Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and the companys wholly-owned subsidiary, SpaceLogistics LLC, have successfully completed the docking of the Mission Extension Vehicle-2 (MEV-2) to the Intelsat 10-02 (IS-10-02) commercial communications satellite to deliver life-extension services.

Northrop Grumman is the only provider of flight-proven life extension services for satellites, and this is the second time the two companies have docked commercial spacecraft in orbit. Northrop Grummans MEV-1 made history when it successfully docked to the Intelsat 901 (IS-901) satellite in February 2020. Unlike MEV-1, which docked above the GEO orbit before moving IS-901 back into service, MEV-2 docked with IS-10-02 directly in its operational GEO orbital location.

Todays successful docking of our second Mission Extension Vehicle further demonstrates the reliability, safety and utility of in-space logistics, said Tom Wilson, vice president, strategic space systems, Northrop Grumman and president, SpaceLogistics LLC. The success of this mission paves the way for our second generation of servicing satellites and robotics, offering flexibility and resiliency for both commercial and government satellite operators, which can enable entirely new classes of missions.

MEV-2 will provide five years of service to IS-10-02 before undocking and moving on to provide services for a new mission. IS-10-02 delivers broadband and media distribution services to Intelsat customers across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America; it is a key satellite in the Intelsat-Telenor Satellite 1 West video neighborhood, which distributes more than 900 channels to some 18 million TV households across Europe. Telenor Satellite own about half of IS-10-02s Ku band payload, which it markets as THOR 10-02 and contributed to todays successful mission.

Intelsat has pioneered innovations in space-based technology for more than five decades. We are proud to work side by side with Northrop Grumman on todays groundbreaking mission, the first-ever docking of a communications satellite in GEO orbit, said Intelsat Chief Services Officer Mike DeMarco. Space servicing is a valuable tool for Intelsat in extending the high-quality service experience that our customers depend upon. Northrop Grummans MEV technology has helped us extend the life of two high-performing satellites, while focusing our innovation capital on advancing the Intelsat next-generation network this technology is a win-win for us.

The Mission Extension Vehicle is the first in Northrop Grummans lineup of satellite servicing vehicles, but following last years robotic servicing mission award from DARPA, the company is working with the agency on a mission that will feature the first-ever commercial robotic servicing spacecraft. This mission will expand the market for satellite servicing of both commercial and government client satellites with advanced robotics using the companys Mission Robotics Vehicle (MRV) to conduct in-orbit repair, augmentation, assembly, detailed inspection and relocation of client satellites through robotics.

To further complement its on-orbit servicing portfolio, Northrop Grumman is leveraging model based systems engineering to develop its Mission Extension Pods (MEPs) which will also provide critical life extension services to aging satellites. The MRV will be used to install these pods on existing in-orbit commercial and government client satellites to extend their mission lives. The company is targeting 2024 for launch of both the MRV and the initial MEPs.

Sea News, April 15

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Northrop Grumman and Intelsat make history with Docking of 2nd Mission Extension Vehicle - Sea News

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Dutch biochemical company Avantium says it is on track to open its first commercial production plant by the end of 2023. The facility in Delfzijl, the Netherlands, will produce 5,000 metric tonnes of FDCA per annum. FDCA is the key building block for polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a 100% plant-based, fully recyclable biopolyester. According to Avantium, PEF has the potential to replace various packaging materials such as PET, glass or aluminium in typical applications like bottles for soft drinks, water, alcoholic beverages and fruit juices. It expects bottles made with PEF to appear in Europes supermarkets by the beginning of 2024.

The Euronext Amsterdam-listed companys plans have been boosted after it raised around 28 million by issuing 5.2 million new shares and announced a deal with Belgium-based plastic packaging supplier Resilux for the supply of a fixed volume of PEF resin from the Avantium plant.

It has also signed collaboration agreements to develop sustainable bottles with an undisclosed major global food and beverage brand owner, the Japanese specialty chemical company Toyobo, the US specialty polyester film producer Terphane, and the Dutch beverage bottling company Refresco.

These deals come on top of Avantiums existing Plastic Bottle Project: a collaboration with Coca-Cola, spirits firm The Absolut Company and Carlsberg to jointly develop several PEF applications. This venture has already led to Carlsberg unveiling a prototype for the Green Fibre Bottle, which it claims is the worlds first paper beer bottle made from sustainably-sourced wood fibres that is both 100% bio-based and fully recyclable. The Danish beer giant has added its partnership with the project will assist its targets to achieve zero carbon emissions at its breweries and reduce its value chain carbon footprint by 30% by 2030.

Thanks to these developments, Avantium is confident PEF will be broadly introduced to the market around the globe and with high-value applications varying from monolayer bottles, multilayer bottles, and film.

Tom van Aken, Chief Executive Officer of Avantium told FoodNavigator that PEF plastic boasts attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels (unlike polyethylene terephthalate, or PET), can be recycled and will also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics. It can further enable shelf life extension and thus help reduce waste.

The material is made using sugars from corn, wheat or beet and retains carbon dioxide better than conventional PET. If you have carbonated drinks, you need to keep the CO2 in your bottles, he explained. Our material is 5-10 times better than PET in keeping C02 in the bottle - so in that sense it's almost like glass in terms of how good it is in keeping carbonation in your drinks. But it is equally good for keeping air and oxygen out of the bottle so is good for everything that is sensitive to oxygen such as beer, juice, smoothies or coffee. It also has higher heat stability and is a bit stronger than PET, so it has significant safety performance benefits over it.

Around 300 million tonnes of plastic is made from fossil fuels globally every year, most of which is not recycled and can take hundreds of years to decompose. According to van Aken, many plastic bottles arent recycled because they use multiple polymers such as polyethylene,polyurethane and nylon in conjunction with PET. We're trying to replace these with a monolayer PEF film which can be easily recycled, he said. That will mean a substantial improvement over existing packaging materials.

Meanwhile, Avantium says its plant-based material degrades 100 times faster than PET. This is a product designed for recycling, stressed the CEO.But if it does end up in nature it will degrade much faster than conventional plastics.

Eventually, Avantium plans to use plant sugars from sustainable sourced biowaste so that the rise of plant plastic does not affect the global food supply chain. And while its target to make 5,000 tonnes is a modest one, it expects its production to grow as demand for renewable plastics climbs.

Cost remains a challenge for the scaling up of PEF production, however. While PET currently costs around 1 per kilo, for example, PEF is between 8-10 per kilo. However, van Aken said that's not a like-for-like comparison.We're competing against materials where they might be using nylon in sparling water bottles to keep the carbonation in the bottles,he eleborated.But the downside is that if the bottle is a combination of PET and nylon, it cannot be recycled. If you take away the nylon and replace it with PEF, you have a bottle than you can subsequently recycle because PEF and PET can mix and recycle.

He also pointed out that todays end consumers are prepared to pay a premium for sustainable products. More research shows that there's a significant percentage of consumers that are perfectly prepared to pay a few cents extra for something which is more sustainable. I think the contracts that we've just signed show that economics is not a prohibited aspect.

And while the companys current plans will suit "more niche high-value applications", he expects prices to drop as the company builds larger-scale plants.

From 2026 onwards, we expect the next stage will be to build larger-scale plants in Asia and the US which means the product will be built on a much larger scale and much more materials will become available at significantly lower cost. Then the material will compete with all glass packaging, all alumina cans and with many of the multi-layer packaging products that you see out there."

It can be used across the soft drinks sector in juice and waters, but also in everything that is air sensitive so coffee and meat packaging.

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PEF can become the 'standard in the food and drink industry', says plastics producer - FoodNavigator.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The programme of work, which represents a 2.5million investment by Belfast Harbour, will effectively renew and modernize the terminal infrastructure, extending its life span for a further 25 years. Work will include refurbishment of the berth ramp, the access walkways and the fenders.

Local contractors McLaughlin & Harvey has been engaged to deliver the project which is due to commence in early summer.

To facilitate these works the Belfast-Heysham service will operate from the Ballast Quay Terminal during the summer period.

Belfast Harbour has continued its long-term investment programme in port infrastructure in recent years, including the 40million redevelopment of Victoria Terminal 3 container terminal, with more than 20million invested in new cranes, and the installation of a new 15million two tier linkspan ramp at Victoria Terminal 2 ferry terminal to accommodate Stenas new Embla and Edda vessels on the Belfast- Liverpool route.

Michael Robinson, Port Director, Belfast Harbour said: We are continuing to invest in our port infrastructure and equipment that will help us achieve our goal of becoming the best regional port in the world.

Roll-On-Roll-Off freight, including on the Belfast to Heysham route, performed strongly last year, reflecting the importance of our freight traffic routes to Scotland and England and the essential supply chains we serve to the Northern Ireland economy. We want our facilities to be best in class and having undertaken a full structural assessment of the VT1 facilities we believe that making this 2.5million investment now will provide both this standard and a long-term life extension for the terminal.

John Mariner, McLaughlin & Harvey Contracts Director added: We are delighted to deliver another project for Belfast Harbour; building on our successful long-term relationship which includes Victoria Terminals 3 and 4. This project will be delivered using a local supply chain, and will utilise our extensive marine civil engineering expertise to support the harbour in its programme of continual investment to improve facilities in the port.

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Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Patients with germline and/or homozygous tumor DNA damage response (tDDR) alterations among male patients with heavily pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) were most likely to respond to treatment with the PARP inhibitor talazoparib (Talzenna), according to data from a retrospective ad hoc exploratory subgroup analysis presented during the 2021 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting.1

The open-label, international phase 2 TALAPRO-1 trial (NCT03148795) examined single-agent oral talazoparib at 1 mg daily in patients with mCRPC previously treated with taxane-based chemotherapy, as well as abiraterone acetate (Zytiga)/prednisone), enzalutamide (Xtandi), or both hormonal agents. All patients had at least 1 homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene alteration from a panel of 11 genes (HRR11) likely to sensitize their tumor to PARP inhibition: ATM,ATR,BRCA1, BRCA2,CHEK2,FANCA,MLH1,MRE11A,NBN,PALB2,RAD51C.

The data cutoff was September 4, 2020, and the primary end point was objective response rate (ORR) by blinded independent central review (BICR). The study met its primary end point as the final analysis showed that among 104 patients in the efficacy population, the ORR by BICR was 29.8% (n = 31).

The strongest antitumor effect was observed in patients with BRCA alterations, with a confirmed ORR of 45.9% and a median radiographic progression-free survivalof 11.2 months, said Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, FRCP, MSc, PhD, FMedSci, head of drug development at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

Talazoparib also induced objective responses in patients with non-BRCA HRR gene alterations, including PALB2 and ATM alterations.

Both the antitumor activity and tolerability was promising [with talazoparib] for this heavily pretreated population of mCRPC patients, said de Bono.

Regarding the ad hoc analyses presented during the AACR meeting, de Bono said, We explored the importance of germline versus somatic origin and the zygosity of these DNA repair defects [in association with] response.

De Bono explained, Characterization of alteration origin was based on a comparison of DNA sequences from matched tumor and saliva samples. FoundationOne was used to test tumor tissue and Ambry Genetics CustomNext-Cancerpanel was used to test saliva. The somatic-germline-zygosity (SGZ) computational algorithm established by Sun et al2 was used to predict zygosity.

Both the characterization of origin and zygosity prediction were limited to short variants. The analysis was focused on the HRR-altered measurable disease population, defined as patients who had measurable soft-tissue disease at screening and a DNA-repair gene defect presumed to directly or indirectly sensitize [the tumor] to PARP inhibition as assessed in the HRR11 core gene panel, and had received at least 1 dose of talazoparib, said de Bono.

The assessment of tumor alterations by origin showed that 25 were germline, 43 were somatic, and 33 were unknown or not evaluable.

BRCA2 and ATM were the most commonly altered genes. The BRCA2 alterations were evenly split between germline and somatic, at 13 versus 19, respectively. In contrast, the ATM alterations tended to be somatic in origin, said de Bono.

Among 25 patients with germline alterations, the ORR was 28% (n = 7), comprising 1 CR and 6 PRs. An additional 10 patients had stable disease (SD), 6 patients had progressive disease (PD), and 2 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was 25.6% (n = 11) among 43 patients with somatic mutations; this included 3 CRs and 8 PRs. Another 16 patients reached SD, 9 had PD, and 5 were not evaluable. Two other patients were categorized by the investigators as non-CR/non-PD.

ORRs were similar for germline and somatic alterations, said de Bono.

In the BRCA2 subpopulation, among 13 patients with germline BRCA2 alterations, the ORR was 53.8% (n = 7), comprising 1 CR and 6 PRs. An additional 5 patients had SD and 1 patient was not evaluable.

The ORR was 36.8% (n = 7) among 19 patients with somatic BRCA2 alterations; this included 2 CRs and 5 PRs. Another 6 patients reached SD, 2 patients had non-CR/non-PD, 2 patients had PD, and 2 patients were not evaluable.

As expected, for the BRCA2-altered tumors we saw the highest ORR, independent of germline versus somatic origin, said de Bono.

The assessment of the prevalence of tumor alterations by zygosity across all HRR11 alterations found that 30 were homozygous, 30 were heterozygous, and 13 were not evaluable.

Among 30 patients with homozygous alterations, the ORR was 40% (n = 12), comprising 3 CRs and 9 PRs. An additional 9 patients had SD, 2 patients had non-CR/non-PD, 6 patients had PD, and 1 patient was not evaluable.

The ORR was 13.3% (n = 4) among the 30 patients with heterozygous alterations; this included 1 CR and 3 PRs. Another 12 patients reached SD, 10 had PD, and 4 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was significantly higher for homozygous alterations. Interestingly, the short variants not evaluable for SGZ prediction (n = 32) exhibited an ORR (40.6%) similar to homozygous alterations, although the interpretation of these data are unclear, said de Bono.

Regarding zygosity in the BRCA2 subgroup, alterations were primarily homozygous; there were 18 homozygous and 9 heterozygous alterations. This breakdown contrasted with some of the other variants, such as CHEK2, in which the alterations were mainly heterozygous.

In the 18-patient BRCA2 homozygous group, the ORR was 50% (n = 9), comprising 2 CRs and 7 PRs. An additional 5 patients had SD, 2 had non-CR/non-PD, 1 had PD, and 1 patient was not evaluable.

Among the 9 BRCA2 patients with heterozygous alterations, the ORR was 44.4% (n = 4), comprising 1 CR and 3 PRs. Another 2 patients reached SD, 1 had PD, and 2 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was higher for BRCA2 patients, independent of detectable zygosity. The difference in response by zygosity observed in the BRCA2 subset and the larger HRR panel does suggest a higher ORR for homozygous loss across the DNA repair genes and may reflect differences in zygosity distribution between the genes. For example, we saw 1 homozygous, 6 heterozygous, and 3 non-evaluable alterations for CHEK2, explained de Bono.

Summarizing his discussion, de Bono said, Based on this retrospective ad hoc exploratory analysis in this heavily pretreated mCRPC population, patients with diverse DDR alterations demonstrated responses to talazoparib monotherapy.

Based on analysis of short variants, tumors exhibiting homozygous DDR alterations were more likely to respond to talazoparib than those with heterozygous DDR alterations. Potential explanations include gene-specific imbalances in zygosity of alterations and/or sensitivity to talazoparib, but further investigation in a larger data set is needed, de Bono added.

Reference

1. de Bono JS, Laird AD, Mehra N, et al. TALAPRO-1 final data: Talazoparib (TALA) monotherapy in men with DNA damage response alterations (DDRalt) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)exploration of DDRalt germline/somatic origin and zygosity. Presented at: 2021 AACR Virtual Annual Meeting Week 1; April 10-15, 2021. Abstract CT027

2. Sun JX, He Y, Sanford E, et al. A computational approach to distinguish somatic vs. germline origin of genomic alterations from deep sequencing of cancer specimens without a matched normal. PLoS Comput Biol. 2018;14(2):e1005965. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005965

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Talazoparib Most Likely to Inhibit Response in Men With Heavily Pretreated mCRPC - Cancer Network

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

SECAUCUS, N.J. and HELSINKI, Finland, April 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and Blueprint Genetics announced today that they will present results of 10 studies at the virtual 2021 American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Annual Meeting, to be held April 1316, 2021. These studies demonstrate the value of a broad range of genomic sequencing and other technologies to help diagnose several inherited disorders across various medical specialties.

In January 2020, Quest Diagnostics acquired Blueprint Genetics, a leading specialty genetic testing company with deep expertise in gene variant detection using next generation sequencing (NGS), proprietary bioinformatics, and clinical interpretation. Since that time, Quest and Blueprint Genetics have broadened access to actionable insights in genetic disorders and inherited diseases for patient care and anticipatory management as well as pharmaceutical drug research and development and clinical trials, particularly in the United States.

"Genomic testing is an essential component of patient care as results can impact treatment and management on many levels. Too often, patients experience a diagnostic odyssey, spending months, years or even a lifetime searching for a diagnosis because they lack access to genomic testing insights," said Carrie Eglinton Manner, Senior Vice President, Advanced Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics. "Quest and Blueprint Genetics are working together to bring innovative advanced diagnostics from test ordering to gene variant interpretation and clinical reporting to patient populations with unmet medical needs."

Featured studies focus on mitochondrial disease, hearing loss and skeletal dysplasias

Among the research is the study "Retrospective review of mitochondrial genome analysis in over 6600 cases using clinical grade mtDNA sequencing" (Poster: eP345), which demonstrates that including high-quality mitochondrial mtDNA analysis by next generation sequencing (NGS) in panels in multiple medical specialties increases the ability to make diagnoses for patients with mitochondrial disease. Mitochondrial disorders can be difficult to diagnose, as many of the symptoms, such as vision or hearing loss, seizures or poor muscle tone, can be mistaken for other diseases. While mitochondrial disorders have no cure, patients often do better when the underlying cause of their symptoms is diagnosed and addressed early.

"It's exciting to witness first-hand how mtDNA analysis increases diagnostic yields: Greater than a 1 percent increase in diagnostic yield, on average, across all panels, and a greater than 5 percent increase in multiple panels. The NGS-based technology we developed and extensively validated is specifically optimized for the detection of large mtDNA deletions and low levels of heteroplasmy. Mitochondrial disorders need to be considered in the diagnostic workflow for patients with suspected inherited disorders to provide more molecular diagnoses for all patients, not just those with complex presentations," said Jennifer Schleit, Blueprint Genetics Laboratory Director, North America.

Molecular genetic testing is now considered a standard part of the evaluation of hearing loss in infants. However, comprehensive genetic testing in hearing loss using standard NGS methods is complicated. A comprehensive testing strategy that includes difficult-to-sequence regions is needed for the most accurate diagnosis. A study titled "Next-generation sequencing panels for hereditary hearing loss testing with approaches for difficult-to-sequence regions" (Poster: eP345) demonstrates that the inclusion of difficult-to-sequence genes, such as STRC and OTOA, contributed to more than 10 percent of the diagnostic yield.

Another study, "Diagnostic utility of next-generation sequencing panel tests in the diagnosis of skeletal dysplasias" (Poster: eP346), found that NGS panels enabled diagnosis in 42 percent of patients. Skeletal dysplasias involve more than 450 heritable conditions that cause abnormalities of cartilage and bone, but diagnosis is challenging given significant overlap in symptoms. The analysis also demonstrated a diagnostic yield of 62 percent in prenatal cases, suggesting that testing in prenatal situations has significant clinical utility.

Abstracts can be accessed on the ACMG website.

Among the scientific and clinical work being presented at the meeting are:

Quest Diagnostics and Blueprint Genetics are improving patient outcomes through high-quality genomic testing. Quest Diagnostics is the leader in advanced diagnostics, including in genetics and genomics. The company offers more than 1,000 genetic tests, including whole exome sequencing, germline and somatic gene sequencing, noninvasive prenatal screening, pharmacogenomics as well as cytogenetics and biochemical genetic testing. With a global customer base in over 70 countries, Blueprint Genetics brings specialty genetics knowledge in sequencing and bioinformatics and variant interpretation and reporting to Quest, which complements and extends its existing genetics leadership. Quest Diagnostics' 600 MDs and PhDs and genetic counselors aid physicians in test selection and interpretation and publish hundreds of studies each year.

About Quest DiagnosticsQuest Diagnosticsempowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest Diagnostics annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals intheUnited States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. http://www.QuestDiagnostics.com.

About Blueprint GeneticsBlueprint Genetics, a Quest Diagnostics company, is a leading specialty genetics and bioinformatics company focused on providing genetic testing for inherited diseases. The company is based in Helsinki and Seattle, with a customer base spanning over 70 countries.www.blueprintgenetics.com

SOURCE Quest Diagnostics

http://www.questdiagnostics.com

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Quest Diagnostics and Blueprint Genetics to Present New Insights from Genetic Testing at the 2021 Annual American College of Medical Genetics and...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

This spring, the biotechnology company Oxitec plans to release genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. Oxitec says its technology will combat dengue fever, a potentially life-threatening disease, and other mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika mainly transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

While there have been more than 7,300 dengue cases reported in the United States between 2010 and 2020, a majority are contracted in Asia and the Caribbean, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In Florida, however, there were 41 travel-related cases in 2020, compared with 71 cases that were transmitted locally.

Native mosquitoes in Florida are increasingly resistant to the most common form of control insecticide and scientists say they need new and better techniques to control the insects and the diseases they carry. There arent any other tools that we have. Mosquito nets dont work. Vaccines are under development but need to be fully efficacious, says Michael Bonsall, a mathematical biologist at the University of Oxford, who is not affiliated with Oxitec but has collaborated with the company in the past, and who worked with the WHO to produce a GM mosquito-testing framework.

Bonsall and other scientists think a combination of approaches is essential to reducing the burden of diseases and that, maybe, newer ideas like GM mosquitoes should be added to the mix. Oxitecs mosquitoes, for instance, are genetically altered to pass what the company calls self-limiting genes to their offspring; when released GM males breed with wild female mosquitoes, the resulting generation does not survive into adulthood, reducing the overall population.

But Oxitec has been proposing to experimentally release GM mosquitos in the Keys since 2011, and the plan has long been met with suspicion among locals and debate among scientists. Some locals say they fear being guinea pigs. Critics say they are concerned about the possible effects GM mosquitoes could have on human health and the environment. In 2012, the Key West City Commissionobjected to Oxitecs plan; in a non-binding referendum four years later, residents of Key Haven where the mosquitoes would have been released rejected it, while residents in the surrounding county voted in support of the release. With the decision left up to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, officials approved the trial to be conducted elsewhere in the Keys.

According to Oxitec, the release was delayed due to a transfer of jurisdiction over the project from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company reapplied for approval to release a new version of the mosquitoes, called OX5034, in the Keys. In May, the EPA granted a two-year experimental use permit, which the agency can cancel at any time. State and local sign-off soon followed finally giving the project the greenlight.

Oxitecs OX5034 mosquitoes are the first GM mosquitoes approved for release in the US. The company has already conducted a trial with the OX5034 mosquitoes in Brazil and released more than a billion of a previous version, called OX513A, there and in other locations over the years including the Cayman Islands. The company says it is confident in the effectiveness and safety of the technology.

But some scientists want to hit pause on Oxitecs Florida trial, to find what they say is a fairer process in deciding to release the mosquitoes. Others want to see clearer proof that this technology is even necessary, claiming that the company has only released its most positive data with the public and has kept other key data, including whether the mosquitoes curb disease transmission, private. And if the release actually launches as planned, some Keys residents say they aim to interfere.

Critics also say that Oxitec failed to engage with local communities in Florida and get their consent to release the mosquitoes. Whats the most upsetting is that the very people that are going to be most impacted, both by the benefits or the risks of such a decision, have like the smallest voice in how these choices are made. I think thats a really big issue, says Natalie Kofler, a molecular biologist and bioethicist who founded Editing Nature, a platform that advocates for inclusive decision-making processes to steer the use of genetic technology. If Oxitec doesnt do this right, she adds, we could have a huge impact on delaying the use of other beneficial technologies like that in the future.

Oxitecs OX5034 mosquitoes are programmed to combat the transmission of mosquito-borne illnesses by suppressing local Aedes aegypti populations. Oxitec which is US-owned and based in the United Kingdom describes their mosquitoes as friendly because they will only release males, which, unlike females, do not bite humans or transmit disease.

Also read: Clever Approach: Scientists Create GM-Free Organisms Using Genetic Engineering

At Oxitecs laboratory in the UK, the company genetically engineers the mosquitoes, giving the insects the self-limiting gene that makes the females dependent on the antibiotic tetracycline. Without the drug, they will die. Eggs from these genetically-altered mosquitoes which will hatch both male and female insects will be shipped to the Keys. Mosquitoes require water to mature from an egg to an adult; when Oxitecs team adds water to the boxes the mosquitoes will be deployed in, both GM males and GM females will hatch. With no tetracycline present in the box, the GM females are expected to die in early larval stages.

The male mosquitoes will survive and carry the gene. When they leave the boxes, the insects will, hypothetically, fly away to mate with wild females to pass the gene to the next wild generation, according to Nathan Rose, head of regulatory affairs at Oxitec. Kevin Gorman, the companys chief development officer, says the local female mosquito population will be increasingly reduced which will also reduce the number of wild male mosquitoes in the treatment areas.

Gorman emphasised to Undark that the EPA and other regulators found no risk in using tetracycline in breeding their genetically-altered mosquitoes. But some scientists think the presence of this antibiotic in the environment does pose a risk. According to Jennifer Kuzma, co-founder and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Centre at North Carolina State University, tetracyline is commonly used in Florida to prevent bacterial diseases in agriculture particularly in citrus groves and to treat bacteria in sewage plants.

The use of the antibiotic for these purposes may mean that it will remain in the environment, especially in water where the mosquitoes breed, which could allow Oxitecs female mosquitoes to survive. While the company does not plan to release the mosquitos near areas where the antibiotic is used, Kuzma says the EPAs risk assessment did not include testing of any standing water for tetracycline something, she adds, would have been easy enough to do for good due diligence.

Skeptics of Oxitecs GM mosquitoes include local residents, physicians, scientists and environmental activists. Many of these opponents say they arent anti-GMO, but disagree with how the approval process has been handled. One group has even kept a running list of what it sees as Oxitecs wrongdoings since it first began experimental releases. The list includes Oxitecs lack of disease monitoring in the countries where it has released mosquitoes; the unknown price of its technology; and complaints that the company has overstated the success of some of it its trials.

I cannot trust this company. I cannot trust this technology, says Mara Daly, a resident of Key Largo who says shes been following Oxitecs plans for nine years.

This is not a traditional pesticide, she adds. This is not a chemical that you can trace. This is something completely different, new emerging technology, and we need better regulation.

Phil Goodman, chairman of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD), an independently-elected commission carrying out mosquito control within Monroe County, says that many of those who discredit Oxitecs evidence do not understand the technology. Theyre fear-mongering, he says.

They have very little credibility here in the Florida Keys as far as Im concerned, he adds.

But people like Daly and Barry Wray, executive director of the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, disagree. We want to know its safe, says Wray, who notes that his group more generally supports GM technology. We dont have another Florida Keys ecosystem. We dont have another Florida Keys community. We have this one.

Daly, Wray, and others point to what they perceive as the FKMCDs disrespect for public opinion. They argue that the community wasnt given a chance to consent before the EPA approval. There was a 30-day public forum in September 2019 about Oxitecs technology application, with 31,174 comments opposing release and 56 in support. A statement emailed to Undark by Melissa Sullivan, an EPA spokesperson, noted that the agency considered these comments during the review, but critics think it happened too quickly to be of real use.

In June, Kofler and Kuzma wrote an opinion piece in The Boston Globe about the EPA approval, critiquing the agencys regulatory system and calling for a better process for evaluating new biotechnologies. The researchers expressed concern that the EPA did not convene an independent, external scientific advisory panel to review Oxitecs claims about its mosquito strategy and that the agency only publicly released its risk assessment after approving the technology. The American public, Kofler and Kuzma wrote, needs to be assured that these decisions are made free of conflicts of interest. The statement from the EPAs Sullivan noted that the agency conducted anextensive risk assessment based on the best available science.

Some critics also wanted there to be more public engagement. Kofler and Kuzma say they offered to provide their expertise, along with other outside experts, to the mosquito control district to allow more discussion about the GM mosquitoes with the Keys community. But Kofler says the district wasnt responsive. Oxitec itself launched webinars about their new product, but not until after the EPA approval. Here we are, like in the final hour, having these conversations that needed to be happening a year ago, says Kofler.

Without public trust and enthusiasm, it doesnt matter whether Oxitecs mosquito technique works, says Guy Reeves, a genetic researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany, who stresses that he doesnt think the companys approach is unsafe. If the population in Florida Keys becomes so sensitised to this issue that they can no longer cooperate with each other thats good for the mosquitoes, not good for the people, he adds.

Based on their first generation mosquito OX513A, Oxitec says it has shown that the approach reduces a targeted mosquito population in trials in both Brazil and the Cayman Islands. But theres no evidence that this new OX5034 mosquito release will actually be worth it for mosquito suppression, says Reeves. Oxitec also hasnt explained how their new mosquito will directly curb human diseases, such as dengue. Reducing disease transmission and burden should be measures of efficacy for this technology, says Kofler.

According to Gorman, independent disease suppression data has only been collected by municipalities in Brazil because thats where most of the companys trials have been released in larger scales. These municipalities have shown that Oxitec mosquitoes have reduced dengue cases in areas of release, Gorman says. In order for Oxitec to collect additional data, he adds, the company needs to release and test large areas over sustained periods of time. Gorman maintains that the company is not required to report formal health impact studies.

Reeves adds that Oxitec also hasnt explained what resources are needed to sustain this product, how long it could take to be effective, or the cost. When asked about the cost of the Florida Keys project, Oxitec responded to Undark by email: Oxitec is a pre-commercial, pre-profit company. We will not profit from this pilot project in Florida. We are paying for it ourselves.

Oxitec has released more than a billion of their OX513A mosquitoes over the past 10 years. According to independent scientists, some of those experiments did not go well.

For example, researchers at Yale University and collaborators from Brazil analysed Oxitecs 2015 release of OX513A in Brazil. The scientists confirmed that some offspring of the genetically modified mosquitoes which were supposed to die and not pass new genes to the wild population survived to adulthood and mated with their native counterparts. Between 10 and 60 percent of the native mosquitoes contained genes from Oxitec, according to the Yale study, which published in Nature in 2019. The papers authors concluded they do not know what impacts these mixed mosquitoes have on disease control or transmission, but added that their findings underscore the importance of monitoring the genetics of the insects.

Oxitec disagreed with the findings and responded on the journals website. Oxitec told Gizmodo that Yales study includes numerous false, speculative, and unsubstantiated claims and statements about Oxitecs mosquito technology. And when Kofler and three other scientists wrote about Oxitecs Brazil trial in The Conversation, Oxitec pushed to have the article retracted, says Kofler.

For this coming release, some Key Largo locals are willing to act on their anger. Daly, for instance, says that if the mosquitoes are deployed in her neighbourhood, shell try to put insecticide in any box she finds or send it to an expert to test even if it means getting in trouble with the federal authorities. I already have my arresting officer and she said shes gonna clean her handcuffs for me, she says. I dont care.

Ideally, Daly says, it wont have to come to that. She and other locals hope to stop Oxitec before the latest mosquitos are delivered. Daly says she has been busy organising protests like one that happened recently in Key Largo and giving out yard signs to residents who dont want their property used in the trial. Locals are pissed off. So I have been busy getting the press to cover the local opposition, Daly wrote in an email to Undark.

The first flying insect or animal that can actually use our human blood for a friggin trial for a product to come to market without my consent, Daly says.

Thats my blood, she adds. Thats my sons blood. Thats my dogs blood.

Taylor White is a freelance journalist based in Cape Cod, MA and a graduate of the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting Program at the NYU school of journalism. Her work has appeared in NOVA GBH, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, GenomeWeb, Spectrum and Science Vs.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

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In the US, Imminent Release of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes To Fight Dengue - The Wire Science

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All young children display impulsive or defiant behavior occasionally. Sometimes, this is part of a normal emotional reaction. But if these behaviors are extreme or outside the norm for their level of development, it could be a sign of a behavioral disorder.

The most common behavioral disorders in children are:

In this article, we discuss some of the most prevalent behavioral disorders in children, their symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and management.

Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This article will use the terms male, female, or both to refer to sex assigned at birth. Click here to learn more.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describes behavioral disorders as involving a pattern of disruptive behaviors in children that last for at least 6 months and cause problems in school, at home, and in social situations.

This is different from the challenging behaviors children sometimes display. Almost all children will have tantrums, or act in aggressive, angry, or defiant ways at some point.

While challenging, these behaviors are a normal part of childhood development. Often, they are the result of strong emotions that the child is expressing in the only way they know how.

As a result, healthcare professionals only diagnose a behavioral disorder when the disruptive behaviors are severe, persistent, and outside the norm for the childs developmental stage.

Behavioral disorders are also different from autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is an umbrella term for neurodevelopmental conditions that affect how some children communicate, socialize, and process sensory stimuli.

ASD may cause behaviors in children that caregivers find unusual or challenging, but these are the result of how they experience the world.

The following sections look at some specific behavioral disorders and their symptoms.

ADHD is a disorder that causes difficulty focusing attention. It can also cause hyperactivity and impulsivity.

There are three ADHD subtypes, with the diagnosis depending on the symptoms the child displays most often. The subtypes are:

A child with inattentive type ADHD may:

A child with hyperactive-impulsive type ADHD may:

A child with combined ADHD will exhibit a mixture of the above behaviors.

Doctors often diagnose ADHD after the age of 6. This is because the symptoms can be more apparent when a child starts school, and struggles to adjust to more quiet, sedentary activities.

Learn more about how ADHD can manifest differently in girls.

Those with CD tend to violate basic social rules and the rights of others. This can have a significant impact on someones academic, social, and home life. It can develop both in childhood or in adolescence.

The symptoms of CD include:

Many young people with CD have difficulty interpreting the behavior of others. For example, they may believe a person is behaving in a hostile way toward them when they are not. This causes them to escalate toward aggressive or violent behavior.

People with CD may also have difficulty feeling empathy, or have another condition, such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder that affects their thoughts and behavior.

According to Mental Health America, CD may affect 616% of boys in the general population, and 29% of girls. If CD first manifests before age 11, it is more likely to persist into early adult life.

Children and adolescents with ODD display an ongoing pattern of hostile behavior toward authority figures, such as parents, caregivers, or teachers. Unlike conduct disorder, children with ODD tend to violate minor rules, rather than major rules and social norms.

The potential signs of ODD include:

It is worth noting that some clinicians have criticized the concept of ODD, arguing that it medicalizes normal child behavior. It is common for children to behave angrily or defiantly when they are unhappy, so it can be difficult to distinguish between ODD and behavior that is related to stress.

Doctors can only diagnose ODD if the behavior has been persistent for 6 months, causes constant disruption at home or school, and is not the result of another mental health condition.

There is no single cause for behavioral disorders. It is likely that a mixture of physiological and environmental factors play a role.

But it is important to note that a child of any background, sex, or gender can have a behavioral disorder.

The following factors may influence their development:

Evidence suggests that changes in brain structure, development, and neurotransmitter levels may influence behavioral disorders. For example, areas of the brain that control attention are less active in children with ADHD.

Low serotonin and high sensitivity to cortisol, a stress hormone, may also play a role in aggression.

Additionally, conditions that affect learning ability may have an impact, as children with intellectual disabilities are twice as likely to have a behavioral disorder.

Behavioral disorders appear to be more common in children with a low birth weight, or who were born prematurely.

ODD may also be more common in children exposed to toxins in the womb, such as tobacco smoke, or in children whose parents or caregivers have substance abuse disorders.

Behavioral disorders can run in families. This could indicate a genetic predisposition for some people to develop them.

But in the case of ODD, scientists have not identified a specific gene that could explain this. Older studies have shown that people with ADHD, ODD, and CD share similar genetic traits, but none were unique to these disorders.

Male children are more likely to have behavioral disorders than female children. It is unclear if this is due to biological differences, or whether differences in gender norms and expectations influence how male children behave or develop.

For example, girls with ODD may be more likely to express aggression through words, rather than actions. This may mean the behavior is less obvious, and so less likely to receive a diagnosis.

Psychological trauma is a complex emotional and physical response to severe or chronic stress. Early exposure to trauma can impact child development.

Any experience that causes significant distress can be traumatic, but common examples that may affect children include:

Behavioral disorders are more common in people from low-income backgrounds, which may be due to increased levels of stress.

It is also possible to confuse child traumatic stress with a behavioral disorder, as they have overlapping symptoms.

It is important to consult a mental health professional if a child may have a behavioral disorder. A specialist can diagnose the disorder through an assessment process. This may include:

It is not possible for parents or caregivers to diagnose behavioral disorders themselves. An early diagnosis can significantly improve the effectiveness of treatments.

But many child psychologists will not diagnose a behavioral disorder in very young children, particularly those of preschool age or younger. This is because it can be challenging to distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior in this age group.

Over 80% of preschoolers have mild tantrums occasionally. Because young children experience huge developmental changes in a short period of time, they may outgrow short-term behavioral difficulties.

The management of behavioral disorders can vary depending on the childs needs, their familys needs, and the type and severity of their disorder. Approaches that may help include:

Patience, empathy, and encouragement are important for helping to boost self-esteem. An authoritative parenting style, which involves listening to children whilst also setting reasonable rules and boundaries, is also helpful.

It is important to note that bootcamp-style programs and tough love are not effective for behavioral disorders. In fact, they can be very damaging.

Caregivers should speak with a pediatrician if they think their child may be showing signs of a behavioral or developmental disorder. The doctor may refer the child to a specialist, such as a:

It is also important for caregivers to seek support for their own well-being. They may wish to make use of respite care, if available, or to speak with a therapist. There are also support groups where caregivers can connect with others raising children with behavioral disorders.

Most children have temper tantrums or display impulsive or defiant behavior at some point. These are usually a normal part of child development.

But in cases where the behavior is persistent and constant, or outside the norm for the childs age and level of development, it may be a sign of a behavioral disorder.

With early and appropriate treatment, families can learn to manage the behaviors. In many cases, careful treatment improves behavior over time.

Read the rest here:
Behavioral disorders in children, their symptoms, and treatment - Medical News Today

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The relationship between psychosocial stress and CHD seems to be stronger in women than in men. It may also vary depending on the type of stress or stressor.

However, it is unclear how different types of psychosocial stress impact womens risk of developing CHD.

For this reason, a research team from Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health in Philadelphia, PA, decided to investigate the association of psychosocial stressors including job strain, stressful life events, and social strain with the incidence of CHD in women.

They combed through the data collected as part of the Womens Health Initiative Observational Study (WHIOS), to assess the independent and combined impact of stressful life events, social relationships, and paid work.

Their findings, which appear in the Journal of the American Heart Association, indicate that work and social strain seem to pack a double punch, increasing womens risk of developing CHD by 21%.

Stressful life events and social strain, that is, the negative aspects of social interactions or relationships, also increased womens risk of developing CHD by 12% and 9%, respectively.

Our findings are a critical reminder to women, and those who care about them, that the threat of stress to human health should not go ignored, says Dr. Conglong Wang, the studys lead author. This is particularly pertinent during the stressors caused by a pandemic.

If true, these findings could shift the focus of preventing CHD in women from managing current stress to finding ways to prevent stress at the source.

It would also serve as a serious reminder that stress is a major threat to human beings, women in particular, and that this threat must be addressed promptly and properly.

Over the past few years, several major studies have established that psychosocial stress from different aspects of life may impact the risk of developing CHD.

This is likely because psychosocial stress can disrupt homeostasis the optimal internal functioning of organs and their systems which can lead to an illness.

As a result, stress can intensify cardiovascular inflammation and reactivity, resulting in metabolic changes that increase the risk of developing CHD.

Psychosocial stress is also linked with behavioral patterns such as alcohol consumption, smoking, or being physically inactive. Certain medical conditions, including diabetes and hypertension, affect the risk of CHD as well.

Stress may impact men and women differently. The findings from a few studies indicate that the link between psychosocial stress and CHD may be stronger in women than in men.

In one study, women were more likely than men to document high average stress levels and associated emotional and physical symptoms, including exhaustion and depression.

Another study found that women may be exposed to psychological stressors that men experience less commonly.

However, scientists still do not know how different stressors influence womens risk of having CHD. It is therefore unclear which stressors affect the risk of developing this condition the most.

This makes it difficult for healthcare professionals to advise women on the best ways to reduce their likelihood of developing CHD. It also means women cannot be sure which stressors are most important to address to keep CHD at bay.

In the new study, the research team analyzed data collected as part of the WHIOS, an initiative aimed at finding better ways to prevent heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis in women.

The scientists analyzed data from 80,825 women living in a diverse array of states across the United States that had experienced menopause.

Participants were aged 5079 when the WHIOS started tracking them, and the average time women were tracked was 14 years and 7 months. Women assessed stressors in the WHIOS using self-reporting questionnaires.

After adjusting for variables such as job tenure, socioeconomic factors, age, and additional stressors, the researchers found a high stressful life events score increased the risk of developing CHD by 12%, and high social strain by 9%.

The team also noted that the impact of work and social strain seem to work synergistically, increasing womens CHD risk by 21%. Job strain alone was not linked with a higher CHD risk.

These findings could have important implications for how healthcare professionals and women themselves decide to best tackle stress to reduce their CHD risk.

It is of note that a disproportionately large number of participants in the study were white and held more than a high school diploma. The teams findings may also be impacted by the healthy worker bias, according to which people who are less healthy are more likely to be unemployed.

Moreover, the team did not take into account other important compounding factors, such as working hours and social support systems, which are associated with CHD.

Also, the scientists only focused on the impact of stress related to a persons most recent or current job, ignoring the change of jobs throughout life.

The researchers write that more studies are necessary to determine the impact of job demands as they align with sex.

A persons sex and socioeconomic status may also affect their ability to manage stress. That is why future studies will also have to identify subgroups of people that are more likely to benefit from preventative stress interventions than others.

However, these new findings help fuel the need for more advanced, diverse research exploring the link between stress, heart disease, and sex or gender.

They may also encourage healthcare professionals and women alike to reconsider their best options for reducing their CHD risk and improving overall health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted ongoing stresses for women in balancing paid work and social stressors. We know from other studies that work strain may play a role in developing CHD, but now, we can better pinpoint the combined impact of stress at work and at home on these poor health outcomes.

Dr. Yvonne Michael, senior author and associate professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health

My hope is that these findings are a call for better methods of monitoring stress in the workplace and remind us of the dual burden working women face as a result of their unpaid work as caregivers at home.

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How stress impacts women's heart health - Medical News Today

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Leafly honors the 50th anniversary of 4:20 (aka 420 or 4/20) this April with a celebration of legendary strain families. Weve already covered famous Hazes, Tangies, Purples, and OG Kushes. Now for the headliner: Cookies and Cakes!

Why do people wait two hours in line to spend $70 on an eighth-ounce of weedin the middle of a pandemic?

Easy: the Cookies strain of cannabis transcends mere geneticsits a lifestyle.

On November 4, cannabis brand Cookies new Apples and Bananas release drew several hundred young, heavy-THC smokers to Berners on Haight in San Francisco. In less than 90 minutes, guys in crisp, white sneakers and basketball shorts bought up all the pricey, designer weed.

They Instagrammed the chic bags of chunky, fragrant, mega-potent bud, flexing on their friends. One group couldnt wait to get home. They ripped bongloads out the side seats of a dusty, parked Hyundai with no hubcaps.

Cookies and Cakes strains of cannabisincluding Sunset Sherbert, Gelato, Runtz, Wedding Cake, and GMO Cookiescomprise modern pots center of gravity. Thin Mint Cookies, Animal Cookies, Platinum Cookies, and on and onthey are the top-selling cultivars in legal stores today, and their genes appear in the lions share of hyped new weed varieties.

From 2007 to the presentand emanating out of the San Francisco Bay AreaCookies hard-hitting, hybrid indica power, and its complex, sweet- scrumptious aroma has made fans of elite pot snobs, medical marijuana patients with PTSD, all-star rappers, and now almost everyone who partakes.

Cookies got this way because breeders like Jai Jigga Chang and Mario Mr. Sherbinski Guzman hybridized the best of the early 2000s OG Kushes to some truly exotic sativas. They carved up a wave of medical marijuana and adult-use legalization with rapper/business mogul Berner and wrote the playbook for viral weed marketing.

The Cookies story spans the recent histories of cannabis, weed law reform, San Francisco, and hip-hop. Its a story of plant worship and profit-chasing, of the serendipity of city life, and the power of sharing gifts instead of hoarding them.

Grower Ghost at ABF Genetics, short for Always Be Flowering, and spreader of Forum Cut Cookies, said growing Cookies is something that changed my life.

It became that thing, he said. I challenge people to say what since Cookiesor that was not derived through that whole gene poolhas really changed cannabis.

Haters gonna hate, but the future still happens first in San Francisco.

So it went with weed strain Girl Scout Cookies, which San Francisco breeder Jigga developed for the exploding medical marijuana market in the late 2000s.

In SF, peak prohibition met surging demand for cannabis and prices bloomed. Californias police arrested smokers by the tens of thousands per year. Growers used pseudonyms only, and feared being followed home from a party and beaten and robbed, or followed home from the hydroponics store and raided by police.

Californians legalized medical marijuana in 1996, and personal defenses against cannabis prosecution had become collective defensesgreen-lighting the first dispensaries and more grows.

There was this feeling of energy in the Bay Area that there was something going on that was truly special.

The profits outweighed the risk. The Bay Areas medical and recreational consumers, including its rappers, adored weed. In that climate, wholesale pounds of OG Kush, the then-reigning champion strain, might go for $3,500-$4,000.

There was this feeling of energy in the Bay Area that there was something going on that was truly special, said Mr. Sherbinski. An industry was being born.

Just like so many other thingsmusic, or technologycannabis also had its first place there, he said.

Today most states have medical laws, and 18 have adult-use legalization, now including New York, Virginia, and New Mexico. The legal industry generates $18.3 billion and employs 321,000.

Mr. Sherbinski relates how San Francisco breeder Jigga took his favorite OG Kush, called a Flo Rida OG (pronounced Flow Rider), and crossed it to his mix of a rocket-like strain he named F1 and another strain called Durb.

Mr. Sherbinski told Leafly Durb was not Durban Poison.

Ive had the F1. And Ive had the Durb. And Ive had the Flo Rida OG, said Sherbisnki.

(In 2014, Jigga told High Times that Durb was in fact Durban Poison. Bottom line: Jigga crossed three strains, F1 Durb to Flo Rida OG, to make Cookies.)

Jigga stayed busy, too. He also crossed the F1 Durb to another leader of the day, Granddaddy Purple, thus creating Cherry Pie.

Other, more apocryphal origin stories exist, but what happens is theres little pieces of info that get out and people build on that, said Sherbinski. The above facts are what I was told by Jigga.

Jigga didnt call us back, but either way, Cookies became a sleeper hit.

And I remember grinding it up and smoking it and thinking, Wow, its a super-unique, tasty flower. And I said, Yeah, I gotta track down the cut.

Ghost at ABF Genetics said he got introduced to the strain through a friend from Jigga and Sherbinskis Sunset District clique. (Many of these guys grew up together, going to the same high schools, playing pick-up basketball, smoking weed, listening to rap.)

The veteran grower from back East had collected many, many leading strains. But he still remembered the day his buddy from the Cookies circle brought over a nug of GSC, in about 2008.

It was like curled up in a Ziploc baggy, this little, abused piece of flower, Ghost recalled. And I remember grinding it up and smoking it and thinking, Wow, its a super unique, tasty flower. And I said, Yeah, I gotta track down the cut.

Your reporter has been sampling Cookies since that time period as well.

Cookies nugs present as dense, multicolored, and resinous. It first smells flat and musty, but complex. Break it up and grind it and the smell decoheres into a rowdy mix of sweet, berry, incense, and the savory, burnt part of a sugar cookie. The exhaled smoke hit might contain a note of grape and fuel or gas from the OG.

You get real high with a heavy effect that doesnt make you fall asleep per seyoure just super-lit.

Ghost couldnt get a cut of Cookies that easily. Back then, growers kept new strains to themselves or in a tight circle.

Initial supplies of Cookies remained low, limited to small indoor grows sometimes shielded from police by a medical marijuana defense.

San Francisco rapper and entrepreneur Gilbert Berner Milam Jr. gets credit for truly marketing Cookies, first through hip-hop and rap, and later through social media. Today, Cookies Enterprises commands a global lifestyle brand with licensed stores, unique strains, and partner farms in several legal states.

Cookies benefited from the advent of social media and was the first cannabis strain mentioned relentlessly in hip-hop, said Keith Stephenson, the Oakland, CA owner of Purple Heart Patient Center, reportedly the nations oldest black-owned dispensary.

If you wanted Cookies back then, you had to schlep out to the Hemp Center on Geary Ave. in the Sunsetthis grungy lounge with a Mos Eisley cantina vibe where Berner sometimes budtended. Your fearless reporter distinctly remembers that one and only visit: Junk piled up in the lobby. The weed equivalent of old barflies stared at you from the corner. I bought a gram of GSC there back around 2013(?), and that nug was fire.

Ghost got his hands on one Cookies plant in 2008, when two buddies paid $3,500 for a cut from a relative of a grower in the original circle. He grew out the GSC cutting and verified the result. Ghosts friend who first brought him the flower said, Thats it.

Cookies got loose into the wild when Ghost shared cuttings of his plant with four close friends. Rare strains become a type of currency among high-end connoisseurs that have everything else. Ghosts cut would become known as the Forum Cut, in reference to the internet forums where they debated it.

And the next thing I know, one of them is selling cuts to people; one of them is giving them away; one of them is doing giveaways behind, like, dumpsters. And then the rest of them just kind of spread through the network, he explained. One cutting, or clone, made it to the UK.

Ghosts wholesale pounds of indoor Cookies fetched $4,000, he said, at places like the Green Door.

At this point, a weed grower might assume fame and riches lie in making something special and being the only person with it. Actually, its the opposite.

Supplies stimulate demand, which induces growers, thus increasing supplies, and supporting more demand.

If we hadnt got that cut out as much as it did, it wouldnt have become known as what Cookies is, said Ghost. If its not available, people cant see it. If they cant try it, it doesnt really exist for them. Itll just fade and die off.

If you were a dispensary back then that didnt have Cookies, you werent a dispensary, Mr. Sherbinski said.

The perpetual motion machine of growing, marketing, selling, buying, smoking, and enjoying Cookies added more and more people each harvest.

It was a huge seller for some retailers, said Stephenson at Purple Heart in Oakland, CA. He started carrying Cookies strains in 2012. It definitely deserves to be celebrated.

The core Cookies team released Animal Cookies. There was Thin Mint Cookies. Green Door had Platinum Cookies.

A strain truly arrives when counterfeiting and the name game commences, said Mr. Sherbinski. Everyone slapped a name on a cookies cultivar.

We make the strains and they change the names, he said.

At that point, it became a clusterfuck, added Ghost.

Nowadays, Cookies offspring Gelato and its descendants run the world. But we wouldnt be here without the happy accident of Sunset Sherbert.

By 2012, the original Cookies craze was well underway, and San Francisco grower Mario Guzman, now known as Mr. Sherbinsnki, stood ready to partake in it.

Out in the residential Sunset District of San Francisco, he had crossed a dark, dark, dark purple, stringy sativa Burmese to the best OG Kush around the Bay Area, where pounds sold for $4,200 and $4,300.

Mr. Sherbinksis Burmese crossed with Larry OG became his Pink Panties, due to its pink hairs, or pistils, on the buds. With Pink Panties seeds in hand, he started a crop of seedlings. For research, he stuck one six-inch baby plant into his special, flowering room at his grandmas house.

Flowering room lights are timed to make the plant bloom instead of grow. But instead of blooming a female bud that he could study, the Pink Panties matured into a male. Before Guzman noticed, the male Pink Panties pollinated the entire room of Girl Scout Cookies females in the flowering room.

I didnt realize it would pollinate in a matter of weeks, but it did. It just took off.

All of a sudden, that commercial crop of Cookies bud became a research crop of new seeds. And inside one of them? What we call Sunset Sherbert.

Mr. Sherbinski said the name came to him when he first smoked the strain, and it reminded him of Thrifty ice cream rainbow sherbet, an iconic California childhood flavor for decades. He remembered his mom buying him a scoop for about 10 cents as a kid when they did laundry.

It was a really popping strain in the Bay Area. We were promoting it. Rappers were rapping about it.

When I first smoked Sunset Sherbert I tasted berry, citrus, the lemon, the orange, a little lime, all these different flavors, and I was like, Man, this tastes like Sherbert, he recalled.

He then added the district it came from and boom, Sunset Sherbert. The strain hits smooth, sweet, but still enough power in it to hit your lungs, he said. Everyone likes it, he added, including atypical consumers like women and older smokers, and especially veterans with PTSD.

Related

Pleased as Purple Punch: A Purps family genealogy

The Cookies team applied their marketing formula to Sunset Sherbert and repeated the success of Cookies, Guzman said.

It was a really popping strain in the Bay Area. We were promoting it. Rappers were rapping about it.

Mr. Sherbinski spread small-batch, indoor harvests of sherbert around to influential stores across the statestores like Harborside Health Center in Oakland and the Vapor Room on Haight St.

Part of what created the hype, for me, was it was created with love. There was not a lot of it; I made sure to spread it around to the dispensaries and friends doing a good job of getting it out to the public, he said.

The Cookie and Sunset Sherbert formula may have reached its most evolved form with Gelato, a cross of Sunset Sherbert and Girl Scout Cookies.

For this one, Jigga and Mr. Sherbinski used a substance called colloidal silver to make a female Sunset Sherbet flower produce pollen, then pollinated a GSC.

The resulting seeds are all female, and the team grew them all out, hunting for the best-looking and smelling offspringcalled a phenotype. This pheno-hunt concluded with a private, invite-only tasting by industry heads on June 16, 2014, at a Cuban food restaurant, said Guzman.

The nights picks are so famous, the numbers on the side of the flower pots became famous and emerged as the keepers:

Again, high-quality indoor production, plus on-point influencer marketing, equaled huge demand for the elite plant. And again, rather than hoarding the strain close, Mr. Sherbinski distributed cuts of Gelato 33, sparking a national bumper crop of the stuff.

Ghost uses the word, saturation.

Its one of those things where it just spun and spun and spun, he said.

Today, theres a reason why everything contains Gelato 33 genes: because Gelato grows, looks, smells, and feels amazing. Its architects stimulated the demand and provided the supply. They didnt hoard their fire in a closet. They brought it to others, Prometheus-style, and unlocked weed god mode.

Nowadays, Cookies genes appear in everything. Quality can vary, but it often bests its rivals.

The strains are over-produced now in California. However, its something that people expect to find as a standard variety, said Stephenson.

Even the cheapest of knockoffs attest to the allure of the real thing. If imitation means flattery, the weed world bows to the Cookies strain family. Look at all the headlines:

There are just so many dimensions to Cookies, a seemingly infinite array of facets, all reflecting off this heavy remix of global genetics. Lemon Tree strains and Zkittlez certainly command attention, but theyre still fads, compared to Cookies, said Mr. Sherbinski.

I think what makes a truly good strain is when people come back to it. Its such a good strain that even if people get away from it for a while when they come back to it, shes going to be there with open arms.

David Downs

David Downs directs news and lifestyle coverage as the California Bureau Chief for Leafly.com. He's written for WIRED, Rolling Stone and Billboard, and is the former cannabis editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as the author of several cannabis books including 'Marijuana Harvest' by Ed Rosenthal and David Downs. He co-hosts The Hash podcast. TW: @davidrdowns | IG @daviddowns

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Just desserts: The Cookies and Cakes family genealogy - Leafly

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Timothy the hippo, otherwise known as Fiona's biggest admirer, has been known to give Fiona lavish gifts for her birthday and Valentine's Day. But on Timothy's sixth birthday Wednesday, Fiona gave Timothy quite a special gift.Timothy, who's known to write Fiona love letters on Facebook on Thursdays with the help of his friends at the San Antonio Zoo, wrote Fiona this week to thank her for giving him what he called a "kiss painting." The painting showed Fiona's mouth on a canvas in rainbow paint."Ive been practicing my kisses you know....blush! Thank you so much and remember I always think you are the most beautiful hippo Ive ever seen!" the Facebook post said.Timothy lives more than 1,100 miles away at the San Antonio Zoo, but he's been madly in love with Fiona for years now.For her birthday last year, Timothy gifted Fiona an Edible Arrangement, and clearly, by looking at the joy in her face in the image below, you can tell how happy she was.This year for Valentine's Day, Timothy stepped up his game and went the extra mile or 3,000 extra miles to be more exact to give an extra special gift to his longtime crush.Timothy purchased a small property of Scottish land in Fionas name, giving her the name Lady Fiona.The Cincinnati Caledonian Pipes and Drums Band helped in the celebration with song and dance.Fiona needs to be at least 5 years old before she starts thinking about boys, according to Wendy Rice, the head keeper at Cincinnati Zoo's Africa Department. Fiona turned 4 years old this year."The genetics are basically what's going to matter most," Rice said. "If and when Fiona were to get a breeding recommendation some day, it would be based entirely on who was genetically the best match for her -- that may or may not be Timothy."Fiona's genes are valuable in the world of Nile hippopotamuses. And eventually, Rice said, the goal is to have Fiona breed if she can. But we're talking way down the road, Rice said, when Fiona is at least 5 years old.What happens then?"We obviously don't want her going anywhere," Rice said. "We love her. She's our baby and this hometown loves her. We're fairly certain people would riot if we said Fiona was leaving. We're hopeful that if she gets a breeding recommendation, that a male would be brought here for her so she wouldn't have to leave Cincinnati."

Timothy the hippo, otherwise known as Fiona's biggest admirer, has been known to give Fiona lavish gifts for her birthday and Valentine's Day. But on Timothy's sixth birthday Wednesday, Fiona gave Timothy quite a special gift.

Timothy, who's known to write Fiona love letters on Facebook on Thursdays with the help of his friends at the San Antonio Zoo, wrote Fiona this week to thank her for giving him what he called a "kiss painting." The painting showed Fiona's mouth on a canvas in rainbow paint.

"Ive been practicing my kisses you know....blush! Thank you so much and remember I always think you are the most beautiful hippo Ive ever seen!" the Facebook post said.

Timothy lives more than 1,100 miles away at the San Antonio Zoo, but he's been madly in love with Fiona for years now.

For her birthday last year, Timothy gifted Fiona an Edible Arrangement, and clearly, by looking at the joy in her face in the image below, you can tell how happy she was.

This year for Valentine's Day, Timothy stepped up his game and went the extra mile or 3,000 extra miles to be more exact to give an extra special gift to his longtime crush.

Timothy purchased a small property of Scottish land in Fionas name, giving her the name Lady Fiona.

The Cincinnati Caledonian Pipes and Drums Band helped in the celebration with song and dance.

Fiona needs to be at least 5 years old before she starts thinking about boys, according to Wendy Rice, the head keeper at Cincinnati Zoo's Africa Department. Fiona turned 4 years old this year.

"The genetics are basically what's going to matter most," Rice said. "If and when Fiona were to get a breeding recommendation some day, it would be based entirely on who was genetically the best match for her -- that may or may not be Timothy."

Fiona's genes are valuable in the world of Nile hippopotamuses. And eventually, Rice said, the goal is to have Fiona breed if she can. But we're talking way down the road, Rice said, when Fiona is at least 5 years old.

What happens then?

"We obviously don't want her going anywhere," Rice said. "We love her. She's our baby and this hometown loves her. We're fairly certain people would riot if we said Fiona was leaving. We're hopeful that if she gets a breeding recommendation, that a male would be brought here for her so she wouldn't have to leave Cincinnati."

See the original post here:
Fiona gives her biggest admirer, Timothy the hippo, 'kiss painting' for his 6th birthday - WLWT Cincinnati

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

At any given time on The New York Times website, a quick search for gender will yield an array of articles on the ins and outs of sex personified and the endless ways biology teams up with political adversaries to oppress queer people.

One recent so-called gender headline offered A Guide To Neopronouns, those nonsensical sounds like ze and zir that break from the sex binary and thus from reality. Are you a person, place or thing? the article posed, going on to imply that identity is nothing more than an aesthetic.

How Do I Define My Gender if No One Is Watching Me? probed another title, with all the flavor of If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? without the philosophy. Instead, this article refocused on what happens to so-called gender expression when its relegated to the stay-at-home privacy of pandemic lockdown. How does gender is a social construct work when theres no social? the author probed, unintentionally revealing the utter emptiness of gender identity when one tries to separate it from biological sex.

The articles are somehow baffling yet mind-numbing. Pieces like these, which seem to be ubiquitous now, are meaningless screeds of semantic acrobatics to convey the experiences of a group of Americans so out of touch with science that they would suppress the wonders of their sex and subscribe to a new doctrine that cannot even share a common language with reality. It is sad and foreign and exhausting, but the New York Times caters to it, creating room in its scarce pages for stories about folks whose prefixes include Mx. where Mr. or Ms. should be.

The brain boggles considering how such science-devoid content can square with another recent Times article. Its a collection of frequently asked COVID-19 vaccine questions. Is the Second Dose Bad? If I Feel OK, Is It Working? Can I Take Tylenol? asked last weeks headline as more and more Americans get vaccinated.

One particular subheading stands out: Is it true that women are more likely to get worse side effects from the vaccine than men?

The answer is full of science-y explanations. Apparently, females can produce double the antibodies of men after getting flu shots or vaccines for hepatitis A or B or for measles, mumps, and rubella.

It also turns out that in aggregate, women have had worse bodily responses to the vaccine than men do, with more women than men experiencing side effects and nearly all the life-threatening anaphylactic reactions, although rare, occurring in women. The Times cites a study revealing that over nearly 30 years, women have made up 80 percent of all anaphylactic vaccine reactions among adults.

[T]he higher rate of side effects in women also has a biological explanation, the article says. While testosterone can weaken a bodys immune response, estrogen can galvanize it. Additionally, many immune-related genes are on the X chromosome, of which women have two copies and men have only one, the Times declares. These differences may help explain why far more women than men are afflicted with autoimmune disease, which occurs when a robust immune response attacks the bodys healthy tissue.

Here, the Times isnt shy about making sex distinctions. Its right there in the science: Men and women are obviously different in myriad ways, with immune and vaccine reactions just being the latest in the spotlight. If its so easy to articulate the innate differences between the sexes, why does the New York Times entertain such gender gibberish as ze/zir and moon/moonself?

For years, the left has shouted that gender has nothing to do with sex. To insist that sex is genetic and results in only men and women is to evoke the LGBT clap-backs that gender is a social construct and chromosomes dont determine your gender.

A paragraph from one of the Times gender articles, however, reveals the deep and depressing hole in that worldview. The self-termed transgender-nonbinary author writes of the pandemic experience:

I was surprised by how much my gender instead seemed to almost evaporate. No longer on the alert for how to signal a restaurants waitstaff that neither he nor she applied to me, or for whether colleagues and neighbors would use the right language devoid of anyone to signal my gender to I felt, suddenly, amorphous and undefined. It was as though when I had swapped my Oxford shoes and neckties for fuzzy slippers and soft sweatpants, I, too, had lost my sharply tailored definition. Where did my own gender reside, then, if not in sending signals of difference?

These reflections are heartbreaking. Not only do they signal the amount of energy that some queer people derive from policing the perceptions of others and the apparent pleasure this may afford them, but it exposes the emptiness of finding ones identity in finding ones identity.

Thats all this futile pursuit truly boils down to. In rejecting the scientific sex binary in favor of amorphous and transient gender theory, a trans persons identity doesnt just become the opposite sex or an association with its pronouns. Rather, his or her identity becomes the lifelong task of asserting that their identity is not what you think.

Thats because the answer to the question, Where did my own gender reside, then, if not in sending signals of difference? is in ones sex. Thats where gender resides. Thats where it has always resided.

When the performative displays inherent in normal everyday life are stolen by pandemic lockdowns, and science and truth are all that remain, were forced to look in the mirror and confront reality: Human beings are genetically male and female, and since language is made to correspond with reality, we refer to those people as either he/him or she/her, consistent with their sex. Although we differ, our identities and thus the language we use to describe them are forever linked to our immutable genetics.

Any deviation from or internal confusion about these realities warrants compassion and assistance, but as weve known since time immemorial and as has been made yet more apparent through pandemic science, social experiments, and personal anecdotes, men and women are real and immutable categories, and they are different.

For a political stripe that prides itself on faithfulness to science, the lefts media and adherents dispense with it wholesale and then cant understand the emptiness that remains. The same science that explains why men and women respond differently to COVID vaccines also explains why eschewing sex in pursuit of gender fluidity is an exercise in futility.

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The New York Times Can Tell The Difference Between Men And Women With Vaccines But Not Pronouns - The Federalist

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

First-term GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor GreeneMarjorie Taylor GreeneRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she's meeting with Trump 'soon' in Florida QAnon site shutters after reports identifying developer Republicans head to runoff in GA-14 MORE (Ga.) and Lauren BoebertLauren BoebertJuan Williams: The GOP is now the party of grifters and kooks The Memo: Boehner's blasts don't move today's GOP Overnight Energy: Progressives fear infrastructure's climate plans won't survive Senate | EPA to propose vehicle emissions standards by July's end | Poll shows growing partisan divide on climate change MORE (Colo.) were the only lawmakers to vote against a bill to reauthorize a bone marrow transplant program on Thursday evening.

The measure passed the House 415-2.It reauthorizes the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program and National Cord Blood Inventory, which facilitate bone marrow and umbilical cord blood donations and transplants for people with leukemia or other blood diseases.

The bill also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a review of the state of the science on using adult stem cells and birthing tissues to develop new therapies that could potentially be included in the program.

The bipartisan measure was sponsored by Reps. Doris MatsuiDoris Okada MatsuiThe Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Tax March - CDC in limbo on J&J vax verdict; Rep. Brady retiring Hillicon Valley: Grid security funding not included in Biden's infrastructure plan | Russia fines Twitter | Lawmakers call for increased school cybersecurity Lawmakers urge Education Department to take action to defend schools from cyber threats MORE (D-Calif.), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) and Chellie PingreeRochelle (Chellie) PingreeDemocrats condemn 'lawlessness' amid Capitol chaos Five House Democrats who could join Biden Cabinet Biden leads Trump by 11 points in Maine: survey MORE (D-Maine).

Greene and Boebert, bothvocal supporters of former President TrumpDonald TrumpBiden administration still seizing land near border despite plans to stop building wall: report Illinois House passes bill that would mandate Asian-American history lessons in schools Overnight Defense: Administration says 'low to moderate confidence' Russia behind Afghanistan troop bounties | 'Low to medium risk' of Russia invading Ukraine in next few weeks | Intelligence leaders face sharp questions during House worldwide threats he MORE, have quickly established reputations as controversial figures.

Greene wrote on Twitter that the bill did not have sufficient protections against the use of fetal tissue.

The Fake News Media is attacking me for being TOO PRO-LIFE (100%), she tweeted. Last night, Congress passed a bill which is not clear about preventing buying of body parts of babies murdered in the womb. I voted NO.

In a separate statement on Friday, Greene also said the bill was rushed.

The whole reason we are nearly $30 trillion in debt, have murdered over 62 million people in the womb, and have ZERO transparency on our spending is because Congress does not take the time to fully read and understand the bills it passes, she said.

"Im not voting for bills that dont go through committee and add hundreds of millions of dollars to the national debt," Boebert tweeted on Friday. The bill authorizes about $50 million per year for the transplant programs, though it will take an appropriations bill passing to actually spend that money.

Greene has been surrounded by controversy ever since coming to Congress. In February, she apologized to GOP colleagues for her past embrace of QAnon and other conspiracy theories, and the House voted to remove her from her committee assignments over previous endorsements ofracist dogma and violence against Democratic politicians.

Matsui released a statement Thursday praising the bill's passage and calling on the Senate to act.

Every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer, she said. For patients and families facing these fatal diseases, a bone marrow or cord blood transplant may be the best treatment or only potential for a cure.

Updated: 9 p.m.

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Greene, Boebert only lawmakers to vote against bone marrow transplant bill | TheHill - The Hill

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Newswise A Phase II clinical trial to assess mesenchymal adult stem cells as a disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease has been launched at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

"Studies have shown mesenchymal stem cells can migrate to the sites of injury and respond to the environment by secreting several anti-inflammatory and growth factor molecules that can restore tissue equilibrium and disrupt neuronal death," said Mya C. Schiess, MD, professor in the Department of Neurology and director and founder of the movement disorder subspeciality clinic and fellowship program at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. "The stem cells interact directly with the immune cells, leading to an anti-inlammatory state that allows a restorative process to take place."

Safety and tolerability results, assessed on a previous trial, were recently published in the journal Movement Disorders. The Phase I study showed that there were no serious adverse reactions related to the stem cell influsion and no immunological reactions to the cells, which come from the bone marrow of a healthy adult donor. The study enrolled 20 patients with mild to moderate disease, who were infused with one of four different dosages and monitored for a year. Additionally, researchers reported a reduction in preripheral inflammatory markers and a reduction in motor symptoms.

Parkinson's diease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting more than a million Americans. It is also the fastest-growning of the neurodegenerative diseases, with more than 60,000 new cases identified every year. It is predicted that by 2040, Parkinson's disease will affect 17.5 million people worldwide.

Research has shown that one of the forces playing a critical role in the diease's development and progression is a chronic neuroinflammatory process that damages the brain's microenvironment and alters its healthy equilibrium. Inflammatiion perpetuates the neurodegenration in the brain areas that control movement, causing the tremors, imbalance, loss of speech, slowness, and other motor impairments.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II trial will investigate the safest and most effective number of repeat doses of stem cells to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease. The study will enroll 45 patients, ages 50 to 79, who will receive three infusions of either placebo or stem cell therapy at three-month intervals and will be followed for a year after the last infusion.

"Currently, there is no approved therapy that can delay the degenerative process in Parkinson's disease," Schiess said. "By investigating a treatment that can slow or stop the progression, we hope to improve the quality of life of those suffering from the disease. The ultimate goal is to use this treatment in individuals with a prodromal condition, meaning they are showing early signs of Parkinson's disease but are not yet clinically symptomatic. We hope to be able to potentially stop the diease's conversion or clinical manifestation in patients who are high-risk."

The Phase II trial, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is supported with funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, John S. Dunn Foundation, and John and Kyle Kirksey.

Other McGovern Medical School faculty co-authors on the paper included Jessika Suescun, MD, Christopher Adams, MD, and Sean Savitz, MD, in the Department of Neurology. Marie-Francoise Doursout, PhD, Department of Anesthesiology; Charles Green, PhD, Department of Pediatrics; and Jerome G. Saltarrelli, PhD, Department of Surgery. Timothy M. Ellmore, PhD, Department of Psychology at the City College of New York, N.Y., was senior author.

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First in the nation, FDA-approved Phase II mesenchymal stem cell therapy for Parkinson's disease begins - Newswise

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Newswise A clinical trial to assess the safety and efficacy of stem cell therapy for treatment-resistant bipolar depression launched recently at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

"Since mesenchymal stem cells are known to counteract inflammation and promote neurogenesis, we are hopeful that they provide an innovative therapy for patients with treatment-resistant biopolar depression," said Jair Soares, MD, PhD, chair of Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. "Depending on the results, these stem cells could reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the disease."

Bipolar disorder is characterized by dramatic shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels that can affect a person's ability to carryout daily tasks, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. People with the disorder can swing from depression to mania. An estimated 2.8% of U.S. adults had bipolar disorder in 2016, and a large portion of them do not have a satisfactory response to available treatments.

This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial will use allogenic mesenchymal stem cells, which are multipotent stem cells taken from a bone marrow donor. The mesenchymal stem cells are manufactured in the Judith R. Hoffberger Cellular Theraputics Labratory at UTHealth, a state-of-the-art Food and DRug Administration-registered facility designed to comply with current Good Manufacturing Practice.

In a 2010 study published in Translational Research, scientists reported that stem cells showed efficacy in neurodegenerative illnesses that share several biological underpinnings of bipolar disorder, such as Parkinson's disease, with no adverse effects.

In previously published studies by researchers at UTHealth, stem cells have shown a dampening effect on inflammation, which has been linked to bipolar disease. Inflammatory markers have also been associated with a decreased likelihood of response to treatment in people with bipolar disease.

The trial will enroll 30 patients, who will recieve a single injection of either the stem cell product or placebo and continue to receive their usual care for bipolar depression for the eight weeks of the study.

UTHealth has been studying stem cells for traumatic brain injury and stroke for more than two decades.

Soares sees patients at UT Physicians, the clinical practice of McGovern Medical School.

McGovern Medical School co-investigators are Charles S. Cox Jr., MD; Fabio Triolo, PhD; Marsal Sanches, MD, PhD;Joo de Quevedo, MD, PhD; Sudhakar Selvaraj, MD, PhD; Antonio Teixeira Jr., MD, PhD; and Benson M. Irungu, PhD. Cox is a professor and George and Cynthia Mitchell Distinguished Chair in Neurosciences in the Department of Pediatric Surgery. Triolo is an associate professor and the Clare A. Glassell Distingued Chair in the Department of Pediatric Surgery. De Quevedo and Teixeira are professors; Sanches and Selvaraj are associate professors; and Irungu is an assistant professor in the Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Soares, Cox, Triolo, and de Quevedo are also members of The University of Texas MD Anderson UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

More here:
Researchers investigate whether stem cell therapy is safe and effective for treatment-resistant bipolar disease - Newswise

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Cell and gene therapies are overlapping fields of research and treatments. While both aim to treat and potentially cure diseases, they have slightly differing approaches and have different historical backgrounds. Due to growing interest surrounding this field, the general public still has much to learn and understand about each of these potentially life-saving therapies.

Below, we provide a general overview and brief historical context for each type of therapy.

Cell therapyis the process of replacing damaged or dysfunctional cells with new, healthy ones by transferring live cells into a patient. These can be autologous (also known as self-to-self, using cells from the patient receiving the treatment) or allogeneic (using cells from a donor for the treatment). While this field of treatment has recently begun to expand, some forms of cell therapy like the cancer-treating hematopoietic stem cell transplantation(HSCT) have been in practice for decades.

While many people have heard of bone marrow transplants, few realize that this procedure is a stem cell therapy. While stem cells can be derived from many sources, such as umbilical cord blood and mobilized peripheral blood, bone marrow derived stem cell therapy is the most commonly used today and has been for more than 50 years.

The first transfusion of human bone marrow was given to a patient with aplastic anemia in 1939. After World War II researchers diligently worked to restore bone marrow function in aplasia patients caused by exposure to radiation produced by the atomic bomb. After a decade of work they were able to show, in a mouse model, that aplasia could be overcome by bone marrow treatment.

The first allogeneic HSCT, which led the way to current protocols, was pioneered by E. Donnall Thomas and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1957. In this study six patients were treated with radiation and chemotherapy and then received intravenous infusion of bone marrow rich stem cells from a normal donor to reestablish the damaged or defective cells. Since then the field has evolved and expanded worldwide. While almost half of HSCT are allogeneic, the majority of HSCT are autologous, the patient's own stem cells are used for treatment, which carries less risk to the patient.

In 1988, scientists discovered that they could derive stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in a laboratory. These newly derived stem cells, referred to as embryonic stem cells (hESCs), were found to be pluripotent, meaning they can give rise to virtually any other type of cell in the body. This versatility allows hESCs cells to potentially regenerate or repair diseased tissue and organs. Two decades after they were discovered, treatments based on hESCs have been slow in coming because of controversy over their source and concerns that they could turn into tumours once implanted. Only recently, testing has begun as a treatment for two major diseases: heart failure and type 1 diabetes.

In 2006, researchers made a groundbreaking discovery by identifying conditions that would allow some cells to be 'reprogrammed' genetically. This new type of stem cell became known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Since this discovery, the field has expanded tremendously in the past two decades. Stem cell therapies have expanded in use and have been used to treat diseases such as type 1 diabetes, Parkinson's and even spinal cord injuries.

There has also been a growing focus on using other immune cells to treat cancer. Therapies such as CAR T-cellare dependent upon a patient's T-cells, which play a critical role in managing the immune response and killing cells affected by harmful pathogens. These cells are then reengineered to target and kill certain cancerous cells. Several CAR T-cell therapies have been FDA approved, with the first approval being given in 2017 for Yescarta and Kymriah, to be used for the treatment of B-cell leukemia in children and young adults.

Gene therapyis a process that modifies the expression of a gene or alters the biological process of living cells for therapeutic use. This process can take the form of replacing a disease-causing gene with a new, healthy one, inactivating the mutated gene, or introducing a new gene to help the patient's body fight a disease.

While the use of gene therapy to treat humans is fairly new, the science behind it has been used in science for decades. Farmers and geneticists have collaborated for years on crop improvement using cross pollination, genetic engineering and microinjection techniques to create stronger, more resilient crops.

The first human patient to be treated with gene therapy was a four-year old girlsuffering from severe combined immunodeficiencyin 1990. She received treatment for a congenital disease called adenosine deaminase (ADA). Since then, gene therapies have been used to treat diseases such as cancer, cystic fibrosis and hemophilia.In 2017, the FDA gave its first approval of a gene therapy called Luxturna, which is used to treat patients with established genetic vision loss that may result in blindness. Gene therapies are still being studied and developed, with over 1,000 clinical trialscurrently underway.

ThermoGenesis Holdings Inc., is a pioneer and market leader in the development and commercialization of automated cell processing technologies for the cell and gene therapy fields. We market a full suite of solutions for automated clinical biobanking, point-of-care applications and large-scale cell processing and manufacturing with a special emphasis on the emerging CAR-T immunotherapy market. We are committed to making the world a healthier place by creating innovative solutions for those in need.

For more information on the CAR-TXpress multi-system platform, please contact our Sales team.

Disclaimer

Thermogenesis Holdings Inc. published this content on 13 April 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 13 April 2021 07:10:03 UTC.

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ThermoGenesis : The History of Cell and Gene Therapy - marketscreener.com

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Treatment options for chronic myeloid leukemia often include targeted therapies. Treatment plans and their effectiveness may depend on the phase of the condition.

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a slow-growing type of blood cancer that can affect white and red blood cells and platelets. It occurs in about 15% of adults who receive a leukemia diagnosis.

CML has three phases: chronic, accelerated, and blast.

The different phases can have an impact on a persons overall prognosis and how a doctor and the person approach the treatment plan.

This article discusses common treatments for CML and the differences between the phases of the condition.

The chronic phase is the earliest stage of CML.

In this phase, the cancer grows and spreads most slowly, and people typically experience few or no symptoms.

Moreover, during this stage of CML, people have less than 10% blast cells, which are cancerous immature white blood cells.

Most people receive a diagnosis of CML in the chronic phase.

During the chronic phase, the first line of treatment is tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). A doctor may try one or more TKIs, such as:

If a specific TKI is ineffective, a doctor may change a persons dose or use a different medication. On rare occasions, a doctor may recommend a bone marrow transplant.

During treatment, a doctor will need to check the progress regularly. To do this, they will need to draw blood and check for levels of BCR-ABL, a cancer-causing gene, every 36 months. A persons doctor should review the results of the tests with the person.

A 2017 long-term study found that the 10-year survival rate of people who received a diagnosis of chronic phase CML was about 83% when they took imatinib.

The American Cancer Society states that about 70% of people have a complete response to TKI treatments within the first year.

If the first treatment does not prove effective, a doctor may consider the following:

Treatment following a stem cell transplant can vary based on the response a persons body has to the transplant.

If the persons body does not reject the transplant, a doctor may try to have the immune system attack the cancer cells by either reducing the amount of immunosuppressors or introducing donor cells.

The second phase of CML is the accelerated phase, during which blast counts are higher, and symptoms are likely to develop.

In addition, during this stage, a person has increased cancer activity.

According to the American Cancer Society, a doctor will often diagnose the accelerated phase if one or more of the following occur:

A person with accelerated phase CML is also more likely to experience symptoms such as:

The American Cancer Society states treatment for the accelerated phase will be similar to that for the chronic phase. The main difference is that in the second phase of CML, long-term success with treatment is less likely.

Treatment options, which will depend on what doctors have already used, may include:

It is difficult to determine the life expectancy of a person who receives a diagnosis of CML in the accelerated phase.

The American Cancer Society indicates a person is less likely to have a long-term response to the treatment.

However, researchers are studying new therapies, which may help prolong the life expectancy of people with a diagnosis of accelerated CML.

The blast phase is the most advanced stage of CML.

People with a blast phase CML diagnosis have at least 20% blast cells in their blood. At this stage, the cancer has also spread beyond the blood into organs or other tissues.

Additionally, a person will likely experience fever, small appetite, and weight loss.

Treatment will vary between people depending on the cancer and the type of treatment a person has already undergone.

A cure for CML in the blast phase is unlikely. That is why doctors will possibly recommend medication and therapy to help a person feel better and relieve their symptoms.

According to the American Cancer Society, a doctor may recommend newer TKIs, such as bosutinib, dasatinib, or nilotinib. Chemotherapy drugs may be effective.

If treatment is successful, a doctor may recommend a stem cell transplant.

With newer therapies, the exact survival rate of people with a blast phase CML diagnosis is not clear.

People with blast phase CML are less likely to respond well to treatment and to recover from their condition than people with a chronic phase CML.

A 2018 study reports that people with CML whose cancer cells have the T315I mutation are less likely to respond to both older and newer TKIs.

As a result, doctors will likely recommend a different strategy, such as:

CML is a type of cancer. There are several potential therapies a doctor may recommend a person undergo to treat the cancer, slow its growth, or improve a persons quality of life.

Below, we describe some of the most common approaches.

Targeted therapies are medications that identify and attack cancer cells based on certain markers.

CML contains BCR-ABL, a gene that is not present in healthy cells. The gene causes the production of BCR-ABL protein, which is a type of tyrosine kinase. Targeted therapies for CML contain TKIs that stop the growth and reproduction of cancer cells with the protein.

According to the American Cancer Society, TKIs are a frequently used treatment option in the chronic phase of CML. However, doctors may also use them in later phases of the condition.

Interferon therapy is the most common treatment for CML.

It recreates interferons, a substance the immune system produces naturally. The therapy helps prevent the growth and division of cancer cells.

Chemotherapy, or chemo, which doctors use to treat many different types of cancer, slows or stops the growth and division of cancer cells.

It may cure the cancer, reduce the likelihood of it returning, or slow or stop its growth. It may also improve symptoms.

Chemotherapy used to be the primary treatment for CML. However, TKIs are now the first line of treatment.

Doctors will typically only recommend chemotherapy if a person does not respond well to TKIs or is undergoing a stem cell transplant.

Radiation therapy uses high doses of waves of energy to destroy cancer cells. The damaged cancer cells can no longer reproduce, and die as a result.

The National Cancer Institute states that it can take several weeks of treatment to damage cancer cells enough for them to start dying off. It could then take a few weeks or months for the cells to die off completely.

However, according to the American Cancer Society, radiation is not a common treatment for CML.

Doctors may use it to reduce the size of the spleen if the cancer has spread there, to treat bone pain resulting from bone damage. They may also use it during stem cell transplant throughout the body.

Surgery is not a typical treatment option for CML. That is because the cancer can spread throughout a persons bone marrow and other organs.

Doctors will typically only recommend surgery to remove the spleen if the cancer has affected it.

A stem cell transplant involves destroying cancer cells and some healthy cells in the bone marrow, where the leukemia starts.

Once the cancer is destroyed, a doctor replaces the cells with healthy bone marrow cells that a donor provided. Usually, doctors offer this treatment option to younger people who have a matched tissue donor.

While this is the only treatment that can cure CML, it has several associated risks, including infection and graft-versus-host disease.

A person with a diagnosed CML may wish to try alternative or complementary therapies to help alleviate symptoms. They should seek guidance from a doctor to find the most suitable therapies.

According to a 2016 study, traditional Chinese herbal medicine may be effective in managing CML when people use it in conjunction with Gleevec.

However, a person should speak with their doctor about this type of treatment before finding a licensed practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine.

Another study looked at several different herbs and fruits for the treatment of leukemia. Although the study indicates more research is necessary, it reports positive results when using herbs such as ginger, garlic, and carrots.

CML is a slow-growing type of leukemia that develops in the bone marrow.

Experts distinguish three phases of the condition: chronic, accelerated, and blast. Treatments across the three phases are often similar and involve using TKIs.

A person can work with their doctor to create the best treatment options for them. If the treatment is ineffective, a doctor may recommend other therapies to achieve remission or improve a persons quality of life.

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Treating chronic myeloid leukemia (CML): By phase and more - Medical News Today

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LCol Laura Laycock on deployment.

LCol Laura Laycock

It was Oct. 7, 2019, and life was not just good, it was amazing.

My career in the Royal Canadian Air Force was going great. I loved my job and was getting promoted. Throughout my Canadian Armed Forces career of over 20years, I had represented Canada around the world with NORAD, NATO and the UN. I had married the most incredible man. We relocated to Ottawa, started to travel the world together, and were ready to start a family.

Then, on Oct. 8, 2019, everything changed.

I was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia(CML) after blood work for vertigo showed extremely elevated white blood cell counts. CML is a blood cancer where the bone marrow overproduces white blood cells, which eventually impairs the development of white and red blood cells and platelets. Its usually caused by a spontaneous mutation in DNA, which contains our genetic code.

LCol Laycock

Twenty years ago, researchers developed a new line of drugs that combat this overproduction of white blood cells. These targeted oral chemotherapy pills have been revolutionary in the fight against CML. Most people who take them do so for the rest of their lives and have good survival rates; however, a stem cell transplant remains the only actual cure. But its risky and not needed for most people.

Its now been about 17months since my diagnosis and my body has not tolerated this targeted chemotherapy. I fall into that small fraction of people who get debilitating or life-threatening side effects from this medication. My doctors are discussing other treatment options, one of which is a stem cell transplant, but my mixed ethnicity (European/Middle Eastern) has made it difficult to find a donor match.

My journey since my diagnosis has been to slow down and educate myself so that I can heal and advocate for my care; to appreciate every little moment of joy; and to do my best to overcome each challenge that arises. I have found strength in the extraordinary support Ive received from my family, my friends and my community, both old and new.

With the help of family and friends, I recently began a social media campaign to increase stem cell donor education and registration in Canada and around the world. Many people are unaware of the potentially lifesaving role they can play by registering to become stem cell donors. Stem cell transplants are vital treatment options for people with a range of medical conditions including spinal cord injuries, heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.

The process to donate is simple. First, you register online with Canadian Blood Services or Hma-Qubec and do a mail-in cheek swab., and then you wait. It could be months or years before you are identified as a match. During this waiting period, you should update your contact information with the registry if it changes.

When you are matched, you will be contacted to continue with the donation process. This process is similar to giving blood, but it has its differences. The cells are usually collected intravenously from peripheral blood in a non-surgical procedure but, in rare cases, they are collected directly from the bone marrow in a surgical procedure. In either case, the risks associated with donating are minor.

In Canada, individuals aged17 to 35 can register to become stem cell donors (ages18 to 35 in Quebec). Both CBS and Hma-Qubec are part of an international network of donor registries from over 50countries. This network has a pool of over 38million donors but, unfortunately, matches are rare.

Your stem cells could potentially help others around the world, and throughout this process donor privacy is assured at all times.

LCol Laycock on her wedding day.

Stem cell matching relies on Human Leukocyte Antigen typing, which is highly influenced by ethnicity. This means that a patients best chance of finding a matching donor is from those who share similar ethnic backgrounds. Research conducted by Gragert et al.(2014) has shown that the likelihood of finding a match for certain ethnic groups can be as low as 16 percent and as high as 75 percent for others. This disparity highlights the need for more ethnically diverse stem cell donors in our registries.

Today, I am calling on my DND and CAF families to register as stem cell donors to help people, like me, who are fighting for our lives. If you arent able to register, please share this call with those who can. You, or someone you know, could be the match that saves a life a simple swab is all it takes to be a hero.

Read this article:
Stem cell treatment needed to fight the good fight - Victoria Lookout

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Its important to be able to control the timing and spacing of the gene knockouts so the researchers can look at the same mice over time, and test for different situations.

VHL helps control cells response to different oxygen levels, especially low levels. Our current data indicates that VHL gene deletion accelerates the production of red blood cells and helps create blood vessels in the bone and bone marrow, Spencer said. This, in turn, impacts how B-cells develop.

The researchers will be able to peer inside the bone marrow and see how the microenvironment has changed when VHL is deleted in the mesenchymal cells and pre-osteoblasts. Several diseases are linked to the marrow microenvironment, so the research has the potential to inform the work of many other research teams as could the development of the new mouse model. Manilay said many researchers have tried to build models with the same specifications she and Spencer need, but those models have not worked.

Were trying something different, so this could really help researchers all over the world if it works, she said. This is high-risk, high-reward research. The risk is this could completely fail, but even then, wed be able to provide information to other researchers.

This $400,000, two-year R21 grant builds on an NIH R15 award the team received last year to examine the effects of the VHL gene defect that makes the bones grow extremely dense, with little room for marrow. Because marrow is where both immune system and blood cells develop, less marrow than normal could have a wide range of negative consequences, and the team wanted to know whether immune cells were responding to altered oxygen conditions, which are also a hallmark of the defect. B-cells can sense when they are in low-oxygen conditions, Spencer said, and they can turn on genes to help them adapt.

Spencer, whose research focuses on biomedical imaging, became the first scientist to capture an image of native adult hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) within the bone marrow of a living organism. Manilay is interested in the relationship between bone and bone marrows HSCs on immune cells fates.

Spencer, with the Department of Bioengineering in the School of Engineering, and Manilay, with the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in the School of Natural Sciences, are both members of the Health Sciences Research Institute.They worked on the foundation of this research for more than a year before the first grant started. Manilays lab had gathered preliminary data, including some work done by graduate student Betsabel Chicana, who recently won an NIH fellowship for her immunology work. The graduate students collaborated throughout, analyzing data and cross-training in each others disciplines.

Now that weve been doing this for more than a year, Im really seeing the benefits among my students, Spencer said. Exposing them to other research methods and other ways to ask questions and design experiments gives them a broader training, which will benefit their futures as researchers.

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Collaboration Furthers Understanding of Immune Cell Development | Newsroom - UC Merced University News

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Leukemia cutis can happen when leukemia cells enter your skin. This rare condition causes patches of discolored skin to appear on the body.

In some cases, the appearance of leukemia cutis lesions on the skin is the first sign of leukemia a cancer of the blood and bone marrow.

Along with standard leukemia therapies, this complication can usually be addressed with topical treatments to help heal the damaged skin. If you have leukemia cutis, your outlook will usually depend on your age and the type of leukemia you have.

Leukemia cutis is an uncommon complication, affecting only about 3 percent of people with leukemia. However, it is often a sign that the cancer is at an advanced stage.

With leukemia, malignant leukocytes (white blood cells) are usually only present in the bloodstream. In the case of leukemia cutis, the leukocytes have entered the skin tissue, causing lesions to appear on the outer layer of your skin. The word cutis refers to the skin, or dermis.

Generally, leukemia cutis results in one or more lesions or patches forming on the outer layer of skin. This condition can mean that the leukemia is more advanced and may have spread to your bone marrow and other organs.

Because there are fewer healthy white cells to combat infections caused by other diseases, rashes and sores may be more common among people with leukemia. Low blood platelets from leukemia can cause damage to blood vessels that appear as red spots or lesions on the skin.

These may include:

However, these skin changes are different than those brought on by leukemia cutis.

While the legs are the most common area for leukemia cutis lesions to appear, they can also form on the arms, face, trunk, and scalp. These skin changes can include:

The lesions usually dont hurt. However, with certain types of leukemia particularly acute myeloid leukemia (AML) the lesions may bleed.

A dermatologist may initially diagnose leukemia cutis based on a physical examination of the skin and a review of your medical history. A skin biopsy is needed to confirm the diagnosis.

Leukemia cutis is a sign of leukemia. It wont develop if the body isnt already dealing with this type of blood cancer.

But leukemia isnt just one disease. There are multiple types of leukemia, each one classified by the kind of cell affected by the disease.

You can also have an acute or a chronic form of leukemia. Acute means it comes on suddenly and usually with more severe symptoms. Chronic leukemia develops more slowly and often with milder symptoms.

The types of leukemia that most commonly trigger leukemia cutis are AML and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Scientists arent sure why cancerous leukocytes migrate to skin tissue in some people with leukemia. It may be that the skin is an optimal environment for healthy leukocytes to transform into cancerous cells.

One possible risk factor that has emerged is an abnormality in chromosome 8, which has been found more often in individuals with leukemia cutis than in those without it.

Treating leukemia cutis usually includes treatment for leukemia as the underlying condition.

The standard leukemia treatment is chemotherapy, but other options may be considered depending on your overall health, your age, and the type of leukemia you have.

Other leukemia treatment options include:

For blood cancers, external beam radiation is a typical form of treatment. With this therapy, a focused beam of radiation is delivered outside the body from various angles. The goal is to injure the DNA in cancer cells to stop them from reproducing.

Immunotherapy, a type of biological therapy, uses the bodys own immune system to fight cancer. It is typically given by an injection that either stimulates immune system cells activity or blocks the signals cancer cells send to suppress the immune response.

Immunotherapy may also be given orally, topically, or intravesically (into the bladder).

Stem cell transplantation is more commonly known as a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow is where blood stem cells develop. Stem cells can become any type of cell.

Through stem cell transplantation, healthy blood stem cells replace stem cells damaged by the cancer or by chemotherapy or radiation therapy. However, not everyone is a good candidate for this treatment.

Only treating the leukemia cutis lesions will not address the underlying disease of leukemia. That means treatments designed to remove or reduce lesions should be done in combination with systemic treatment for leukemia itself.

Treatments for leukemia cutis symptoms can include:

Again, these treatments will only treat the leukemia cutis lesions, but systemic treatment of the leukemia itself will be needed as well.

The length of time leukemia cutis lesions may last depends on many factors, including how well the leukemia itself is responding to treatment. If the leukemia goes into remission, its unlikely more lesions will appear.

With effective treatment, existing lesions could fade. However, other factors, including your age and overall health, can affect how widespread the lesions are and how long they may last.

There are encouraging trends in the treatment of leukemia, but it remains a challenging disease to treat and live with.

For people with AML who dont have leukemia cutis, research suggests that the survival rate at 2 years is about 30 percent. However, the survival rate drops to 6 percent among people with the skin lesions.

A separate study of 1,683 people with AML found that leukemia cutis was associated with a poor prognosis, and that those with AML and leukemia cutis may benefit from more aggressive treatment.

The outlook for people with CLL is better, with about an 83 percent survival rate at 5 years. The presence of leukemia cutis doesnt seem to change that outlook very much, according to a 2019 study.

Leukemia cutis is a rare complication of leukemia. It happens when malignant leukocytes invade the skin and cause lesions on the skins outer surface.

AML and CLL are more often associated with leukemia cutis than other types of leukemia.

While leukemia cutis usually means the leukemia is in an advanced stage, there are treatments for both the cancer and this uncommon side effect that may help extend life and improve its quality.

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Leukemia Cutis: Symptoms and Treatment - Healthline

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A lack of ethnic diversity among donors, coupled with cultural myths, have led to a paucity of bone marrow donors, resulting in hundreds of avoidable deaths caused by leukaemia and other blood-related diseases.

According to Jane Ward, the deputy director of the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR), the lack of sufficient education to counter cultural beliefs, especially among black South Africans, contributes to donor resistance. A common myth is that regenerative stem cells are somehow body parts and cannot be parted with.

She said a major education and destigmatisation campaign is needed to help people donate and to realise that help is available.

Also, by the time many black patients go to a doctor or clinic to be referred upwards for treatment, its often too late. We can only transplant bone marrow when a patient is in remission, and that requires extensive treatment.

If you dont catch it quickly enough, you cant treat it. That and the lack of facilities, plus the costs which we cover for matching, donor collection and stem cell transport have proved the biggest hurdles, Ward said.

Youre more likely to find a match within your own ethnic group and its been shown that there are more white donors on registries worldwide. Theres simply not enough ethnic diversity among donors.

Two other societal phenomena have contributed to shrinking the local bone marrow registry base from 74000 to 73000 donors over the past five years: emigration and ageing.

Last year, of those donors removed from the local donor base, more than 6% were lost because of emigration, Ward revealed.

And because stem cells age with their hosts, donors are retired from the database at 60 years old.

Emigration is not a train smash because we contact them and transfer them to the registry of the destination country but that ups the cost in getting the donor cells transported back here, she explained.

A new partnership between the SABMR and Netcells, South Africas largest private cord blood bank, is set to improve access to more cost-effective, life-saving treatment for leukaemia and some 79 other blood related diseases.

While 550 patients have received matched unrelated transplants since the SABMR was established in 1991 an outflow of critical tissue matching capability required for Dr Chris Barnards historic 1967 heart transplant the chances of finding a bone marrow match remain slim.

This new partnership includes the establishment of a public community cord blood stem cell bank Africas first and marks another milestone in reducing the one-in-100000 odds of finding a bone marrow match for patients in South Africa.

While South Africa has been part of the world registry for bone marrow transplants for 20 years, giving it access to some 39-million registered donors, there are only 73000 South African donors in an ageing local registry.

This puts South Africans at a major cost and access disadvantage. One of the biggest stumbling blocks remains the few black (global and local) donors and the gap between South Africas funded private transplant funding and unfunded state sector transplants which the community cord blood stem cell bank aims to address.

There are other reasons why donor recruitment remains so low.

The SABMR only began recruiting donors in 2018, meaning it had to develop a recruitment division from scratch after the well-known Sunflower Fund relinquished this task as part of its cancer treatment funding efforts.

Ward said that recent advances in medical technology have brought umbilical cord blood stem cells to the table as an effective treatment. Besides infant cord blood stems cells, blood from young healthy males aged 18 to 25 is the preferred transplant choice. Although that age bracket is the preferred choice, any one who is healthy and younger than 60 can donate.

According to Ward, a consequence of this reality is that South Africa recently became only the second country globally to drop the donor recruitment age from 18 to 16 in its attempt to swell the registry.

Education is vital to counter myths and create a younger, informed donor base. We want everybody in the next generation to know about this life-saving treatment and how they can help.

One way to achieve this is to use new channels such as TikTok and Instagram for the younger generation being targeted.

Shelley Bredin, the managing director of Netcells, outlined how her company works and will partner with the SABMR.

Netcells receives umbilical cord blood stem cells from infants at birth, freezing them for future use. The parents opting to do this do so as an insurance against future blood-based diseases.

The umbilical stem cells are also a 25% match for a sibling, widening the insurance safeguard. Parents can, at the outset, choose whether to opt for community stem cell banking or private stem cell banking, the former costing half the price (R15000). This is in return for the stem cells being allocated on a priority needs basis to either their family or an outside matched recipient on a first-come-first-served basis via the SABMR registry.

If the community banked stem cells are used for an outside recipient, the parents are reimbursed fully. Once the initial selected storage period ends, when privately banking the stem cells, Netcells contacts the parents and asks them if they want to continue storage or to donate them to the SABMR as a philanthropic gesture.

If parents opt for private stem cell banking, the frozen cells are kept exclusively for their use, but the up-front price increases to R29000 for 10 years storage.

Its a very personal decision, she said. Our intention is to make the stem cells more attainable for more people and at the same time serving to expand the donor pool in South Africa. Some who have the money would still prefer to bank privately as they dont want to take the gamble.

Cost remains an ever-present reality, with Covid-19 dramatically reducing the global pool of available and usable donor blood cells.

Its no longer just an issue of an adult donor having to be medically fit. The question becomes, will the donor get Covid? You have to test [the donor], for that. Yet [umbilical] cord blood remains readily available, and you dont need a whole bunch of tests on the donor, Bredin said

This was yet another current contextual advantage of the new partnership, she emphasised.

Bredin said cord blood is a much simpler source of stem cells than an adults blood. By establishing a community cord blood bank, they hope to reduce the need for expensive global sourcing.

An adult blood cell donation can cost between R250000 and R270000 from a foreign country (just over half that locally) while foreign-sourced umbilical cord blood can cost up to R1-million. Only a very few local medical aids fund all sourced donations and transplants.

Leukaemia is the most common cancer among children and teens worldwide, accounting for 30% of all cancers diagnosed in children.

The miraculous, life-saving bone marrow transplant addressing end-stage haematological disorders happens just 12500 times a year globally, according to the SABMR.

Anyone wanting to find out more about stem cell harvesting and donation or who would like to contribute to the SABMR donor fund to help save lives should visitnextbio.co.za/netcells/ or sabmr.co.za/become-a-donor/. Alternatively they can email: [emailprotected]

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More ethnically diverse bone marrow donors needed to save lives - Mail and Guardian

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

TEHRAN For the first time, MAHAK Charity Foundation has started using the Total Body Irradiation (TBI) cancer treatment method for children in the country.

Launched by the MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center (MPCTRC), TBI delivers radiation to the whole body from head to toe. It destroys remaining malignant cells, creates space in bone marrow for donors bone marrow stem cells, and prevents rejection by suppressing the patients immune system. TBI increases the survival rate in children with high-risk leukemia.

It is a part of the preparation procedure for hematopoietic (or bone marrow) stem cell transplantation. In this method, the immune system of the individual who needs transplantation gets suppressed allowing the recipient to accept foreign bone marrow stem cells.

Moreover, it can eradicate the remaining cancer cells and thereby increase survival rates of high-risk leukemia patients.

TBI is a method that has been used across the world for decades and is now mostly reserved for high-risk leukemia in need of transplantation. Using this type of irradiation in Iran would increase the survival rate of children with high-risk leukemia.

MAHAK is an NGO that supports services for cancer-stricken children and their families in accordance with international standards, as a result, over 35000 children with cancer have benefited from it during the past 29 years.

FB/MG

Original post:
New pediatric cancer treatment method being used in Iran - Tehran Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Adipose-derived stem cells are mesenchymal stem cells obtained from adult fat tissues during various surgical interventions such as breast reduction, liposuction, or abdominoplasty. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) possess the ability to proliferate into numerous cell lineages such as chondrocytes, adipocytes, and others. Owing to this property, these multipotent stem cells can substitute bone marrow as a rich source of stem cells.

The report performs an insightful analysis of various fundamental market aspects, including SWOT analysis, CAGR during the projected period, recent developments, new product launches, technology upgradation, product offerings, application landscape, end-users, and geographical footprint of the leading companies. The market estimations carried out by our team of industry experts are based on various research methodologies and validated information on the present market scenario.

Get Download Pdf Sample Copy of this Report@ https://www.emergenresearch.com/request-sample/203

Global Adipose-derived Stem Cell Market Research Scope:

The global market can be broadly segmented on the basis of product type, application spectrum, competitive landscape, geography, and end-use industries. Each of the market segments has been elaborately represented in the table of contents (ToC) included in the report, as well as in the format of graphs, tables, charts, etc. The report, additionally, expounds on the intensely competitive terrain of the global Adipose-derived Stem Cell market, taking into account some major factors like strategic business growth initiatives, product development, key market players, revenue share, and a wide range of research &development activities.

Some of the prominent players of the industry include Allocure, Inc., Celgene Corporation, Pluristem Therapeutics, Inc., Intrexon, Inc., Celleris SA, Tissue Genesis, Inc., Mesoblast Ltd., Cytori Therapeutics, Antria, Inc., ThermoFisher Scientific, American CrysoStem, Merck KGaA, Others

Market Segmentation:

The market is broadly categorized on the basis of product types offered in the market, region, broad application spectrum, and the leading manufacturers/companies.

Cell Type

Product Type

Disease Indication

End-user Industries

Application

Regional Segmentation:

The latest Adipose-derived Stem Cell market report highlights the ongoing market demands and trends, more importantly, in the market that is spread across the major regions of the country. The report entails an insightful analysis of the current growth opportunities for various regions of the Adipose-derived Stem Cell market. It further mentions the year-on-year growth rate of these regions over the forecast duration. The leading regional segments encompassed in the report include:

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Some Fundamental Market Parameters Elucidated in the Report:

Market dynamics: The Adipose-derived Stem Cell market report explains the scope of various commercial possibilities over the next few years and further estimates revenue build-up over the forecast years. It analyzes the key market segments and sub-segments and provides deep insights into the market to assist readers in developing vital strategies for profitable business expansion.

Competitive Outlook: The established market players operating in the Adipose-derived Stem Cell industry have been listed in this report, with a major focus on their geographical reach and production facilities. To gain a competitive advantage over the other players in the Adipose-derived Stem Cell industry, the leading players are focusing more on offering products at rational prices.

Objectives of the Report: The chief aim of the research report is to provide the manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, and buyers engaged in this sector with access to a deeper and improved understanding of the global Adipose-derived Stem Cell market.

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Adipose-derived Stem Cell OverviewMarket Key Companies, Business Opportunities, Competitive Landscape and Industry Analysis Research Report by 2027 ...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

12 April 2021

A clinical trial for a new gene therapy approach to treat sickle cell disease has been approved to proceed by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Patients with sickle cell disease have a mutation in the beta-haemoglobin gene, causing them to produce misshapen red blood cells that can block blood vessels leading to severe pain, anaemia and potentially life-threatening complications, such as organ damage and strokes.Currently, the only cureis a stem cell transplant from a healthy donor, but in the newly-approved trial, scientists from the University of California will use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to replace the faulty gene with a functional version.

'Gene therapy and genome editing allow each patient to serve as their own stem cell donor,' said Professor Donald Kohn, from the Broad Stem Cell Research Centre at the University of California Los Angeles, one of the clinical trial leaders. 'In theory, these approaches should be much safer than a transplant from another person and could become universally available because they eliminate the need to find the needle in a haystack that is a matched stem cell donor.'

In the trial, blood stem cells will be harvested from the patients and grown in the lab. CRISPR/Cas9 will be used to 'cut and replace' a sequence of DNA containing the mutation with a healthy copy. The edited cells will then be returned to the patient's body in the same way they would be if the patient was receiving donor stem cells.

'The goal of this form of genome editing therapy is to correct the mutation in enough stem cells so the resulting blood in circulation has corrected red blood cells,' said Dr Mark Walters, from the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital, another of the clinical trial leaders.

The study will take place over four years, and include six adults and three adolescents with severe sickle cell disease, testing both safety and efficacy.

The treatment does have risks: the patientswill need to have high dose chemotherapy, to kill allremaining bloodstem cells before the modified stem cells are put back. This is also necessary before receiving donor stem cells and can cause severe side effects as the patient's immune system is temporarily disabled.

A similar trial, using CRISPR/Cas9 to activate bone marrow stem cells to produce an alternative version of haemoglobin, rather than correcting the faulty version, has recently shown promising results in a patient with sickle cell disease (see BioNews 1052).

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CRISPR gene therapy for sickle cell disease approved by the FDA - BioNews

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Apr 15th 2021

THE ANCIENT GREEKS were good at inventing fantastical animals. The chimera, for instance, was a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle. It was eventually slain by Bellerophon, with help from his flying horse.

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Not all chimeras are mythological. To biologists, the term describes organisms whose bodies consist of cells from two distinct lineages. In twin pregnancies, for example, one twin can occasionally absorb the other. The resulting individual is built from cells with separate genomes. A 2019 forensic-science conference discussed the case of a man who had received a bone-marrow transplant. Since bone marrow produces blood cells, subsequent DNA tests on the mans blood matched his donors genome, not his own. (More unexpectedly, the donors DNA also turned out to be present in swabs taken from the mans cheeks, and in his semen.)

For several decades scientists have been experimenting with cross-species chimeras, organisms which, as in the Greek myths, are composites of different animals. They have created mouse-rats, sheep-goats and chicken-quails. Now, in a paper published in Cell, Tao Tan, a biologist at Kunming University of Science and Technology, and a team of American, Chinese and Spanish researchers, report efforts to extend the principle to humans. They have managed to create embryos that are part-monkey and part-human.

The work builds on earlier endeavours by many of the same researchers. In 2017 Juan Carlos Izpisa Belmonte, a biologist at the Salk Institute in San Diego, announced the creation of chimeric human-pig embryos. But quite how successful those efforts were is uncertain. Only about one cell in 100,000 in the embryos were human, and it was unclear whether they contributed to the organisms growth. This time things are different. The human cells seem happy to co-operate, at least some of the time, with the monkey ones.

The researchers began with 132 embryos of the crab-eating macaque. Six days after fertilisation these were injected with human extended pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any other cell type found in the body. Tagging the human cells with fluorescent markers allowed the researchers to track where in the developing embryo they, and their descendants, went.

In the early stages of development, mammal embryos develop into four distinct cell types. Epiblasts go on to form the organism itself; hypoblasts develop into the yolk sac; trophectoderms become the placenta and extra-embryonic mesenchyme cells make a membrane that surrounds the embryo. The chimeras human cells made their way into all four types of tissue, though they were outnumbered in every case. No more than 7% of the epiblast was made up of human cells, and just 5% of the hypoblast (in other areas the numbers were lower still).

The cells location seemed to influence which proteins they produced. Human cells in the chimeras epiblast behaved more like those found in human embryos than those found in monkey embryos. But that was not true of human hypoblast or extra-embryonic mesenchyme cells, both of which behaved more like monkey cells.

The monkey cells, in turn, were affected by the presence of the human ones. The researchers found 126 different sorts of cell-to-cell interactions among monkey cells in the chimeric embryos, compared with just 19 in non-chimeric ones, as well as differences in the activity levels of many genes.

The cells were grown in a lab, which imposed limitations. The number of surviving embryos began falling by day 15. By day 20 none was left. But that was enough time for a process called gastrulation to take place. Gastrulation is a vital development stage in which embryonic cells become primed to form different organs and tissues. The human cells took longer to reach this point than the monkey ones did. But they managed nevertheless, providing more evidence that the human cells were not merely passive passengers, but were mucking in to help with the process of embryonic development.

The researchers hope this biotechnological wizardry will help with two goals. One is to shed light on the complicated process of embryological development, which might eventually lead to treatments for some congenital diseases. Chimeras may offer a way around some of the ethical difficulties involved in experimenting on human embryos.

The other is the hope that chimeric animals might one day provide a source of organs to be transplanted into sick humans. In 2017 Japanese researchers demonstrated the principle by transplanting parts of a pancreas that had grown inside a mouse-rat chimera into a diabetic mouse, curing it. Whether that can work in people is, for now, unclear. And research into human chimeras is ethically fraught. America, for instance, forbids federal funding of such work. Most of the work reported in this latest paper happened in China.

But if chimeric human organs do become a reality, macaques are unlikely to be the animal of choice, says Dr Izpisa Belmonte. The most likely donor would probably be pigs (this is why his 2017 experiment focused on the animals). Their organs are roughly the size of their human equivalents, and, fairly or unfairly, they seem to provoke fewer moral qualms. (Pigs already provide thousands of people with replacement heart valves, for instance.)

The advantage of working with monkeys, at least for now, is that they are much closer, in evolutionary terms, to humans. That may have helped smooth out any compatibility issues between the two sets of cells. The hope is that lessons from experiments with humanitys close cousins might allow the researchers to revisit their work with its more distant, porcine relativesand get better results.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "Fantastic beasts and how to make them"

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Researchers have created embryos that are part-human and part-monkey - The Economist

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The coronavirus pandemic has dominated the headlines and our daily lives for over a year. Medical News Today has covered this fast-moving, complex story with live updates about the latest news, interviews with experts, and an ongoing investigation into the deep racial disparities that COVID-19 has helped unmask.

However, this has not stopped us from publishing hundreds of fascinating stories on a myriad of other topics.

We begin this weeks Recovery Room with new findings of research into Parkinsons disease that may also have wider implications for the treatment of other neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.

Next comes a detailed exploration of the role that carbohydrates play in the development of diabetes. Its a complex picture, and a low carb diet may not be the panacea that some claim it to be.

We also have two reports about the influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on medical research, as well as articles covering breakthroughs in HIV prevention, sickle cell disease reversal, and heart tissue regeneration.

Finally, we look at research confirming that a steady income is good for self-confidence but may have a minimal effect on feelings about other people.

We highlight this research below, along with several other recent stories that you may have missed amid all the COVID-19 fervor.

We begin with the most-read article of the past week, with more than 124,000 page views: our report on new insights into a biochemical pathway that drives Parkinsons disease. The discovery may help scientists develop treatments for this disease, as well as type 2 diabetes and cancer.

Parkin is a protein that plays a key role in maintaining cellular energy by removing damaged mitochondria, a process known as mitophagy. The new research indicates that the biochemical pathway that activates Parkin is shorter than previously thought, which helps explain how Parkin triggers mitophagy within minutes of cellular distress occurring.

Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and some neurodegenerative diseases stem from metabolic dysregulation in damaged mitochondria, so the Parkin pathway is likely to have a role in their progression, too.

Click below to learn more about how drugs developed to treat diabetes may also be used to treat Parkinsons, or click here to visit our new Parkinsons disease resource page.

Learn more here.

Our new article exploring the role that carbohydrates play in diabetes was also very popular, with over 117,000 page views so far this week.

First, our editors looked at the relationship between carb consumption, insulin, and blood sugar. They also explored how many carbs a person with diabetes should consume, good carbs, foods to include in the diet and foods to avoid, and the effects of specific diets, including a low carb diet.

The takeaway is that not all carbs are bad for a person with diabetes, but the focus should be on healthy, whole foods rather than processed foods and those high in refined sugars.

Learn more here.

Good nutrition is important at every stage of life. This week, we published a new article on the critical role of nutrition in a childs brain development, especially in the first 3 years.

Our editors first list a variety of healthy brain foods. They then share ideas for breakfasts that may help a child stay focused at school and snacks for children to try while studying. Click the link below to see the variety of foods and nutrients that should be part of every childs diet.

Learn more here.

A reliable HIV vaccine has been difficult to develop because there are so many strains of the virus, around 50 million, according to one researcher involved in a new phase 1 clinical trial.

The new course of vaccines is designed to activatebroadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) that target a wide variety of HIV strains. Only one very rare type of immune cell is able to produce bnAbs, and the vaccine activated these naive B cells in 97% of participants who received it, according to the researchers.

This novel technique could also be used to make vaccines for other diseases that have proven challenging for vaccine developers, including malaria, influenza, and hepatitis C.

Learn more here.

Two of this weeks articles highlighted how AI is being deployed to aid medical research.

First, we described ways that researchers are using powerful learning algorithms to model and predict how proteins behave in human cells. Existing AI technology used to process natural language was adapted to see if it could also predict protein language and expression.

The researchers made the technique available on a new web application, linked to in our article, that allows scientists to submit a protein sequence and view its predicted behavior.

Learn more here.

We also reported on how AI is being used to analyse the brain scans of thousands of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) in an effort to learn more about the disease.

The AI program, called SuStaIn, performed an unsupervised analysis of the brain scans and detected patterns that might otherwise have been missed. As a result, three new subtypes of the disease were identified, each presenting as different types of abnormalities in the brain.

These subtypes could be used to predict a persons response to different treatments. If this finding is supported by more clinical research, it could help ensure that the correct therapy is given at the correct time.

Learn more here.

This week, we reported on a new study that concludes that a drug that appears to reverse sickle cell disease in mice is safe for humans. The drug candidate, called FTX-6058, restored the ability to produce fetal hemoglobin.

Around 1 in 365 Black people in the U.S. are born with sickle cell disease, which is relatively rare in white people. Currently, the only cure is a stem cell or bone marrow transplant, but these are very risky. FTX-6058 will now be used in a phase 2 clinical trial that includes people with sickle cell disease, for the first time, by the end of this year.

Learn more here.

Unlike humans, adult zebra fish regenerate their hearts and other organs after injury. Until recently, the way that they do this has been unclear, but researchers are now looking more closely at the role that a protein called KLF1 plays in this remarkable ability.

Inhibiting the gene for KLF1 severely limited the ability of zebra fish to regenerate heart tissue. Investigating the role of KLF1 in human hearts will require much more work, but if the protein can help regenerate heart tissue after an injury in humans, it could be a game-changer in the treatment of heart disease.

Learn more here.

April is National Autism Awareness Month, and last weeks Recovery Room featured the experience of a parent who established a school following the diagnosis of her sons autism.

This week, MNT reported on a new approach to assessing autism spectrum disorder that focuses more on proficiency and growth than deficits in a childs development. Changing the narrative in this way could help develop a more constructive and holistic way to understand each childs unique requirements and help with the selection of therapies and interventions.

This approach is also better able to account for factors such as household income and other elements of social context, compared with measuring a childs progress against a rigid set of outcomes.

Learn more here.

Finally, this week, we reported on what claims to be the first study into the emotional benefits of living with a secure income. This large study tracked the emotional responses of 1.6 million people in 162 countries.

Its key findings are that people with a steady income are more likely to feel confident and proud of themselves and that these feelings can persist for decades. However, making more money did not appear to strengthen positive feelings about others, and nor did it affect feelings such as anger.

According to this research, earnings are only linked to some inward-facing emotions, so a societys affluence may not have as strong an influence on community harmony as policymakers might expect.

Learn more here.

We hope that this weeks Recovery Room has provided a taste of the stories that we cover atMNT. We will be back with a new selection next week.

We publish hundreds of new stories and features every month. Here are some upcoming articles that may pique our readers interests:

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The Recovery Room: News beyond the pandemic April 16 - Medical News Today

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith