Remarkable: Going From One Cell Type to Another Without Using Stem Cells

Stem cells "shmem" cells.

"This represents a parallel approach for how to make cells in regenerative medicine," said Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. "And now that it's shown that you can turn one of your cells into another, it makes you think of what other cells you'd like to convert."

Wow.  If I read this correctly then this means you might be able to "cure" diabetes or other diseases dependent on specific cell types.

Go read the whole thing.

Once again the relentless advance of science continues.  You may say neat, but so what.  Well if they can produce type O blood in bulk from this process then an emergency blood supply can be produced ON DEMAND.  Eliminating shortages as well as the possibility of diseased blood.

This is a big deal.

While a few red blood cells have been created from embryonic stem cells before, the ACT team is the first to mass-produce them on the scale required for medical use. They also showed that the red cells were capable of carrying oxygen, and that they responded to biological cues in similar fashion to the real thing.

I am curious if this has any impact on other treatments such as cancer.  What if you could clone someone's blood that has shown resistance to cancer growth?  There could be a source of Reverse-Typhoid-Mary blood supply.

There are two primary ancient elixirs of the ancients the elixir of life and an authentic aphrodisiac.  We have seen the creation of an authentic aphrodisiac in niagra are we on the verge of seeing the other?

Alzeimers has been apparently a cured.

The trial was a Phase 2 study, which checks the safety and efficacy of the drug, but if a large-scale Phase 3 trial due next year repeats the findings, the drug could be available for prescribing by 2012.

This is remarkable.

Patients with the brain disorder had no significant decline in their mental function over a 19-month period.

Remarkable stories as of late.

First we have the story coming out of the Fred Hutchinson Center regarding the curing of advanced skin cancer by injecting the patient with his own cloned white blood cells (previously reported on the rivet: here).

Now we have research being conducted at Wake Forest University wherein doctors are transfusing a specific type of white blood cell from select donors into patients.  They are just beginning early human trials but the test has returned great results in lab mice.

A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies.

Link here.

In our long march to longer life change will appear to come slowly until all of a sudden it will appear that we are on the other side of the cure.  Then we, being the simple humans that we are, will find it unremarkable and move on as if it has always been thus.

Will curing cancer be the same as all the rest of accelerating change around us?

This is a remarkable story: Cancer patient recovers after injection of immune cells

The 52-year-old, who was suffering from advanced skin cancer, was free from tumours within eight weeks of undergoing the procedure.

...and change keeps moving faster and faster.

Here's the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's webpage discussing the same case.  Not much more information.

As we relentlessly march into the future scientists continue to discover stuff about stuff.  And you know what we don't forget the stuff we already knew about stuff.  That is the law of accelerating change in a nutshell.

Some of the stuff we learn about stuff we had to already know about some other stuff before we could figure out the new stuff about stuff.

You follow?

Now some fairly bright scientists at Harvard have come across a technique for "starving" cancer cells and thereby curbing their growth. 

When the researchers forced cancer cells to switch to the other form of pyruvate kinase in the lab by knocking out production of PKM2, the cells' growth was curbed.

Eyes on prize: Visionary device gives hope

Once again our good friend accelerating change comes around to help us out.  This near achievement is only possible because of all the surrounding improvements and miniaturization in computers and silicon chip construction in general.

“There has been this explosion of interest in this field because basically the technology in the last 20 years has become miniaturized enough and sophisticated enough so that for the first time we can imagine building something small enough to put in the eye,” said Dr. Joseph Rizzo III, who founded the project in the late 1980s and co-directs the 36-member team.

What will be next.

Once again the modern technology available to us today that just simply wasn't 20 years ago...or 10...or heck 18 months ago is remarkable.

Cancer researchers believe that further engineering the shape or surface properties of nanoparticles can enable the particles to actively target tumors, and thereby maximize their diagnostic or therapeutic function at the cancer site, while minimizing collateral damage to healthy tissue

This is merely the beginning, for this early nanotech being tested is for better, more targeted deployment of current medicines.

"We're not trying to re-invent every aspect of the science," said Seth Feuerstein, president of Carigent Therapeutics in New Haven, Conn. "We focus on delivering current drugs better, and we're also working with companies whose drugs haven't yet been approved, to help make them more effective."

It may remain primarily a deployment mechanism, but even so this could be a harbinger of the end of chemotherapy.  I know two people in chemo right now and for medical science to be creating the technology to avoid that fate is welcome news.

My opinion, and it is only that, is nanotech will become one of the most useful tools available when treating cancer. 

If the X-Prize worked to get the private commercial space race kicked off and it was only $10 Million, what would a payout of $1 BILLION do for results. 

This is an ambitious set of problems laid out by the Victory Project. 

To the first person(s) that solves any of these Problems:

1. Develop a cure for breast cancer.
2. Develop a cure for diabetes.
3. Reduce greenhouse emissions from petroleum powered automobiles by 95% without increasing the cost of a normal car more than 5%.
4. Achieve 150 miles per gallon of gasoline in a 3,000 lb. car, using EPA standards; without increasing the cost of a normal car more than 10%.

Is it big?   Yes.

Is it different?   Yes.

Will it work?   Yes.

This is inspiring.  But some of these might take the full Billion dollar prize to develop.

They're looking for donations, feel free to contribute.

Extraordinary!

And not just hearts:

The process, called whole organ recellularization, can be done "with virtually any organ," Taylor says.

Researchers create a new heart in the lab

Someday, doctors may routinely extract cells from heart failure patients and use them to reseed a new organ from a cadaver-derived ECM. What types of cells those would be isn't known yet.

What we are looking at is heart replacement with a NEW heart from your own cells.  No rejection medicine required.  Gimme new lungs too, oh and how about kidneys!

Wow!

Paralyzed man's mind is 'read'

Eric Ramsay can only "speak" by moving his eyes.  Now scientists and doctors are on the verge of being able to interpret his brain signals as speach...

"We have been moving towards decoding primitive vocabulary for a while now. But this is certainly an interesting development, although invasive techniques, where something is out in someone's brain, such as these will of course carry risks."

This is remarkable.

The forefront of Brain Computer Interface.  This is not a completed interface but the doctors and scientists involved believe they are getting close.

This story appears to be jumping the gun a bit: Micro-robot that can clear arteries.

Larry Greenemeier over at Scientific American appears to be skeptical: Not seeing evidence of artery-cleaning nanobots

And wouldn't something so prominent be found on the universities own website?  http://chonnam.ac.kr/en/, I can't find a mention of it anywhere.

So while cool and impressive and probable in some near future, I think it is premature to say it has already been invented.  At least the jury is out until we have more concrete evidence.