"Science and Biotechnology Books Made Simple" |
"Science and Biotechnology Books Made Simple" |
|
Source-
Associated
Press 8/31/04 Discovery of 3,000- year-old Bodies of Lapita People Australian scientists discovered headless bodies buried 3,000 years ago in an old cemetery that could reveal more information about the Lapita people- some of the earliest settlers of the Pacific islands and believed to be ancestors of the region's Polynesian people. The site contains the oldest human remains yet found in the region. The skeletons would help archeologists understand better about the Lapita people, how they would have looked like, as well as their culture. Archaeologists working at the site found the heads from adults had been removed from the bodies sometime after burial and were replaced with shell bracelets. Source-
ScienceDaily
8/4/04 Promising New Treatment For Heart Disease Scientists at Brigham
and Women’s Hospital in The study was done on
rats in which the “smart gene therapy” was administered to their
hearts several weeks before inducing ischemia. This therapy protected the
heart from a lot of the damage that could lead to heart failure. The work was led by Dzau
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The team developed a gene construct
that contains both DNA sequences that can detect oxygen deficiency and a
human gene, heme-oxygenase 1, that has been shown to protect cells. The
gene construct was inserted into a harmless virus, which was able to
transport the therapeutic gene into the genome of the rat’s cells. This gene therapy method
also prevented injury on rat skeletal muscle and liver in which ischemia
was induced. Dr. Dzau predicts that
the therapy might be ready to enter a phase I clinical trial in human
patients in a year. This study is published in the journal, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” this week. Source-
BBC
News 7/1/04 Stem Cells Therapy for Parkinson's Disease Researchers at Hadassah University in Israel found that when they transplanted human stem cells into the brains of rats with Parkinson's- like symptoms, the rats behavior changed. Before treatment, the rats would turn continually and were unable to make side steps while they were dragged across a surface. However, after treatment, these symptoms were significantly reduced. The stem cells in the rats developed into dopamine-producing cells. Stem cells are early cells capable of become different type of cells with a variety of functions. Parkinson's disease is a disorder of the central nervous system. Certain cells in the brain make a chemical substance called dopamine. Dopamine carries messages that tell the body how and when to move. Parkinson's disease occurs when these brain cells die or are damaged. There is no longer enough dopamine to carry these messages, and movement becomes more difficult. Parkinson's disease affects around 120,000 people in the United Kingdom. None of the treated rats developed cancerous tumors, although the rats for monitored for only 12 weeks after the transplant. Longer studies are important to rule out tumor development. This study was the first to involve human stem cells and can set the stage for future development that may allow the use of embryonic stem cells for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Source-
ScienceDaily
6/5/04 A Simple Method for Drug Delivery Researchers at University of Wisconsin Medical
School, the Source-
ScienceDaily
5/7/04 Your Teeth May Help Treat Parkinson's Disease Scientists at the Dr. Nosrat was interested in testing whether the
dental pulp stem cells could provide neurotrophic factors to replace dead
nerve cells and support the dying cells. The procedure involved extracting
a tooth and retrieving stem cells from the center of the tooth, culturing
them in a Petri dish, then injecting them into brain cells. The scientists hope that someday, dental pulp stem cells will be an effective therapy for treating people with Parkinson’s disease. __________________________________________________
|
