Resulting from Unnecessary Genital Surgeries?Physicians should, in certain cases, be held accountable by patients and their families for harm caused by successful genital surgeries performed for social and aesthetic reasons.It is important for physicians not just to know when and why to perform genital surgery, but also to understand how their patients might react to wrongful performance of these procedures, and to respond to their own blameworthiness in socially productive and morally restorative ways.

Clowning as a Complementary Approach for Reducing Iatrogenic Effects in Pediatrics.Hospitalized children who undergo painful procedures are more susceptible than others to experiencing iatrogenic effects, such as anxiety, pain and stress. Clowns in the clinical setting have been found to be effective in reducing childrens experiences of these effects during hospitalization and before procedures.

The AMACode of Medical Ethics Opinions Related to Iatrogenesis in Pediatrics. Although any patient can experience an iatrogenic outcome, pediatric patients are the most vulnerable to life-threatening complications. The AMACode of Medical Ethicsdoes not have any opinions that address iatrogenesis in pediatrics specifically, but it does offer guidance on pediatric decision making, preventing error and harm, and disclosing errors.

In the journals August podcast, Robert Nelson, MD, PhD, MDiv, a senior pediatric ethicist with the Food and Drug Administration, discusses strategies for communicating about iatrogenic outcomes with the parents and guardians of pediatric patients. Later in the episode, Gigi McMillan, the mother of a pediatric brain-tumor survivor, discusses how networks of peer mentors can help families navigate these painful situations.

The journals editorial focus is on commentaries and articles that offer practical advice and insights for medical students and physicians.Submit a manuscriptfor publication. The journal alsoinvitesoriginal photographs, graphics, cartoons, drawings and paintings that explore the ethical dimensions of health or health care.

The journal is accepting applications from medical students, residents and fellows (MDs or DOs) in U.S.-based programs to serve as theme issue editors for monthly issues to be published from November 2018 through October 2019. Learn more.

Upcoming issues of theAMA Journal of Ethicswill focus on incarceration and correctional health care as well as clean-water access and the roles of clinicians.Sign upto receive email alerts when new issues are published.

Continue reading here:
Pediatricians must address adverse outcomes with compassion, resolve - American Medical Association (blog)

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

Map A: Distribution by county of recorded presence of Lyme carrying ticks across the US between 19071996 (from Dennis et al. 1998). Map B: between 19072015 (from Eisen et al. 2016)

Research Triangle Park, NC (PRWEB) August 03, 2017

Global Lyme Diagnostics has announced that Dr. Mark Filidei, and Dr. Jodie Dashore have joined GLD's Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Filidei is an Internal Medicine physician and is the Director of Integrative/Functional Medicine for the Amen Clinics. Dr. Filidei is highly experienced in integrative/functional medicine modalities as well as conventional medicine and sees patients in person at the Amen Clinics Southern California. He was previously the medical director of the Whitaker Wellness Institute, the largest Integrative Medicine clinic in the United States where he spent over a decade treating thousands of patients for multiple complex medical issues. Dr. Filidei is an ILADS trained physician, which is the largest group of Lyme literate doctors in the world. He also has a special interest in diagnosing and treating CIRS (chronic inflammatory response syndrome) which is caused by toxic mold exposure. Dr Filidei lectures nationally on topics including the integrative approach to mental health, hormone replacement therapy, brain health, memory loss and Alzheimers disease, and mold and Lyme disease related issues.

Dr. Filidei correctly diagnosed Kris Kristofferson with Lyme Disease, after Kristofferson was misdiagnosed numerous times, with maladies ranging from Alzheimer's to fibromyalgia. The story was covered by news organizations such as CBS and was posted on the CMT website on July 8, 2016.

Dr. Jodie A. Dashore - Dr. Dashore has been a Lyme Literate Clinical practitioner since 2010. She specializes in an Integrative, alternative and plant-based medicine approach to Tick Borne Diseases and has been helping patients with Tick borne Infections from 11 countries around the globe. Dr. Dashore has given numerous national and international lectures on an integrative approach to Tick Borne infections. She is internationally recognized as a pioneering scientist and researcher who has coined the term "Complex Autism" (TM) to include Autism complicated with Tick Borne infections and other comorbid conditions.

Global Lyme Diagnostics has developed a breakthrough diagnostic solution specific to Lyme Disease that is grounded in science. The GLD test, developed by Dr. Marconi, is designed to significantly decrease the number of patients being misdiagnosed.

Dr. Marconis research has led to a novel breakthrough called chimeritopes which increase sensitivity by eliminating proteins that are not relevant to a Lyme infection (non-OsPC targets) and can further reduce false negatives by targeting Lyme causing bacteria variants across the North American spectrum. After licensing this technology platform and related intellectual property developed in Dr. Marconis lab at Virginia Commonwealth University, GLD focused on creating a highly accurate and reproducible solution.

"We are very pleased to have Dr. Filidei and Dr. Dashore join our Scientific Advisory Board. Their clinical advice will be extremely valuable in furthering GLDs science to help the global Lyme community, " stated Mickey Ramchandani, CEO of Global Lyme Diagnostics. "Misdiagnosis is a core issue, as Lyme Disease can masquerade as many things - juvenile arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis and a host of other diseases. We are passionate about providing a diagnostic solution that decreases the misdiagnosis of Lyme Disease."

After years of research GLD has also just launched the GLD test, specific to Lyme Disease, which can be requested by clinicians at physician kit request. Patients that would like to request a kit to take to their clinicians can do so here. Note: The GLD Test is not yet available for CA, FL, or NY residents.

More information about GLD, including the science behind the new test and the Global Lyme Diagnostics team is available at the website at https://glymedx.com.

About Global Lyme Diagnostics:

GLD was formed with the sole purpose of providing a solution to the Lyme community including, physicians, clinicians, patients, advocates and families. Its initial focus is to develop and launch a test that is grounded in science and provides an answer to the challenges related to tests on the market. In addition to launching of their new test, GLD is working with the Lyme community and physicians to develop screening opportunities for worried individuals in Lyme endemic areas to help reduce long term complications. GLD is also researching methods to detect co-infections, as well as, assays that could differentiate early stage versus late stage infections for clinicians to better manage their patients.

Share article on social media or email:

Read the rest here:
Global Lyme Diagnostics Welcomes Dr. Mark Filidei and Dr. Jodie A. Dashore To Scientific Advisory Board - PR Web (press release)

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

SAPPORO A 38-year-old transgender woman in Hokkaido who has been convicted of theft has asked the Justice Ministry and local prosecutors to be treated as a female inmate, despite being listed as male in her family registry.

She has been living as a woman and wants to be supervised by female prison officers while continuing hormone treatment, a source close to her said Tuesday.

She was indicted last year without arrest for shoplifting in the city of Sapporo. A district court handed down a prison sentence of 18 months, and the judgment was upheld by a high court. In July, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal and the woman is set to be imprisoned soon.

She also served 16 months in prison between 2011 and 2013 for theft, and complained of mental anguish as a result of being overseen by male prison guards as well as palpitations and insomnia after being deprived of hormone therapy.

Prisons are determined according to sex as recorded in family registries, but transgender women can be overseen by female officers if they have had male genitalia removed, according to the Justice Ministry. The woman in this case has not completed transition nor changed her family registry.

The ministrys Correction Bureau said male officers would normally oversee an inmate in a similar situation unless the head of a prison determines otherwise. But it added that it has paid due consideration to people in similar circumstances such as by assigning female officers if necessary.

Regarding the hormone treatment, the bureau said it is not the states responsibility to allow it unless there would be irreparable damage and the bureau determines there is a necessity to do so.

Mikiya Nakatsuka, professor at Okayama University and a specialist on transgender issues, said the government should be more flexible regardless of whether an inmate has undergone surgery.

Hormone therapy is crucial for maintaining health, so the government should seek the opinions of doctors (working with) gender identity disorder, Nakatsuka said.

According to research led by Katsuki Harima, a doctor at Harima Mental Clinic, about 22,000 people consulted medical institutions due to GID as of the end of 2015.

Requests from around 6,000 people to change their sex on their family registries had been accepted as of 2015. A special law came into force in 2004 permitting such changes if one applies to a family court.

See the rest here:
Transgender convict in Hokkaido asks to be treated as female inmate - The Japan Times

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

One Aviation, which now manufactures the Eclipse light jet, has received FAA approval for an increase in the structural life limit for the Eclipse 500 and 550 models with the extended tip tank configuration to 20,000 hours or 20,000 cycles, whichever comes first.

The announcement, made last week at EAA AirVenture 2017, effectively doubles the previous life-limit parameters of 10,000 hours, 10,000 cycles or 10 years, which were set without requiring the operator to enroll the aircraft in a life-extension maintenance and inspection program.

According to the airframer, when maintained in accordance with the aircraft maintenance manual (AMM), full-scale aircraft level testing and large-scale material coupon testing have demonstrated that the Eclipse 500/550 has a fatigue and damage tolerance life in excess of 20,000 cycles. The increase in life limit is automatic for existing and future U.S.-registered aircraft as the company works to get the new limits accepted by other civil aviation authorities. Structural inspections as specified in the AMM are still required.

The FAA-approved changes to the aircraft life limits greatly simplifies the ability of Eclipse jet owners and operators to benefit from the extensive investment made by One Aviation in structural life testing, said Brent Christner, the companys senior director of engineering.

Read more from the original source:
FAA Issues Structural Life Extension for Eclipse Jets | Business ... - Aviation International News

Recommendation and review posted by sam

The BWX Technologies plant in Peterborough has been awarded a five-year, $34-million to supply seven primary heat transport motors for Bruce Power.

The motors to be produced at the BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc. plant on Monaghan Road are part of Bruce Powers life-extension program that will extend the life of six of its reactors to continue providing Ontario with low-cost nuclear electricity for decades to come, according to a release from the company.

The primary heat transport motors are required to drive the main circulating pumps used to push heavy water through the reactor core into the steam generators, the release states. The scope of the contract includes the project management, engineering and manufacturing of seven 11,000 horsepower motors.

Work under the contract will begin immediately, with the first motor scheduled to be delivered to Bruce Power in mid-2018.

We appreciate the opportunity to execute this important project for Bruce Power and take great pride in our contributions to its life extension program, stated John MacQuarrie, president of BWXT Canada Ltd. (which is the former Babcock and Wilcox). BWXT is pleased to be in a position to supply its customers with a multitude of product and service solutions to assist them in extending the lives of their nuclear plants.

Bruce Power supplies 30% of Ontarios electricity at 30% less than the average cost to generate residential power. Extending the operational life of the Bruce Power units to 2064 will create and sustain 22,000 direct and indirect jobs every year, create $4 billion in annual Ontario economic benefit, and will ensure low-cost, clean and reliable energy for Ontario families and businesses, the release states.

Partnering with BWXT for this important motor work is critical to ensuring the life extension and operation through 2064, stated Mike Rencheck, Bruce Powers president and CEO. Planning and preparation is key to our continued on-time and on-budget performance since January 2016 when our life extension program was started. Suppliers like BWXT and their performance are critical to our success; its a team effort.

Nuclear energy plays a significant role to Ontarios economy and it is great to see the positive effects of Bruce Powers life extension project being felt right here in Peterborough, Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister and Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal stated. Throughout its program to extend the life of six of its reactors, Bruce Power will inject billions into Ontarios economy and generate thousands of jobs.

Continue reading here:
BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada in Peterborough lands five-year, $34M deal to make primary heat transport motors for ... - Peterborough Examiner

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

PETERBOROUGH, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BWX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BWXT) announced today that its subsidiary BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc. (BWXT NEC) has been awarded a CA$34 million, five year contract to supply seven primary heat transport motors for Bruce Power. The motors are part of Bruce Powers life-extension program that will extend the life of six of its reactors to continue providing Ontario with clean, low-cost and reliable electricity for decades to come.

The primary heat transport motors are required to drive the main circulating pumps used to push heavy water through the reactor core into the steam generators. The scope of the contract includes the project management, engineering and manufacturing of seven 11,000 horsepower motors. Work under this contract will commence immediately with the first motor scheduled to be delivered to Bruce Power in mid-2018.

We appreciate the opportunity to execute this important project for Bruce Power and take great pride in our contributions to its life extension program, said John MacQuarrie, president of BWXT Canada Ltd. and BWXT NEC. BWXT is pleased to be in a position to supply its customers with a multitude of product and service solutions to assist them in extending the lives of their nuclear plants.

Partnering with BWXT for this important motor work is critical to ensuring the life extension and operation through 2064, said Mike Rencheck, Bruce Powers president and CEO. Planning and preparation is key to our continued on-time and on-budget performance since January 2016 when our life extension program was started. Suppliers like BWXT and their performance are critical to our success; its a team effort.

Nuclear energy plays a significant role to Ontarios economy and it is great to see the positive effects of Bruce Powers life extension project being felt right here in Peterborough, said Jeff Leal, Member of Provincial Parliament. Throughout its program to extend the life of six of its reactors, Bruce Power will inject billions into Ontarios economy and generate thousands of jobs.

Bruce Power supplies 30% of Ontarios electricity at 30% less than the average cost to generate residential power. Extending the operational life of the Bruce Power units to 2064 will create and sustain 22,000 direct and indirect jobs every year, create $4 billion in annual Ontario economic benefit, and will ensure low-cost, clean and reliable energy for Ontario families and businesses.

Forward Looking Statements

BWXT cautions that this release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the performance, timing and value, to the extent contract value can be viewed as an indicator of future revenues, of the Bruce Power contract. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including, among other things, modification or termination of the contract and delays. If one or more of these or other risks materialize, actual results may vary materially from those expressed. For a more complete discussion of these and other risk factors, please see BWXTs annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. BWXT cautions not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release, and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, except to the extent required by applicable law.

About BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc.

BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc. (BWXT NEC), a subsidiary of BWXT Canada Ltd., has more than 60 years of extensive experience and innovation in the supply of nuclear fuel and fuel channel components, services, equipment and parts for the CANDU nuclear power industry. This includes designing and supplying highly reliable nuclear equipment to fuel, inspect and refurbish reactors. BWXT NEC employs approximately 350 skilled employees at three locations in Ontario: Peterborough, Toronto and Arnprior. Learn more at http://www.nec.bwxt.com.

About Bruce Power

Formed in 2001, Bruce Power is an electricity company based in Bruce County, Ontario. We are powered by our people. Our 4,200 employees are the foundation of our accomplishments and are proud of the role they play in safely delivering clean, reliable, low-cost nuclear power to families and businesses across the province. Bruce Power has worked hard to build strong roots in Ontario and is committed to protecting the environment and supporting the communities in which we live. Learn more at http://www.brucepower.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

See the original post:
BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Awarded CA$34 Million Contract for Primary Heat Transport Motors - Business Wire (press release)

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Airmen install a new cable run on an aging Minuteman III missile.

ARLINGTON: A brand-new ICBM may cost the nation more than $85 billion, but keeping the geriatric Minuteman will cost even more. Thats according to Boeing, the aerospace giant that began building the original Minuteman I in 1958 and has maintained the much-modified Minuteman III since 1970.

Minuteman III in silo

Sure, the company can reset the odometer on the Minuteman with yet another service life extension program (SLEP), Boeing strategic deterrence chief Frank McCall told reporters this morning. But its still a 1950s design upgraded over six decades with a mix of technologies it was never intended to accommodate. While parts of the guidance and propulsion systems date to 1993, for example, some parts are so old the original manufacturers have long since gone out of business. That forces the Air Force to expensively reinvent the wheel or, say, a 1961-vintage mechanical coding device.

So for about the same price as a rebuilt Minuteman, McCall told us, Boeing would rather build you an all-new missile. Thats what the Air Force calls the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. (Lockheed and Northrop are also competing). GBSD would get you better performance, he said, including against modern, precision-guided missile defenses, which didnt exist when the Minuteman was designed. (Back then, cutting-edge missile defense destroyed incoming warheads by detonating a nuclear weapon over your own territory). It would be flexible for a wide range of scenarios, whereas the Minuteman was optimized for a massive exchange with Russia across the North Pole. And even sticking with low-risk, proven technology, it would be decades more advanced than Minuteman.

The new missile would also feature a modular, plug-and-plug design known as open architecture that would make replacing components both for maintenance and upgrades much easier than on the Minuteman III. Most important, perhaps, the new missile would be designed from the start to last for decades until at least the 2070s while Minuteman was originally meant to last just 10 years. Between the open architecture and the build-to-last philosophy, McCall said, GBSD would be cheaper to maintain over the long haul than Minuteman.

Back in June, Gen. John Hyten, head of Strategic Command, lamented the time and money it would take to develop GBSD: $85 billion over 20 years for 400 missiles, compared to $17 billion in todays dollars over five years for the initial 800 Minutemans. The military-industrial complex needs to relearn how to go fast, take risks, fail, and try again, he said, instead of grinding along in todays bureaucratic, cripplingly slow acquisition system.

But as expensive as GBSD was, Hyten emphasized, it was still cheaper than re-re-rebuilding the Minuteman: You will have ended up replacing just about everything on the missile, which will cost you more (than GBSD), but nobody believes me. Now that weve heard more of the details from Boeing, maybe we will.

See original here:
New ICBM Cheaper Than Upgraded Minuteman: Boeing On GBSD - Breaking Defense

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Male Hypogonadism Market Predicted Double-Digit Growth Rate by 2024

This press release was orginally distributed by SBWire

Sarasota, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/01/2017 -- Global Male Hypogonadism Market: Overview

Male hypogonadism is a medical condition, wherein the testes fail to generate enough testosterone which leads to incomplete development or delayed puberty. The condition is related to the development of breast tissues, impaired development of muscle mass, lack of deepening of the voice, and impaired body hair growth.

Request Free Sample Report @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/sample/male-hypogonadism-market

Global Male Hypogonadism Market: Segmentation

The male hypogonadism market is globally segmented into therapy, drug delivery, and type. On the basis of therapy, the market is segregated into testosterone replacement therapy and gonadotropin-releasing hormones therapy. The gonadotropin-releasing hormones therapy is further sub-divided into luteinizing hormone (LH), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Based on the drug delivery, the market is categorized into injectables, topical gels, transdermal patches, and others. Depending on the type, the market is divided into Kallmann syndrome, Klinefelters syndrome, pituitary disorders, and others.

Global Male Hypogonadism Market: Growth Factors

The key factor that is driving the male hypogonadism market includes increasing cases of testosterone deficiency among men, increasing awareness among people about hypogonadism treatment owing to awareness drives that are organized by several governments across the world, and increasing infertility rates. The high risk of hypogonadism among the aged population with obesity and diabetes and escalating cases of chronic disorders among the geriatrics are further boosting the market's growth. On the other hand, factors such as high side effects of testosterone products challenge the growth of the market. The market players are focusing on research and development activities to introduce newer products with less or negligible side effects and better results. Technological advancements are anticipated to extend new opportunities to the market's growth.

Request Report TOC (Table of Contents) @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/toc/male-hypogonadism-market

Global Male Hypogonadism Market: Regional Analysis

The male hypogonadism market can be segmented into regions such as North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. North America dominates the market owing to the increase in the number of individuals that are suffering from the primary and secondary conditions of hypogonadism, and the rising awareness among the people about treatment. Other factors that contribute to this growth are the presence of unconventional health care infrastructure and growing popularity of the technologically advanced products which will offer new opportunities to the top market players in this market. The region is strongly followed by Europe. Asia-Pacific region is expected to offer productive opportunities to this market owing to the modernization of the healthcare infrastructure in the developing economies of India and China and the growing awareness about the treatment for the condition. In Asia Pacific, there is a rise in the number of people that suffer from hypogonadism and infertility rates coupled with the rise in the geriatric population base having obesity and diabetes are triggering the growth of the market.

Global Male Hypogonadism Market: Competitive Players

Some of the key market players that are involved in the male hypogonadism market include Astrazeneca Plc., Merck & Co. Inc., Laboratories Genevrier, Allergan Plc., Endo International Plc., Ferring, AbbVie Inc., Eli Lilly and Company Ltd., Finox Biotech, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Bayer AG, and IBSA Institut Biochimque.

Browse detail report @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/male-hypogonadism-market

Global Male Hypogonadism Market by Geographical Analysis: North America( U.S.), Europe( UK, France, Germany), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India), Latin America( Brazil), Middle East and Africa

Our value reports provide full, in-depth analysis of the parent market including most significant changes in market dynamics; the report also presents the detailed overview on segmentation of this market. We managed to present as many important pieces of information in essential form thanks to our report You will learn more about former, on-going, and projected market analysis in terms of volume and value, assessment of niche industry developments and Market share analysis. We have not forgotten to present key strategies for major players, emerging segments and regional markets and last but not least, testimonials to companies in order to fortify their foothold in the market.

Inquire more before buying this report @ https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/inquiry/male-hypogonadism-market

About Zion Market ResearchZion Market Research is an obligate company. We create futuristically, cutting edge, informative reports ranging from industry reports, a company reports to country reports. We provide our clients not only with market statistics unveiled by avowed private publishers and public organizations but also with Vogue and newest industry reports along with pre-eminent and niche company profiles. Our database of market research reports comprises a wide variety of reports from Cardinal Industries. Our database is been updated constantly in order to fulfill our clients with prompt and direct online access to our database. Keeping in mind the client's needs, we have included expert insights on global industries, products, and market trends in this database. Last but not the least, we make it our duty to ensure the success of clients connected to usafter allif you do well, a little of the light shines on us.

Contact Us:Zion Market Research4283, Express Lane,Suite 634-143,Sarasota, Florida 34249, United StatesTel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll-Free No.1-855-465-4651Email: sales@zionmarketresearch.comWebsite: http://www.zionmarketresearch.comVisit Our Blog: https://zionmarketresearch.wordpress.com/

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/male-hypogonadism-market/release-841813.htm

Link:
Male Hypogonadism Market Set for Expansive Growth over Next 10 Years - Digital Journal

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A cancer scare helped encourage stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler to become an outspoken watchdog over his field.

Carl Costas

By Kelly ServickAug. 3, 2017 , 9:00 AM

SACRAMENTOBack in his lab after a week of vacation, Paul Knoepfler slogs through backlogged emails: A 71-year-old woman with arthritic knees would like to know whether a stem cell clinic she researched can give her relief. The parents of a 12-year-old with a degenerative eye disease wonder whether there's any hope of averting blindness with a stem cell injection. "Kindly apprise us of expenses and chance of success," they ask.

Knoepfler, though housed in the Shriners Hospitals for Children here, isn't a physician. And his University of California (UC), Davis, lab doesn't study arthritis or eye disease, nor does he have any experience developing a stem cell therapy. He mostly uses stem cells to study cancer-causing gene mutations. But thanks to The Niche, a blog he has run since 2010, Knoepfler has become an unlikely authorityand a dogged voice of cautionon the clinical use of stem cells.

The blog, which now averages more than 4000 daily visits, has elevated him from an obscure bench scientist to an international spokesperson on all things stem cell. "It's one of the major sources of information [for the] layperson, and also for stem cell researchers," says Jeanne Loring of Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, an occasional commenter and guest writer on the blog.

It also has turned Knoepfler, a softspoken, unimposing presence in person, into a divisive figure. He has sounded the alarm on hundreds of U.S. physicians and clinics advertising stem cells to treat everything from sore knees to spinal cord injury. These offerings haven't been through the approval process at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and most aren't supported by evidence from randomized clinical trials.

"They were just saying, Screw the rules, we're just going to set up shop and put up a website and start injecting people with stem cells,'" says Knoepfler, who co-wrote a paper last year documenting the scope of this industry. "I saw that as a threat, first to patients, but to the field as well."

Stem cell researchers largely applaud his efforts. "He's been a reliable voice of reason in the field," says George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Boston Children's Hospital and dean of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Academics are "often more comfortable being provincial and insular, and not mixing it up in the public debates."

But even people who have expressed concern about predatory and fraudulent clinics contend Knoepfler has sometimes painted potential stem cell therapies with too broad a brush. "There are clinicians in the United States that are practicing forms of regenerative medicine that are legal and that are having good results for their patients," says Bernard Siegel, executive director of the nonprofit Regenerative Medicine Foundation in Wellington, Florida. "We can't tar everyone."

Siegel says he admires Knoepfler, and his foundation honored the blogger with its national advocacy award in 2013. But in Siegel's view, Knoepfler has at times acted as "almost a bit of a societal scold."

On The Niche's discussion thread, patients who believe they have benefited from unapproved stem cell treatments are harsher. "You and I will never agree on this issue," wrote one commenter, Barbara Hanson, who has sought stem cell treatment overseas for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and runs an online forum for patients, in a discussion about the value of FDA approval. "I have experienced a much better quality of life after having stem cell treatment than I could ever have expected from prescription medications and conventional treatment."

Seven years into the conversation, Knoepfler accepts criticism in stride. But with FDA looking unlikely to tighten its grip on such clinics, and strong pressure from some patients, advocates, and companies to keep stem cell treatments outside regulators' grasp, he admits the impact of his outreach is hard to measure. "A few individuals can't really necessarily rein in a whole industry."

Paul Knoepfler's blog, The Niche, steadily gained readers in its early years, but saw a spike in 2014 with his skeptical coverage of stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) stem cell claims.

(Graphic) G. Grulln/science; (Data) Paul Knoepfler

Knoepfler's fascination with stem cells grew out of science, but his willingness to speak out started with a life-changing personal event. A college English major, he didn't commit to science until he landed a postgraduation job as a research technician at UC San Diego, where his wife was starting medical school. "Being in the lab setting felt like I was at home," he says.

While working on a doctorate there and a postdoc at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, Knoepfler explored the proteins and genes that act up in some childhood cancers. To understand why variations in the gene MYC and its relatives lead to childhood brain tumors, Knoepfler realized he would have to detail their normal role in the growth and differentiation of neural stem cells.

Just as he set out to establish his own lab, the state of California launched a grand experiment in stem cell funding. Motivated in part by then-President George W. Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem (ES) cell research, which antiabortion groups opposed, California voters approved the $3 billion California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). In 2006, a $2 million "new faculty" grant from CIRM helped get Knoepfler's UC Davis lab off the ground.

It had been running for 3 years when, at age 42, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and given roughly 50-50 survival odds. Knoepfler found himself a patient at the same cancer center he frequented for research meetings and seminars. "This time, I walked straight past the auditorium for the clinic. That was a freaky moment."

Surgery led to a remission that has now lasted for 7 years. But the medical scare emboldened him "to try to expand how I had impact, beyond just the pure science," he says. Weeks after the operation, Knoepfler published the first official post on The Niche, named after a defunct stem cell blog once hosted on Nature.com that he admired. (Stem cells often reside and grow in specific niches in the body, such as bone marrow, which houses blood-forming cells.)

Early on, Knoepfler was an impassioned and partisan advocate for ES cell research. Many Republicans "are in favor of executing prisoners who might be innocent, taking away women's rights, cutting aid to poor children, eliminating Social Security," he wrote after Mississippi lawmakers introduced an amendment to give embryos constitutional protections, "but when it comes to fertilized eggs or few-days-old blastocysts, they start carrying pitchforks and torches."

As the threat to ES cell research began to feel less serious under former President Barack Obama's administration, Knoepfler's attention shifted. His periodic Google searches for "stem cells" began to turn up unfamiliar treatment centers in the United States advertising poorly validated therapies. Many clinics isolated adult stem cells from a patient's own fat or bone marrow and reinjected them, promising to heal injured joints, rejuvenate aging skin, or even repair damage from neurological disorders and autoimmune disease.

Recently, Knoepfler and bioethicist Leigh Turner of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis set out to compile U.S. stem cell clinics marketing directly to consumers online. In a paper in Cell Stem Cell, they revealed a marketplace of 351 businesses operating at 570 clinics. "That was a tremendous piece of work," says David Jensen, a retired newspaper journalist in Paso Robles, California, who runs a blog monitoring CIRM. "You could see it was a problem if you looked out your window. The question was how big it is."

Knoepfler believes that new stem cell treatments will eventually help patients, but he has long fretted about their safety. In 2012, his team published a paper pointing out similarities between tumor cells and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cellsadult cells reprogrammed to a more primitive state in the lab. In part because iPS cells don't face religious objections, they are an appealing alternative to ES cells. But the paper concluded that iPS cells' potential for cancerous growth could stand in the way of using them therapeutically.

The adult stem cells used in most of the emerging clinics didn't undergo the same reprogramming process, but Knoepfler still worried about their potential for uncontrolled growth. "I guess I just had this deep concern that someone was going to get cancer, maybe because of my own experience with cancer, in retrospect."

Knoepfler acknowledges that few stem cell-induced cancers and other serious side effects have been reported. But he maintains that the risk is still there, noting the case of stroke patient Jim Gass, who ended up with a tumor along his spine after a series of stem cell injections at clinics outside the United States. A report this year in The New England Journal of Medicine also documented three women who were blinded after a Florida clinic injected them with stem cells to treat macular degeneration. And even patients not physically harmed might spend thousands of dollars on useless treatments that insurers often refuse to cover.

At first, Knoepfler thought FDA would crack down on the emerging industryan expectation he now calls nave. The only FDA-approved stem cell therapies involve transplants of umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells for blood cancers and certain metabolic and immune disorders. But the agency classifies other uses of stem cells as medical procedures and exempts them from its drug approval process, provided they meet certain criteria, including "minimal manipulation" of the cells and "homologous use"using the cells for the same function they naturally perform in the body. Some uncertainty remains about which products are exemptedparticularly when it comes to fat-derived stem cells. Draft guidances FDA issued in 2014 and 2015 seemed to narrow the set of exempted therapies, but those have yet to be finalized.

Meanwhile, Knoepfler pursues his own grassroots effort with unlikely passion. "He's a sweetheart," Jensen says. "Personally, I find him sort of shy and diffident sometimes," but Knoepfler "doesn't shy away from contact with the mainstream media." He has picked apart stem cell claims that seem too good to be true, requested details from clinics, and complained about uncritical press coverage of treatments.

Even after a recent redesign of The Niche, Knoepfler's corner of the internet feels homespun and unadorned. He often illustrates his posts with corny clip art, appropriated Hollywood movie posters ("A Nightmare on Stem Street"), and cartoons he draws himself. The blog yo-yos between audiences, dissecting a technical research paper one day, raising questions about a celebrity's stem cell boob job the next. Its most visited page in the past year is a Spanish translation of his layperson-friendly explainer, "What are stem cells?"

In 2014, Knoepfler found himself fielding midnight calls from Japanese reporters after he blogged his doubts about a paper from a Kobe-based research team describing stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) stem cells, allegedly created from adult cells by simple measures such as exposure to acid. He published some of the earliest skepticism of the claim, which swiftly fell apart through failed replication attempts, a misconduct investigation, and the paper's retraction. Knoepfler chronicled the downfall of STAP stem cells blow by blow.

Other moves drew more criticism. Knoepfler took to The Sacramento Bee last June to decry what he saw as a dangerous shift in CIRM's agenda. In a Fox News oped, CIRM's then-President C. Randal Mills and Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) criticized FDA's regulatory process as too rigid. The comments came as the Senate considered legislation that would let FDA conditionally approve stem cell therapies without largescale clinical trials. CIRM "should refocus its efforts on the science and medicine of stem cells," Knoepfler wrote, "instead of lobbying for high-risk weakening of federal stem cell oversight."

The affront to the head of a major funding organization that had supported Knoepfler's own lab struck some colleagues as reckless. "I advised him not to do it," says Loring, adding, "it doesn't mean I agreed with [Mills]."

Asked about Knoepfler's criticism the next week, Mills called him "fairly self-interested" in his push for more basic research and suggested that critics of FDA reform "live with a horrible disease" before defending the agency's slow and expensive process for approving new treatments.

Knoepfler's unyielding skepticism has also turned some patients against him. In a three-part series of posts this spring, he questioned the ethics of a center at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, that is attempting to treat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) by eliminating patients' immune cells and then using their bone marrow stem cells to replenish them. The principal investigator, Richard Burt, has run clinical trials, but has also provided treatment outside of trials under an FDA-sanctioned protocol known as expanded access.

After hearing that some MS patients were asked to pay as much as $150,000 to participate in a trial or receive off-study treatment, Knoepfler took to his blog. Although careful not to equate Burt's operation with for-profit clinics, Knoepfler suggested that testimonials on the center's website painted too rosy a picture of the experimental therapy and that its patient handbook encouraged fundraising efforts that might force patients to share private health information.

"It was astonishing, what he wrote," says Heather Burke of Orlando, Florida, who credits treatment at Northwestern with putting her MS into permanent remission and runs a Facebook group for patients. She says Burt tells patients that the procedure is potentially fatal and never promises improvements in their symptoms. Knoepfler's suggestion that Northwestern endorses fundraising is unfair, she adds, because for most patients, the procedure is fully covered by insurance. (Burt declined a request for comment.)

Burke shares Knoepfler's concerns about stem cell clinics that peddle shoddy science. But "Northwestern is not a popsicle stand in Mexico," she says. "When you have bloggers like Paul putting things out there like this, the only thing that they're doing is halting a possible really big breakthrough for treatments for MS."

One patient threatened to file an ethics complaint with his university. Others have accused Knoepfler of being a shill for Big Pharma, intent on suppressing alternatives to traditional drugs. (Knoepfler says he receives no funding from pharmaceutical companies.)

Knoepfler's online jabs at high-profile figures, companies, and doctors have never led to a libel lawsuitthough he says there have been a few threats. He has had tenure since 2011, and higher-ups at the university have never reprimanded him for voicing his opinions online, he says. But the stream of negativity has made him question how much longer he will continue blogging, even if he has no immediate plans to stop. "It takes a certain amount of energy just to deal with that."

He also admits that "I haven't necessarily made much headway" in convincing advocates of unfettered stem cell access that careful oversight is important, too. In recent years, nearly 40 states have passed controversial "right to try" laws, meant to allow dying patients easier access to experimental treatments without FDA oversight. And in June, Texas enacted a law that allows clinics to offer stem cell interventions without the testing and approval required under federal law. Knoepfler has predicted the change will be a boon to predatory clinics.

Still, he believes his handful of weekly email exchanges with conflicted patients is a chance to make a difference. He encourages them to get advice from their doctors, then explains why he's skeptical of approaches not proven in randomized trials. Some, he knows, will decide to go through with treatments anyway. Rarely do they write back to tell him about their decision. "That's kind of a hard part for me," he says. "I don't know the end of the story."

Originally posted here:
The rise of unproven stem cell therapies turned this obscure scientist into an industry watchdog - Science Magazine

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

Stem cell therapies provide an alternative to pain relievers and total joint replacement for those suffering from osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis plagues millions of older adults throughout the world. It is the most common type of degenerative joint disease. Commonly referred to as OA, osteoarthritis is an inevitability for many people. It occurs as the rubber-like cartilage that protects the ends of human bones gradually breaks down. It eventually leads to a situation where bones rub against one another as little, if any, cartilage remains. OA can occur in any of the body's joints. However, it is more common in the hips, knees, spine and hands.

OA sounds like a particularly gruesome condition with painful bone-on-bone contact yet hope is available. Patients currently use physical therapy, pain relievers, cortisone injections and even surgery. Scientists have recently pinpointed stem cells as a possible catalyst for OA healing.

How the Human Body Might be Able to Heal Itself

Emory Orthopaedics and Spine Center physicians made waves five years ago when they launched regenerative stem cell therapy. This is a form of treatment for OA as well as related joint maladies. It makes use of the patient's stem cells to remedy damaged tissues, minimize pain and hasten the healing process. Stem cells are taken from the patient's body with a needle. These stem cells are derived from abdominal fat and/or the hip's bone marrow. They are then placed in a centrifuge and spun in a rapid manner to generate a concentrate. This process isolates the stem cells. These cells are injected right back into the patient's compromised joint minutes later. This reapplication of stem cells catalyzes the healing process.

The use of stem cells takes about an hour and a half. The best part is it involves minimal comfort and produces few side effects for the vast majority of patients. The stem cells are taken from the patient himself in order to decrease the odds of rejection. This method of treatment has proven quite effective, helping patients enjoy a substantial improvement in joint health in as little as one month.

Stem Cells: The Darling of Regenerative Medicine

The medical community is quickly determining stem cells enhance the healing process better than other treatments. The predecessor was platelet-rich plasma for the treatment of OA and joint damage. This method debuted nearly a decade ago. Stem cell therapy launched in 2012 and has proven incredibly effective. Stem cells are highly specialized cells that can replicate themselves and potentially differentiate into different cell types for varying functions within the body.

Though there are numerous different stem cell types, those that help promote ligament, tendon and cartilage healing are referred to as mesenchymal stem cells. The human body has a substantial amount of these cells available to repair damaged tissues. Though there is minimal evidence that adding a concentration of such cells can replace joint cartilage that has been lost, they serve as important signaling cells that promote the transmission of proteins like cytokines. These are molecular harbingers that mitigate cartilage degeneration and control pain.

Advancements in stem cells might eventually make it theoptimal means of repair for cartilage cells. Such cells aredamaged due to everyday wear and tear, sports participation, obesity, andgenetics. As of now, stem cells have proven quite effective in reducing the stiffness and pain tied to OA. It is an excellent alternative to total joint replacement surgery and pain relievers.

The FDA's Take on Stem Cells

Certain medical professionals consider stem cells to be an experimental treatment. The FDA is now attempting to determine how the number of stem cell therapies should be regulated. Unfortunately, many types of insurance do not cover stem cell treatments. Stay tuned for more developments.

See the original post here:
Healing Osteoarthritis with Stem Cells - Anti Aging News

Recommendation and review posted by sam

Also known as hematopoietic stem cell transplant, hematopoietic cell transplant, autologous transplant, or allogeneic transplant.

A blood or bone marrow transplant replaces abnormal blood-forming stem cells with healthy cells. When the healthy stem cells come from you, the procedure is called an autologous transplant. When the stem cells come from another person, called a donor, it is an allogeneic transplant. Blood or bone marrow transplants most commonly are used to treat blood cancers or other kinds of blood diseases that decrease the number of healthy blood cells in the body. These transplants also may be used to treat other disorders.

For allogeneic transplants, your doctor will try to find a donor whose blood cells are the best match for you. Your doctor will consider using cells from your close family members, from people who are not related to you and who have registered with the National Marrow Donor Program, or from publicly stored umbilical cord blood. Although it is best to find a donor who is an exact match to you, new transplant procedures are making it possible to use donors who are not an exact match.

Blood or bone marrow transplants are usually performed in a hospital. Often, you must stay in the hospital for one to two weeks before the transplant to prepare. During this time, you will have a narrow tube placed in one of your large veins. You may be given medicine to make you sleepy for this procedure. You also will receive special medicines and possibly radiation to destroy your abnormal stem cells and to weaken your immune system so that it wont reject the donor cells after the transplant.

On the day of the transplant, you will be awake and may get medicine to relax you during the procedure. The stem cells will be given to you through the narrow tube in your vein. The stem cells will travel through your blood to your bone marrow, where they will begin making new healthy blood cells.

After the transplant, your doctor will check your blood counts every day to see if new blood cells have started to grow in your bone marrow. Depending on the type of transplant, you may be able to leave, but stay near the hospital, or you may need to remain in the hospital for weeks or months. The length of time will depend on how your immune system is recovering and whether or not the transplanted cells stay in your body. Before you leave the hospital, the doctors will give you detailed instructions that you must follow to prevent infection and other complications. Your doctor will keep monitoring your recovery, possibly for up to oneyear.

Although blood or bone marrow transplant is an effective treatment for some conditions, the procedure can cause early or late complications. The required medicines and radiation can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, tiredness, mouth sores, skin rashes, hair loss, or liver damage. These treatments also can weaken your immune system and increase your risk for infection. Some people may experience a serious complication called graft-versus-host disease if the donated stem cells attack the body. Other people may reject the donor stem cells after the transplant, which can be an extremely serious complication.

VisitBlood-Forming Stem Cell Transplantsfor more information about this topic.

Read the original post:
Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant - NHLBI, NIH

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

The excitement at Jerusalem-based Gamida Cell, a maker of cell and immune therapy technologies, is palpable.

The biotechnology company has started enrolling patients for a last-stage clinical trial for a drug it believes will help increase the success of bone marrow transplants in blood cancer patients, and help them better withstand the ordeal of the lifesaving procedure.

The patients are being enrolled in the US, Spain, The Netherlands and Singapore. Should the results of the trial, as hoped, be positive, that would lead to the launch of a commercially available product in 2020, Gamida Cells CEO Yael Margolin said in an interview with The Times of Israel.

We are at an exciting transition point, and moving from being a research and development firm, based in Israel, to an international commercial firm, said Margolin who has headed the company for the past 12 years in her sun-drenched office at the biotech firms headquarters in Jerusalem. We need to prepare to commercialize the product. We are now looking at various sites in Israel for a new manufacturing facility and looking to employ some 100 people. These workers will be added to the 40 already employed in Jerusalem.

Gamida Cells CEO, Dr. Yael Margolin (Courtesy)

Preliminary clinical data has already revealed that the risk of their leading product for blood cancers, NiCord, not meeting its targets in the Phase 3 trial, is low, added Margolin.

The drug has already received a breakthrough therapy designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The designation is given to a drug that is meant to treat a serious or life-threatening condition, and where preliminary clinical evidence indicates that it may demonstrate a substantial improvement on at least one clinically significant target (endpoint) over other available therapies. The designation also entitles the company to get more and closer FDA guidance to help bring the treatment faster to patients.

The combination of the low clinical risk based on the previous trial results and the lower regulatory risk, because the drug is being developed in close collaboration with the FDA, has spurred the company into a flurry of activity that is aimed at scaling up its production facilities to get ready for the day NiCord hits the markets.

The company said last month it raised $40 million from investors including Novartis, which is already a major shareholder in the firm. The funds will support the ongoing Phase 3 stage for NiCord. The company also announced, on July 20, that it received a $3.5-million grant from the Israeli government that will support the further development of NiCord and other drugs that the company is developing, including therapies for sickle cell disease and for blood and solid cancers. Gamida has also appointed a new chief medical officer, Ronit Simantov, who will be based in the US.

The first market for our drug will be the US, Margolin said.

The Gamida Cell lab in Jerusalem where umbilical cord blood is stored in tanks, July 16, 2017. (Shoshanna Solomon/Times of Israel)

NiCord, which would be the first drug developed by Gamida to hit the market if the trial goes well is believed to increase the chances of a successful bone marrow transplantation process for patients who do not have a rapidly available, fully matched, bone marrow donor.

Today some high-risk blood cancers cannot be cured unless patients undergo a bone marrow graft. For that purpose, a perfect 100-percent match needs to be found, a process that in the US takes an average of three to four months, if the patient is lucky. Sometimes, no match is found.

There are 70,000 patients a year globally with blood cancers who need a bone marrow transplant, Margolin said. It is a rare condition. But for that transplant, you need a donor with full tissue matching. As many as 50% dont get to the transplant phase, because they havent found a matching donor in time.

Umbilical cord blood collected from newborn babies contains stem cells, which can be used to treat diseases. Today cord-blood banks around the world store the cord blood. It great advantage is that because it is so young, there is no need for a full tissue matching.

The big advantage with umbilical blood is that you dont need full tissue matching; a partial match is enough, Margolin continued. Most patients generally find at least one unit of cord blood that partially matches them.

Stem cells in a bag in Gamida Cells Jerusalem lab, July 16, 2017 (Shoshanna Solomon/Times of Israel)

The problem is that the quantity of cells in each unit is not huge, and it is the number of stem cells in the cord blood that is critical to the success of transplantation.

Our idea is to leverage the advantages of the cord blood and overcome the limitations of the cell number by applying our own platform technology, called NAM Technology, added Margolin. This technology allows us to take one unit of umbilical cord blood and expand the number of stem cells within it and enhance their performance.

Gamida Cell selects the stem cells from the unit and puts them in a culture together with a molecule called Nicotinamide (NAM) a form of Vitamin B3 and adds other ingredients. This culture, to which the firm holds intellectual property rights, increases the number of stem cells, and enhances their functionality, Margolin said.

The cells are then harvested from the culture, frozen in a small blood-bag in a final formulation that is ready for infusion, and then shipped to hospitals via couriers. Doctors thaw the product by the bedside of the patients and infuse the fluid into them.

From start to finish, our process takes three weeks, Margolin said. The average search for a bone marrow match takes three to four months.

The clinical trial underway is enrolling patients aged 16 years and older.

An earlier trial of the drug showed that patients transplanted with NiCord showed a more rapid engraftment the amount of time needed for the development of a minimal amount of white blood cells, or neutrophils, in the blood. That minimum amount indicates the patient is now less vulnerable to infections and bleeding following the transplant, and is an indication of success.

In the pilot phase clinical trials, the median time to neutrophil engraftment with NiCord was 11 days, compared to three to four weeks in patients who received standard umbilical cord blood. The results in a study conducted at Duke University also showed a lower rate of infection 22% vs 54%; and a lower duration of hospitalization compared to standard umbilical cord engraftment, Margolin said.

Now the company is enrolling patients for its larger, Phase 3 multi-national, randomized controlled registration study. And in February it said it had already transplanted its first patient, as part of the trial.

We hope to publish positive topline data from the Phase3 study in the first half of 2019 and launch the product on the market in 2020, she said.

Metal barrel with a frozen bag of umbilical cord stem cells ready for delivery from Gamida Cells Jerusalem lab, July 16, 2017. (Shoshanna Solomon/Times of Israel)

A metal barrel within which was a frozen bag of umbilical cord stem cells was waiting to be picked by a courier in the lobby of the Gamida Cell offices, ready to be thawed and injected into a patient somewhere around the world.

We have a sophisticated infrastructure that coordinates everything between the cord bank blood and our manufacturing site and the hospital where the patient is to be treated, Margolin continued. This infrastructure is 100% robust, but we plan to scale this up toward commercialization.

The $40 million in funds the company raised last month is expected to last until late 2019. After that, she added, all options are on the table: an IPO, or teaming up with a strategic partner, are both possibilities for the future.

Read more from the original source:
Cell therapy firm in flurry of activity as hope nears for bone marrow ... - The Times of Israel

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

Credit: University of California, San Francisco

A virus hiding quietly in the gut may trigger the onset of a severe complication known as graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in patients who receive bone marrow transplants, according to a new study led by scientists at UC San Francisco and Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, France.

GvHD affects up to 60 percent of patients who undergo bone marrow stem-cell transplants, and kills about half of those affected. After transplants, to prevent a recipient's immune cells from laying siege to unfamiliar donor cells and rejecting them, clinicians often use drugs to suppress the immune response. GvHD is a mirror image of organ rejection, in which immune cells in the transplant attack its new host, the patient.

Despite the pervasiveness of this disease, there isn't yet a clear way of foretelling patients' risk of developing it before they go into surgery. The new study, published online July 31, 2017, in Nature Medicine, unveils a viral biomarker that could allow clinicians to assess patients' risk of an acute form of the disease known as enteric GvHD, which affects the gastrointenstinal system.

The team used a technique known as metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) which can rapidly and concurrently sequence genetic material of all organisms present in any biological sample to catalog microbes in patients' digestive tracts, monitoring the evolving bacterial and viral population throughout the transplantation process.

Although mNGS analyses of bacterial populations, called microbiomes, have been much in the news, fewer studies have focused on "viromes," the term for viral populations.

"Viromes can play an important part in health and disease," said Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, an associate professor of laboratory medicine at UCSF and principal investigator of the study. "Our goal was to understand what impact transplantation has on the gut virome."

In the new work, the researchers scanned stool samples taken from 44 patients before they received a transplant and up to six weeks after, and sequenced all the DNA and RNA in the samples in order to assemble a roster of their microbial passengers.

Using this technique, the researchers identified a number of viruses that flared up in the guts of patients who developed the deadly condition. Of particular note were members of the picobirnavirus (PBV) family: the presence of these viruses before transplantation, even in very small populations, was a reliable sign that a patient would likely develop the disease after a transplant.

"I would've expected herpesviruses or adenoviruses to be the more likely cause of infection," said Chiu. "We wouldn't have picked up picobirnaviruses were it not for the metagenomics approach."

PBVs are a very diverse family of viruses more diverse than HIV, said Jrme Le Goff, PhD, associate professor at the University of Paris Diderot and lead author of the new study. "It's very difficult to design a single test to detect all viruses simultaneously," said Le Goff. "So for many years, labs did not have the means to look for PBV." Indeed, each of the 18 patients who tested positive for PBV was carrying a different strain, a diversity that makes it challenging to detect PBVs using a simple lab test.

The team also observed a previously unreported "bloom" of other resident viruses in patients that occurred three to five weeks after they had received transplants. Intriguingly, the onset of GvHD appeared to trigger the late awakening of these covert viruses, laying to rest a longstanding chicken-and-egg debate: which comes first, viral infection or GvHD? The researchers conclude that much of the viral flare they saw is due to reactivation of latent gut infections following transplantation.

Given the potential utility of PBV as a predictive biomarker, Chiu and his team now hope to develop a metagenomics-based test to screen patients before transplantation. "We also saw shifts in the microbiome but those in the virome were more pronounced," said Chiu. "Loss of bacteria colonizing the gut has been thought to predispose patients to GvHD; here we show that shifts in the virome may also play a role in the occurrence of this disease."

Although the new study strongly implicates PBVs in the onset of GvHD, it is too early to tell whether or how these viruses trigger the disease. The team is now enrolling more adult and pediatric patients both in Paris and at UCSF to expand their analyses and uncover the mechanism by which the virus modulates the risk of disease. A systematic understanding of the virus's role could ultimately inform whether using antiviral drugs or tweaking the body's immune response would be the best strategy to temper the disease.

"It would be great to have a tool that can be used to assess GvHD risk in these patients before they undergo a transplant," Chiu said, a step that Le Goff said could lead to new therapies. "We hope that in the next few years we will find a way to prevent virus-associated GvHD," said Le Goff.

Explore further: Researchers develop new strategy to limit side effects of stem cell transplants

More information: Jrme Legoff et al. The eukaryotic gut virome in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: new clues in enteric graft-versus-host disease, Nature Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nm.4380

Read more:
Gut viruses tied to potentially deadly complication of bone marrow ... - Medical Xpress

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Elad Gil is running around the Color Genomics office when I come to meet him for a little sit-down. The place is full for a Friday afternoon. Theres a worker taking calls on the couch in the front and plenty of others pacing about in the background.

The office is tucked away in an unassuming industrial area of Burlingame, California, in a building that reminds me of some 60s-style government structure. Color is easy to spot: First suite on the first floor and the only one with, well, bright color.

Gil offers me a water and we sit down in a little conference room. Jokingly, he says maybe he can do something funny for the featured image for my article like pretend to hold up the color wheel logo. Katie would never let me do that, he says, referring to his chief marketing officer and ex-Twitter employee Katie Jacobs Stanton. Hes nerdy funny. I like that.

Gil came to Silicon Valley with impressive academic credentials, including a degree in mathematics, another in molecular biology and a PhD in biology from MIT. It was 2001, and he had hoped to make a dent in the universe. But the timing was off. The country was already headed toward an economic downturn, then 9-11 happened.

He was at a telecom company that quickly grew to 150 people and shortly after shrank to a tenth of the size in five rounds of layoffs. Gil was cut in the third round.

That was a turning point for him.

All these people helped, he said. Like big brand-name VCs were referring me to companies just to help. They were like, Everythings collapsing. Youre some random person who showed up with a PhD in biology. You have no job prospects.

He went on to hold prominent positions at Google and Twitter and now as a co-founder in Color Genomics. Hes also an investor in several well-known startups, including Airbnb, Square, Stripe and Pinterest, and is in a position, which hes known to readily use, to give back to Silicon Valley in much the same way.

But, a dark cloud has been hanging over the Valley lately. News of several incidents of sexual harassment and sex discrimination of female founders have toppled VCs once seen as demigods and caused some to lose hope in the dream.

SB: Ive heard people say Silicon Valley is over. Theyve kind of almost lost faith in their heroes, and then theres all these other little pop-up satellite Silicon Valley-esque cities starting to come up. Do you think Silicon Valley is over?

EG: Oh God, no. I think its best days are ahead of it Do you know the last time they said that Silicon Valley was over?

SB: When?

EG: Theres two times.One was in the early 90s where they were like Its over. Theres nothing left to be done.

SB: At the height of the semiconductors.

EG: Yeah, because all the semiconductor stuff was really sort of like 70s and 80s. And then in the early 90s 91, 92, 93 theres the internet. And I was talking to somebody who was really prominent in the internet wave, and he was like I moved out here in like 93 and everybody thought it was over.

Literally, that was the thing. They were like The best times are behind us. All the stuff that could be done has been done. Its over. And then a small group of people were like, Lets do stuff on the internet. Others were like Thats insanity. Like the internets a stupid toy thing that connects five universities. Who cares? Then of course, Netscape happened, and then theres a wave of innovations, and then in the bubble that I moved into with my perfect bad timing, the collapse I moved into. In that period, everybodys like Oh, theres nothing interesting on the internet, and we have to go back to hard tech. And Kleiner Perkins got into clean tech, and all these people were talking about nano tech, and it was like Silicon Valley is over, and theres nothing to do. We need to find new industries. Thats literally what happened.

Then all the social waves happened, and the mobile waves happened Just like theres a business cycle, theres a venture cycle, and innovation cycle. You end up with these gaps, and I think were just going through a period where theres less obvious things.

Interjection: We started talking about cryptocurrencies, ice cream, health tech and whats next in Silicon Valley. Ive cut a bunch of this short for brevity.

EG:I basically think the last six months have been cryptocurrencys Netscape moment, and I think were still trying to figure out whats Google, and whats PayPal, and Yahoo, and what to keep in with this first wave.

SB: [Cryptocurrency] scares people, especially when its very new.

EG:Totally. You remember the first internet. People were like Oh, nobodys going to buy anything on that. Theyre not going to put a credit into a website. Thats madness.Now weve got Instacart, Amazon

Can I say something, and then argue that I never said it when you have a tape? Can I do that purposefully?

SB: Okay. What do you want to argue?

EG: I never said I like chocolate ice cream. I like chocolate chip, or something like that.

SB: And Ill be like No, on the record. This is where he said it.

Okay, so kind of wrapping this up. Where do you see Color fitting in all of this?

EG: Yeah. I think Color was sort of part of a very early first wave of the visual data area So really our focus is on how do you unlock information thats sort of locked up for people, make it something they can actually use to help manage their own health.

SB: People might say it makes it a lot harder if you have to go through your physician first to get this information. I think thats kind of the allure of these at-home health tests a lot of the time.

EG: I think it depends on how much friction you can take out of the physician process, but also the flip side of it is, if physicians are telling people that they should consider it, thats actually a really powerful way, as well, for people to participate. So I think there are sort of two sides of the same coin.

As an Ashkenazi Jew, I remember going to my doctor and like Hey, should I be taking these genetic tests for cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs and all this other stuff as a carrier? And he was like, Oh yeah. Youre Jewish. Sure. You should do it.

SB: Sure. Gotta be proactive.

EG: But I had to bring it up, right? Its something thats often recommended for Ashkenazi Jews to do. So, were basically trying to create an online version of that, where youre still working with the physician but theres different ways for you to work with him.

SB:Where do you think people can innovate further in the health tech space right now? What would you like to see?

EG: Yeah. Um, thats a great question. I think ultimately, theres so much data available ambiently through peoples bodies This company Cardiogram that I mentioned. Im a small investor there, from a disclosure perspective. Thats a good example of where youre just ambiently recording and then telling people that they may have had a heart attack. I think that those are some themes that are really intriguing.

I think the top part in healthcare is that the people who are often benefiting the most from things arent necessarily the people making the buying decisions. There are some things at a low enough price-point, so that really changes the adoption rates of different tested products. Thats one obstacle, in terms of larger-scale adoptions.

SB: Okay. I think well end it on that.

The rest is here:
Elad Gil and Silicon Valley's bright future in cryptocurrency, genetics and health tech - TechCrunch

Recommendation and review posted by sam

VETERAN Queensland Brahman breeder Alf Collins Sr was saluted by his peers recently when he was awarded the 2017 Helen Newton Turner Medal during the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics conference in Townsville

Alf Collins receives his Helen Newton Turner Medal at the 2017 AAABG conference in Townsville

With almost missionary zeal, Mr Collins has followed a lifetime crusade of breeding fertile, functional Brahman cattle at his Collins Belah Valley Brahmans enterprise near Marlborough in Central Queensland.

The AAABGs medal, established in 1993, honours the memory of outstanding CSIRO livestock geneticist, Helen Newton Turner. It is awarded to provide encouragement and inspiration to those engaged in animal genetics. The medallist is chosen by trustees from the ranks of those persons who themselves have made an outstanding contribution to genetic improvement of Australian livestock.

Building on the foundations established by his father, Alf Collins Snr has applied dedication, careful recording and rigorous focus on breeding for profitability, to the continuous improvement of Brahman cattle in the CBV herd.

He says Brahman cattle have to perform in very challenging environments, and breeding programs to deliver genetic improvement in those environments are challenging too reflecting large scale of operations and variable climatic conditions.

Mr Collins has met these challenges head-on and collected performance records underpinning reliable EBVs and used the information backed by hard-nosed practical understanding of functionality and survival ability, to generate impressive genetic progress over a number of decades.

Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of that genetic progress is the substantial progress in female fertility a trait considered challenging among breeders of tropically adapted cattle world-wide. CBV has actively participated in industry R&D, including significant contributions to the Beef CRC programs I, II and III.

Mr Collins is a deep thinker about what cattle need to do in the tropical environment, and has never been afraid to try novel approaches or include new traits if they will help breeding cattle better and better suited to the environment and to improving profit, AAABG said in its commendation.

He continues to be an outstanding pioneer and innovator in real-world application of genetics technology, and the demonstration that it is possible to breed genetically fertile, productive and profitable tropically adapted cattle is an inspiration.

Published below is Alf Collins acceptance speech delivered during the AAABG conference in Townsville:

Genetics, management, and speed.

All thanks be to God, for all the cattle, people and opportunities that He has put in our path.

Today, part of that thanks is to the Helen Newton-Turner Trust that has chosen to honour me with this medal of recognition. This is beyond my understanding or expectation to be honoured by such eminent and worthy scholars.

I intend to honour some of the wonderful people and livestock with which God has guided and stimulated my brief road in management, genetics, and thinking.

Wind beneath our wings comes in many forms and directions.

RB McNaught in primary school was inspirational; Rodney M Deeth could teach me Maths B and make the theorems so interesting and challenging. I still keep in touch with him. I left formal schooling aged 13, and raced into the realities of commerce and genetics.

In 1966, George Starritt and family employed me, and inspired me with their progressive breeding of sheep. 1967 I travelled alone into Middle East, Europe and Latin America, thence to USA.

At all times, I had a quest for people and pathways of excellence.

In Britain, Yorkshire yielded Harry Morrell, measuring and breeding Friesians based on cost and net yields. At that time when gross mass of milk cows was sweeping the world irrespective of cost, Mr Morrell had chalk boards above every cow, and scales and milk testing, hunting for efficiency and genetic answers. He found them, with the result that his Friesians were the size of robust Jersies. His results were extraordinary, and he treated me like a son. The resolute James McGowan in Scotland proved all things were possible with determination, thought and hard work.

Steve Abecasis in Venezuela, many others through Latin America, lead me to Harry Gayden in Houston, and Jack Garrett, as guides and mentors. At every stop-over there were volumes of inspiration, in useful things to do and mistakes to avoid.

I sought Dr Max Hammond, a graduate of LSU, past manager of Brooksville Research Station, who was president of Performance Register International, and managing Bill Stuarts Brahman herd of roughly 600 cows. He was seeking fitness for function in a breed and an age that was not fashionable and without the tools of today that we employ. Dr Hammond was always aiming high, with disciplined management , cattle and matters of faith. He was hugely successful, in my mind.

Through Dr Hammond I attended a short-course at University of Florida, Gainseville, where some of my heroes of research and extension operated.

The trio of Dr Tony Cunha, Dr Marvin Koger, and the resolute Dr Alvin Warnick were in full flight. They were so practical, and so competent in communicating in both directions with cattle ranchers, exhibiting in themselves fitness for function in every way. My father engendered in me a hunger for published research bulletins, as did his brother , Harry. Those Florida guys were right in there, with some from LSU, Texas A & M, and our CSIRO.

At the age of 88 years Dr Warnick mentioned to one of his early students, Bob Crane who regularly looked in on Dr Warnick, that he really wanted to go to Australia to CBV to explore first hand what he had read and heard about our methods and goals. He figured that he was really too old. Bob Crane left his house and promptly booked tickets for his old Professor. We were honoured and inspired. At every stop, as we travelled, Dr Warnick had some more questions and challenges penciled in his notebook. We had a great morning at Rendall Laaboratory, in Rockhampton, including retired and current researchers. Greig Turner and Doc Warnick were the elders, and lit right up in discussions.

The benefits of Dr Warnicks pondering have enormous value, and continued personally right up to his death earlier this year.

Larry Cundiff was always wonderful with his open doors at Clay Centre, to his fine teams of thinkers. Cattlemen such as Paul Genho, Tom Lassater, Steve Radakovich, Robin Giles, Kit Pharo, Gregg Simonds, and many others have been so encouraging in mentoring, by example, in discussion, and debate.

I never met Dr Bob Taylor, but many of his past students carried his legacy to our door. Thank God for all those links.

A common thread in most of these wonderful people was an awareness of the burning need to search for commercially relevant traits on a low cost, high expectation level.

From the late 1950s my father took me to CSIRO, and short courses on management and genetics. We were richly blessed to have Belmont research station on our doorstep. Dr RB Kelley was a byword in our home. His books were read time after time, and when I called to visit him in retirement he received me like a son. He showed great courage in the face of powerful opposition as he selected cattle and sponsored early research on Zebu cattle in Australia. CSIRO had an amazing culture in those days, hallmarked with spirited debate, kindness, generosity, intellectual agility, and courage. Dr Turner, Dr Vercoe, DOcchio, Frisch, Seifert, ONeill, all carried the flame for betterment. UQ had Professor John Francis, Professor Ray Johnson, Professor Butterfield from University of Sydney; they always inspired. UNE seconded Dr Hans Graser from Germany to lead the new generation of analysis, and his teams are now legendary. Across the street, another legend in UNE, Jack Allen at ABRI took the commercial product to cattle breeders, and has worked tirelessly to keep the mathematics of Breedplan relevant to animal breeders and skeptics alike.

Jack Allen and Peter Speer were the keys for us to develop Brahman Breedplan, using the existing Flekvieh/ Simmental database, and then when we were given years of back-data from CSIRO and the UQ Gatton herds, our previous collaborations really yielded fruit. Ken Rowan and Chris ONeill were monumental in their efforts to have this done.

Earliest breeders of these humped adapted species had those same qualities, full of encouragement and thought.

Lionel DeLandelles stood so tall, with Maurice DeTournouer, and then Ken Coombe, in the pioneer days of adapted cattle. In their day, they measured what they could, illustrating what was possible with adapted cattle. There were simply no insurmountable obstacles, to these courageous friends and mentors.

Then came Dr Michael DOcchio, and Dr Jim Kinder right into our stockyard, to continue their research in reproduction. This was a great leap forward, and the last 30 years have been illuminated by all the great minds they sponsored over our threshold, and their continued stimulation. Wonderful men of science.

That lengthy preamble of the fine folks that inspired my youth was probably necessary, in order to effectively lead us into the realm and integrity of Professor DOcchio.

By his good grace, we have been introduced to higher research, and are now working on a project with Professor Ben Hayes and Professor Mike Goddard.

Reproduction and survival has always been our CBV focus, at a low cost of production.

This is rarely addressed in academic pursuits, and there lies the rock that fractures our links of science to application.

Most research stations around the world operate at a cost per kilogram that the average cattleman would choke on. It is too easy.

The take home message is that inspirational scientists in my world communicated freely with outstanding managers of livestock and land. They actually knew about cost of production, and the harsh blowtorch of economics and profit and loss. That gap needs attention, and nurturing.

This does not exempt cattlemen from making every effort to capture the essence of research, and adapting it to commercial reality.

That essence of scientific research has been the wind over our wings at CBV.

One of my heroes, Dr John Vercoe illustrated this to me with his chart of the effect of environmental stress on growth heterosis. As costs go down, stress increases, and heterosis evaporates.

That was a bell ringing revelation. John Vercoe was amazed that more cattle breeders did not understand stress and heterosis, and more so, that the importance of reproduction was not registering in genetic selection. Vercoes facilitating DOcchio and Kinder into our herds and our present thinking showed courage and great foresightwind for our wings.

Reproduction speed and survival can almost exclusively direct financial survival. Never underestimate the role of truly adapted cattle in this hunt for reproduction. Most of the land mass of Australia, and in fact most places in the world where beef cattle graze, can be greatly augmented by adapted genotypes selected for reproduction and survival at low cost.

Our management template of breeding cattle is based on rigor and transparency, and I have caution about genetic predictors without rigor, and stressors, in the field.In all the complexities of science and nature, we know it is a simple goal; we also acknowledge these proposals are neither easy nor simple.

At CBV we are dedicated to the hard yards of unraveling complexities with cash and kind, not at all daunted by the skin we can lose in this game.

Our philosophy does vary from most seedstock operations in the reality that we operate just like our best clients at a low commercial cost, with no expensive sale-stock packaging, and we do not seek a flamboyant sale of psychological bidding shoot-outs. We are simply hunting for profits for our clients on capital invested , inside their barbed wire. Those clients in turn, have supported us.

Our core clients all over the world, who ran with us in trying our new management templates and genetics, also provoked us, and helped us fund our dreams and explorations whilst buying bulls or semen.

Thank you for this honour of the Helen Newton Turner Medal. I am deeply touched by how I have been welcomed into such a wonderful group of scholars.

Long live the curious mind.

Read more from the original source:
Genetics honour to CQ Brahman breeder Alf Collins - Beef Central

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Mary Sue

Orphan Black Science Recap: Guillotines Decide The Mary Sue Welcome to our Orphan Black science recaps, where Casey, a graduate student in genetics and developmental biology, and Nina, a professional science communicator, examine the science in each episode of OB and talk you through it in (mostly) easy-to ...

Go here to read the rest:
Orphan Black Science Recap: Guillotines Decide - The Mary Sue

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

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

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

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

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

Continue reading here:
Unusual treatment for acne scars uses your own plasma - THV 11

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

The defence giant saw sales increase by four per cent to 9.6 billion in the first six months of the year, while underlying profits were 11 per cent to 945 million compared to the same period a year ago.

In its UK Platforms And Services division, which includes the armoured vehicles maintenance division at Hadley Park in Telford where it employs about 200 people, saw sales rise by seven per cent to 3.9 billion as orders continued to flood in.

"The business has continued to provide support to previously supplied armoured vehicles and bridging systems, with orders of 14 million received in the period," the company said.

"The business is one of two contenders delivering the first stage of the Challenger 2 Life Extension Project."

Telford is home to the Challenger 2 project team, which is currently assessing what needs to be done to allow the British Army's main battle tank to remain in service until 2035.

BAE added that while the General Election had led to the formation of a minority government, "defence and security is expected to remain a priority".

The company added that it was still looking for ways to cut costs.

Chief executive Charles Woodburn said: "Strong programme execution, technology and enhanced competitive positions will be key in driving the business forward, and we will continue to focus on efficiency and meeting our customers' affordability challenges.

"With the expected improvement in the defence budget outlook in a number of our markets, the group is well placed to continue to generate good returns for shareholders."

The group also said it would take a charge in the second half for overhauling its cyber and intelligence arm, where revenues are "softening".

The weak pound against a strong dollar has helped BAE as it makes sales in the United States more valuable when translated into sterling earnings.

Shares in the group rose three per cent after the results.

See the article here:
BAE Systems sales fire up as tank orders roll in - shropshirestar.com

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

A group of St. Louis doctors is working to make sure transgender kids get the medical care they need.

When the Washington University and St. Louis Childrens Hospital Transgender Center of Excellence opens today, it will be the first of its kind in a 250-mile radius. The clinic aims to provide transgender children with comprehensive health care including pediatric medicine, endocrinology, and mental health counseling.

Staff members will include people equipped to help transgender patients navigate hormone therapy and understand their identities.

This is really a vulnerable group of kids who need specialty expertise and people whove really spent the time to learn more about these issues and concerns, clinic co-founder Dr. Sarah Garwood said. Theres a problem with access to health care for transgender kids and adults and clinics like this can help mitigate that.

Willis Ryder Arnold reports on the Washington University and St. Louis Children's Hospital Transgender Center of Excellence and the role it will play in young people's lives.

The clinics staff members will see patients at St. Louis Childrens Hospital and the St. Louis Childrens Specialty Care Center.

Such services have been long anticipated by St. Louis area parents like Peter Seay, whose child was long considered a girl but in middle school decided to identify as a boy.

Aiming to be supportive, Seay looked for a doctor to provide appropriate care. But finding one isnt easy. Some doctors think being transgender is a problem.

And I mean some doctors we called were like, sure we can fix your kid, recalled Seay, who said that was a terrible thing to hear.

Dr. Garwood and Dr. Chris Lewis developed the clinic with help from Washington University Medical School, St. Louis Childrens Hospital and a growing network of similar clinics located throughout the country.

Families with transgender childrenface a number of hurdles when seeking care, among them insurance obstacles, Garwood said. Many doctors remain ignorant of proper care for transgender individuals and available support systems. Some patients face outright discrimination.

Garwood helped set up the clinic, motivated by an exponential increase of referrals over recent years. She said early intervention is necessary to ensure transgender kids lead the healthiest happiest lives possible.

Follow Willis on Twitter: @WillisRArnold

See the original post:
New clinic to offer range of health care to help transgender children - St. Louis Public Radio

Recommendation and review posted by sam

For women, their hair is supposed to be their crowning glory - but it turns out men are just as sensitive about their barnets.

Even if you've been eating well, taking regular exercise and getting lots of sleep, you may have genetics to blame for your eventual hair loss.

It follows a distinctive pattern. Generally, a little thinning of the hair my be noticeable first form the temples and the crown of the head, followed by wider hair loss allowing more of the scalp to become visible.

This may happen to some men as early as late teenage years, but for most it happens in their late 20s and early 30s.

In the form of male pattern baldness, as described above, this is a genetic disorder.

It occurs when hair follicles convert testosterone into another hormone called hihydrotestosterone (DHY).

Affected hair follices (typically those at the sides or top of the head) become more sensitive to DHT, which causes the hair follicles to weaken, shrink and eventually die. This slows down hair production and can stop growth altogether.

Asda Partnership

There isn't a cure for hair loss or baldness, yet, but hair loss treatment can prevent further loss and even lead to renewed hair growth.

The two most effective hair loss treatment available in the UK are Minoxidil and Finasteride.

Minoxidil is a lotion or foam that you rub into your scalp, and it can be obtained from pharmacies without a prescription.

Finasteride comes in the form of an oral tablet.

Finasteride has proven to be 93% effective for the majority of men aged between 18-41 who took it for five years.

Studies have show that best results occur after two years, when hair growth is at its thickest.

Hair loss prevention only lasts while you are taking the treatement. If you stop taking Finasteride, you may lose some hair.

Earlier this year, Harold Bornstein, the doctor who looks after President Trump's health, told the New York Times that both he and The Donald take a regular small dose of the drug, which is known as Propecia in the US.

England football legend Wayne Rooney reportedly took the treatment as well before he had a hair transplant.

Asda is the only supermarket to sell the treatment without prescription, after seeing a pharmacist. It's also available from high street chemists. Prices are as follows for a 28 day supply

28

49

45

37

More here:
Losing your hair? There isn't a cure for male baldness - but here are the two effective treatments - Mirror.co.uk

Recommendation and review posted by simmons

The Idaho Falls Zoos lion pride grew last month following the birth of two female cubs.

The delivery comes only five months after the zoos African lioness, Kimani, became a first-time mother to a male cub, Hondo, in February.

The back-to-back pregnancies were the result of unique circumstances, a city of Idaho Falls news release said. At the advanced age of 14 with no successful pregnancies before Hondo, Kimani having cubs was doubtful.

After Hondo was separated from his mother to receive lifesaving treatment, she became pregnant again.

These two new cubs are good news, Animal Keeper Dallas LaDucer said in the release. Their mother, Kimani, has a unique set of genetics and it is important that they are passed on to future generations.

The cubs are with their mother away from public view, but zoo employees will post photos, videos and updates on the zoos Facebook page and Instagram account. The cubs will be reunited with their father and older brother after developing sufficiently, the release said.

Typically, zoo employees would expect cubs every few years, though back-to-back pregnancies are more common in the wild when a lioness loses her cubs.

The cubs join a handful of babies born at the zoo this year.

With everything that has happened with our lions, hand raising one of only 16 grey gibbons in the country, a sloth bear cub, a camel calf, the first red-crowned crane chick in the zoos history and all the other babies, it has been a wild and wonderful year at the zoo! Operations Manager Linda Beard said in the release.

See the rest here:
Pair of lion cubs born at Idaho Falls Zoo - Post Register

Recommendation and review posted by sam