Graying hair, crow’s feet, an injury that’s taking longer to heal than when we were 20—faced with the unmistakable signs of aging, most of us have had a least one fantasy of turning back time. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have found that intermittent expression of genes normally associated with an embryonic state can…
Category: stem cells
Technology Man With MS Rises Out Of Wheelchair Days After Stem Cell Treatment
A UK man diagnosed with multiple sclerosis – who couldn’t walk without crutches due to his condition – was able to walk independently days after undergoing stem cell treatment. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011, Eric Thompson, 50, was unable to walk without using a crutch or holding furniture. He was unable to…
Speeding Up Muscle Repair
Stem cells, is there anything they can’t do? As you get older your muscles deteriorate. Now scientists are finding improved muscle health after using stem cells. Athletes, the elderly and those with degenerative muscle disease would all benefit from accelerated muscle repair. When skeletal muscles, those connected to the bone, are injured, muscle stem cells…
As tech trickles in, medicine is about to hit warp speed
Digital Trends explores the near future trends in medicine and how what technology did to postal mail, CD music, newspapers and video is coming for medicine next. Now, instead of just puzzling over complex medical questions with our limited human brainpower, we’ve begun enlisting the help of machines to analyze vast amounts of data, recognize…
Parabiosis: rejuvention by young blood
Read up on how young blood apparently rejuvenates older blood. While interpretations were often simplified and no, young blood can’t make you live forever, there has been a number of findings over the last decade around the power of blood that have significant implications for human health and the ageing process. More at TheLong+Short here:…
Stem cell therapy helps paralyzed man regain use of arms and hands
The 21-year-old who suffered a cervical spine injury in March gains significant improvement in his motor function at Keck Hospital of USC after a team of doctors injected an experimental dose of 10 million AST-OPC1 cells directly into patient’s cervical spinal cord in early April 2016. Two weeks after surgery, Boesen began to show signs…
Robot operates inside eye in world first
Surgeons have used a robot to operate inside the eye and restore sight – in a world first. A team at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital used the device, controlled via a joystick, to remove a membrane one hundredth of a millimetre thick. Prof MacLaren said: “There is no doubt in my mind that we have…
New technique generates human neural stem cells for tissue engineering, 3-D brain models
Tufts University researchers have discovered a new technique for generating rapidly-differentiating human neural stem cells for use in a variety of tissue engineering applications, including a three-dimensional model of the human brain, according to a paper published today in Stem Cell Reports. The work could pave the way for experiments that engineer other innervated tissues,…
The Economist on Aging and Longevity
None other than the very main street “Economist” publication weighs in on the topic of healthy living, longevity, aging and caloric restriction diet. A good article discussing approaches and challenges ahead. Improvements in medicine and welfare mean that there are many more people in their 90s and 100s round the world today than there used…
Stem cells: Researchers use a single molecule to command stem cells to build new bone
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered an easy and efficient way to coax human pluripotent stem cells to regenerate bone tissue—by feeding them adenosine, a naturally occurring molecule in the body. The stem-cell-derived bone tissue helped repair cranial bone defects in mice without developing tumors or causing infection. This is a…