Experiments in mice show that the brain’s ability to adapt might not disappear with age.
Transplanting fetal neurons into the brains of young mice opens a new window on neural plasticity, or flexibility in the brain’s neural circuits. The research, published today in the journal Science, suggests that the brain’s ability to radically adapt to new situations might not be permanently lost in youth, and helps to pinpoint the factors needed to reintroduce this plasticity.
Continue reading Implanted Neurons Let the Brain Rewire Itself Again
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said today (January 29) that they will donate $10 billion over the next 10 years to develop vaccines and deliver them to the world’s poorest countries. The donation, announced at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, is the foundation’s largest contribution to vaccine research and distribution, more than doubling the $4.5 billion sum it has given over the last five years.
Continue reading $10 billion for vax research
Heartbeats: Spontaneously beating iCell Cardiomyocyte cells.
Credit: Cellular Dynamics International
Stem cell advance will help drug development!
Last month, Madison, WI-based Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) began shipping heart cells derived from a person’s own stem cells. The cells could be useful to researchers studying everything from the toxicity of new or existing drugs to the electrodynamics of both healthy and diseased cardiac cells.
CDI’s scientists create their heart cells–called iCell Cardiomyocites–by taking cells from a person’s own blood (or other tissue) and chemically reversing them back to a pluripotent state. This means they are able to grow or can be programmed to grow into any cell in the body.
Continue reading Made-to-Order Heart Cells
Advances in antiaging drugs, acoustic brain surgery, flu vaccines–and the secret to IQ.
We may look back on 2009 as the year human genome sequencing finally became routine enough to generate useful medical information (“A Turning Point for Personal Genomes“). The number of sequenced and published genomes shot up from two or three to approximately nine, with another 40 or so genomes sequenced but not yet published. In a few cases, scientists have already found the genetic cause of a disorder by sequencing an affected person’s genome.
Scientists have also sequenced the genomes of a number of cancers, comparing that sequence to patients’ normal genome to find the genetic mistakes that might have caused the cells to become cancerous and to metastasize (“Sequencing Tumors to Target Treatment“). The results suggest that even low-grade and medium-grade tumors can be genetically heterogeneous, which could be problematic for molecularly targeted drugs. That points to a need to develop new strategies for drug development and treatment in cancer.
