Molecular pathway plays major role in the intersection between aging and heart failure A team led by Harvard Medical School researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital has found that activity of an important signaling pathway increases with aging and with heart failure. In a report published in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes evidence from both humans
A feature-length documentary chronicling the story of CRISPR premiered at the SXSW festival yesterday. From executive producer Dan Rather and director Adam Bolt, the co-writer and editor of the Oscar-winning film Inside Job, comes the story of the biggest tech revolution of the 21st Century. And it isn’t digital, it’s biological. A breakthrough called CRISPR has
Discovery made while editing genetic defect behind Duchenne muscular dystrophy Scientists have developed a method to boost the efficiency of CRISPR gene editing in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), according to a study that could have implications for optimizing gene therapies for other diseases. The finding stemmed from research at UT Southwestern in which a single-cut gene-editing
Researchers used time-lapse imaging to show that mouse induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) grown during spaceflight differentiated into cardiomyocytes significantly faster than similar cells grown at Earth’s gravity. The robust cardiomyocyte formation at microgravity, which lasted for 10 days, is described in an article published in Stem Cells and Development, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert,
Cell sheets have previously shown greater efficacy for tissue repair than injections of single stem cells. New research conducted by scientists at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Emmaus Life Sciences, Inc. (both CA, USA) has demonstrated the possibility of producing scaffold-free engineered cell sheets. These cell ‘patches’ could enable better organ repair follow
In a paper published in the journal Nature, an international research team led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report that bone growth in mice takes place in accordance with the same principles as when new cells are constantly produced in blood, skin and other tissue. This contradicts the previous understanding that bone growth depends
01 MARCH 2019 P.M.Fornasari On average, people are living longer than ever before, and that’s good news. However, ageing populations mean higher rates of certain illnesses, such as neurodegenerative disorders. A prominent example of is Parkinson’s disease, a medical condition that already affects 6.5 million people worldwide. This number is expected to more than double
01 March 2019 P.M.Fornasari Rare diseases affect fewer than roughly five in 10,000 people worldwide. Approximately 80% of rare diseases have identified genetic origins, and are often debilitating; about 30% of children with a rare disease will die before their fifth birthday. There are roughly 30 million people in the U.S. living with a rare
February 27 2019 P.M. Fornasari Yale researchers have developed a new way to efficiently engineer immune cells, an advance which enhances the ability to fend off cancer and other diseases, they report in the Feb. 25 issue of the journal Nature Methods. A number of new life-saving therapies rely on reconfiguring human immune cells to act
Approval from Japanese regulators means that trials of induced pluripotent stem cells can begin later this year. Scientists in Japan now have permission to inject ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells into people with spinal-cord injuries. An upcoming trial will mark the first time that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have been used to treat spinal-cord injuries, after
