Advances Driving Clinical Applications Of Tissue Engineering And Regenerative Medicine

Explosive growth in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has led to innovative and promising applications and techniques, many of which are now being tested in human clinical trials. Hot topics, research advances, and transformative publications that are driving the field forward are highlighted in a comprehensive overview of the field presented in Tissue Engineering, Part B, Reviews, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The article is available on the Tissue Engineering website.

Matthew Fisher, PhD and Robert Mauck, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA, identify four key areas in which the field is progressing. The first main theme, in the area of tissue engineering, focuses on advances in grafts and materials, including human or animal tissue from which the cells are removed and the remaining scaffold is used to regenerate new tissues, as well as scaffolds made of new types of biomaterials. Second, in the field of regenerative medicine, the authors highlight the role of novel scaffolds and various growth and control factors in promoting tissue formation and, for example, bone healing.


In the article “Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine: Recent Innovations and the Transition to Translation,” * the authors identify two additional areas that signal progress in the field: the increasing number of applications advancing into clinical trials; and the growing use of novel types of cells, such as induced pluripotent stem cells.


“Considering the rapid pace of growth and development in regenerative medicine, it is imperative that we fully consider recent advances,” says Reviews Co-Editor-in-Chief John P. Fisher, PhD, Professor and Associate Chair, Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. “Dr. Matthew Fisher and Dr. Robert Mauck have wonderfully reviewed the efforts in the tissue engineering field over the past few years, highlighting advances in biomaterials, cell-based constructs, and translational endeavors.”


View the original article here

April 19, 2013 admin No comments
Transcription , , , , , , ,

Varicella Vaccine Has Long-Lasting Effectiveness Against Chickenpox

Chickenpox, the childhood infection of earlier generations, has been most recently neutralized by the varicella vaccine – a vaccine that has shown long-term effectiveness against the illness, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center.

The study findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, were based on a 14-year study consisting of 7,585 children ranging in age from 12 to 23 months.


The researchers aimed to examine the long-term effectiveness of the vaccine and its influence on the epidemiology of varicella (chickenpox) and herpes zoster (shingles). Additionally, they looked at the results of a second dose of varicella vaccine, which became available in 2006.

The varicella vaccine became licensed in the United States in 1995 and was then suggested for regular use to children by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Before this, chickenpox was prevalent worldwide – with over 90 percent of adolescents becoming infected before the age of 20.

Along the length of the follow-up period, the prevalence rate of chickenpox in this cohort was 9 to 10 times less than the corresponding rates in kids of the same age who were not vaccinated before the vaccine came onto the market.


This means the varicella vaccine has a total effectiveness rate of nearly 90 percent.


Randy Bergen, MD, chief of outpatient pediatrics at Kaiser Permanente’s Walnut Creek Medical Center and a pediatric infectious disease consultant, said:


“Clearly, the vaccine is a very effective tool in preventing or limiting the severity of chicken pox in young people. As with any vaccine, though, the rate of vaccination has a huge impact on effectiveness. The more children vaccinated, the more effective the vaccine is for the entire community. At Kaiser Permanente, our use of a comprehensive electronic health record, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect®, enables us to quickly identify children in the targeted age ranges who have not been vaccinated, and to reach out to their parents to ensure they get the shots. Keeping vaccination rates high confers benefit on the community as a whole because there are fewer children who can contract and spread the virus.”

Within the study cohort, in the 14 years after the varicella vaccination, there were a total of 1,505 breakthrough cases of chickenpox reported. “Breakthrough cases” are labeled this way because they happen even though a child has gotten the varicella vaccine.


Chickenpox cases were categorized into: mild – less than 50 lesionsmoderate – 51 to 300 lesionssevere – over 300 lesionsOnly a few cases were severe, however, prior to the vaccination era, the majority of kids experienced severe symptoms. Prevention of moderate to severe chicken pox was successfully reached after one dose of varicella vaccine – no cases were documented after the second dose.

These vaccines help protect small infants when they come into contact with vaccinated kids, according to previous research by the CDC in 2011.


The prevalence of breakthrough varicella dropped over time, and no rise was seen during the 14 year follow-up period.


The obvious increase in the vaccine’s success over time, according to lead author Roger Baxter, MD, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center, “is likely the result of vaccine failure occurring early, while breakthroughs became rare due to high vaccine effectiveness both directly and through herd immunity.”


The steady decrease in breakthrough rates seen in 2008 and 2009 could have been due to the administration of the second dose in 2006, the researchers suggested. The second dose of varicella is normally administered between ages 4 to 6 years.


However, the researchers point out that if given earlier after the first dose, it could be more beneficial – by giving more protection.


A separate study carried out by Yale University researchers in 2011 showed that double doses of the chickenpox vaccine were found to be more effective than one.


The risk of herpes zoster, frequently known as shingles, was not elevated in vaccinated children and was seen to be reduced in vaccinated children compared with the pre-vaccine era. Among the cohort, there were 46 cases of shingles – showing a nearly 40 percent drop in incidence of herpes zoster in vaccinated children.


In July of 2011, a study from the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases reported that chickenpox may soon be eradicated in the U.S. Their study showed that deaths from the disease since the vaccine began to circulate have been slim to none.


View the original article here

April 19, 2013 admin No comments
Transcription , , , , ,

Structure Of Protein LC8 Linked To Cell Division And Medical Applications, ALBA Synchrotron Reveals

A team led by David Reverter, a researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the UAB, has determined for the first time the three-dimensional structure of a protein pair: LC8 and Nek9. Depending on whether or not they bind, Nek9 ensures that the chromosomes group and separate correctly during cell division.

By analysing the 3D structure, these scientists have discovered a new mechanism that interferes with the protein binding and therefore also contributes to the correct regulation of cell division and other cell processes. The discovery could have implications for the study of diseases related to cell division processes, like cancer.


The 3D structure, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, was obtained from data collected by the XALOC beamline of the ALBA Synchrotron. It is the first time that the crystal structure of a protein has been obtained by using this synchrotron and published in a scientific journal.


Taking part in the study were researchers from the Structural Biology Unit of the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) of the UAB, the Department of Biochemistry, Cell Biology and Molecular Biology of the University of Zaragoza, the Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI), and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona).


View the original article here

April 19, 2013 admin No comments
Transcription , , , , , , ,

Maltreatment of girls and adolescent pregnancy in the US

The US National Academy of Sciences reports on US health in a global perspective and the news is bad. Citizens of peer nations live longer than Americans do, and the difference is growing, especially for women. The report notes nine health domains where the US falls short. I’m going to highlight two domains that are critical to child health: Injuries and Homicides and Adolescent pregnancy. These two domains are connected in a distressing way. The National Academy says that

In 2006, the United States had the highest rate of child deaths due to negligence, maltreatment, or physical assault among the 17 peer countries (and among other OECD countries, including emerging economies) (OECD, 2012k).

They may be understating the problem. Here is a plot of the rates of child deaths due to maltreatment reported by UNICEF (rates are expressed per 100,000 children). UNICEF The US has about three times the rate of death from child maltreatment as Canada. I haven’t selected the countries to make the US look bad. UNICEF actually reports the rate for 27 developed countries, and we are second from worst in that group (Mexico has a very slightly higher rate of death from maltreatment). There is a slight bit of good news on this topic: the most recent data show that US child deaths from maltreatment have fallen to 2.1 / 100,000. The National Academy also notes that

Since the 1990s, among high-income countries, U.S. adolescents have had the highest rate of pregnancies.

The high US rates of adolescent pregnancy may be due in a small part to the high rate of child maltreatment. I am not certain whether child maltreatment is more common in the US than in other countries. It is harder to measure ‘child maltreatment’ than ‘death from child maltreatment’ and David Finkelhor, the leading scholar on the topic does not believe that you can make international comparisons. So it is possible that Americans abuse and neglect their children at similar rates to Canadians or Japanese, but they are just a lot more lethal when they do so.

I am confident, however, that if we could protect our girls, we would reduce the number of adolescents having babies. Here I recommend a study in the current issue of Pediatrics by Jennie G. Noll and Chad E. Shenk. They have been following a cohort of 435 girls who suffered physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect between the ages of 14 and 17 years old. They also identified a set of comparison girls who were matched on age, race (43% of the sample was white), family income (median income between $30,000 and $39,000), and family constellation (57% of girls came from single-parent families). None of the girls had had a child at the time of their recruitment. The girls were followed until they were 19 and Noll and Shenk looked at how many girls gave birth.

The results are simple and striking: maltreated girls are far more likely to give birth during their teens. abuse The yellow column is the US national average for all teenage girls. The orange column is the birthrate for the comparison girls, who have more than 2.5 times the chance of having a baby than the average American girl. The red column are the maltreated girls, who had babies twice as frequently as the comparison girls and almost six times as often as the average girl.

This is an observational study and it does not prove that maltreatment causes teenage childbearing. I am inclined to believe that maltreatment does cause adolescent child bearing because the association is strong and because there is a commonsensical causal explanation linking maltreatment to early pregnancy: Maltreated girls are alienated and/or separated from their parents and receive less guidance, positive modelling, and supervision from them.

Would a reduction in abuse and neglect have a noticeable effect on our rates of adolescent child bearing? It is hard to know. In 2011, about 3% of children were involved in child and family services cases that received a disposition of maltreatment. The actual numbers of abused children are presumably significantly higher. Girls are more likely to be maltreated than boys, so there are millions of maltreated girls. If anything like one in five of those girls has a baby in her teens, that’s a lot of girls. It is also a large number of American children who are born to girls who are not only very young but also the victims of maltreatment. The children of these maltreated girls are not getting the best possible start.

The issue of child maltreatment is itself neglected, but it is vital to the health of American children and their children.

post by Bill Gardner (@Bill_Gardner)

View the original article here

April 19, 2013 admin No comments
Professional Transcription , , ,

Stress Hormone Reduced By Mindfulness From Meditation

Focusing on the present rather than letting the mind drift may help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research from the Shamatha Project at the University of California, Davis.

The ability to focus mental resources on immediate experience is an aspect of mindfulness, which can be improved by meditation training.


“This is the first study to show a direct relation between resting cortisol and scores on any type of mindfulness scale,” said Tonya Jacobs, a postdoctoral researcher at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and first author of a paper describing the work, published in the journal Health Psychology.


High levels of cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal gland, are associated with physical or emotional stress. Prolonged release of the hormone contributes to wide-ranging, adverse effects on a number of physiological systems.


The new findings are the latest to come from the Shamatha Project, a comprehensive long-term, control-group study of the effects of meditation training on mind and body.


Led by Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, the Shamatha Project has drawn the attention of both scientists and Buddhist scholars including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.


In the new study, Jacobs, Saron and their colleagues used a questionnaire to measure aspects of mindfulness among a group of volunteers before and after an intensive, three-month meditation retreat. They also measured cortisol levels in the volunteers’ saliva.


During the retreat, Buddhist scholar and teacher B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies trained participants in such attentional skills as mindfulness of breathing, observing mental events, and observing the nature of consciousness. Participants also practiced cultivating benevolent mental states, including loving kindness, compassion, empathic joy and equanimity.


At an individual level, there was a correlation between a high score for mindfulness and a low score in cortisol both before and after the retreat. Individuals whose mindfulness score increased after the retreat showed a decrease in cortisol.


“The more a person reported directing their cognitive resources to immediate sensory experience and the task at hand, the lower their resting cortisol,” Jacobs said.


The research did not show a direct cause and effect, Jacobs emphasized. Indeed, she noted that the effect could run either way – reduced levels of cortisol could lead to improved mindfulness, rather than the other way around. Scores on the mindfulness questionnaire increased from pre- to post-retreat, while levels of cortisol did not change overall.


According to Jacobs, training the mind to focus on immediate experience may reduce the propensity to ruminate about the past or worry about the future, thought processes that have been linked to cortisol release.


“The idea that we can train our minds in a way that fosters healthy mental habits and that these habits may be reflected in mind-body relations is not new; it’s been around for thousands of years across various cultures and ideologies,” Jacobs said. “However, this idea is just beginning to be integrated into Western medicine as objective evidence accumulates. Hopefully, studies like this one will contribute to that effort.”


Saron noted that in this study, the authors used the term “mindfulness” to refer to behaviors that are reflected in a particular mindfulness scale, which was the measure used in the study.


“The scale measured the participants’ propensity to let go of distressing thoughts and attend to different sensory domains, daily tasks, and the current contents of their minds. However, this scale may only reflect a subset of qualities that comprise the greater quality of mindfulness, as it is conceived across various contemplative traditions,” he said.


Previous studies from the Shamatha Project have shown that the meditation retreat had positive effects on visual perception, sustained attention, socio-emotional well-being, resting brain activity and on the activity of telomerase, an enzyme important for the long-term health of body cells.


Co-authors on the paper, in addition to Jacobs, Saron and Wallace, are: UC Davis graduate students Stephen Aichele, Anthony Zanesco and Brandon King; Associate Professor Emilio Ferrer and Distinguished Professor Phillip Shaver from the UC Davis Department of Psychology; Baljinder Sahdra, lecturer in psychology at the University of Western Sydney; consulting scientist Erika Rosenberg from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain; Katherine MacLean, instructor in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; David Bridwell, postdoctoral fellow at the Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, N.M.; and Associate Professor Elissa Epel and Professor Margaret Kemeny, from the UCSF Department of Psychiatry.


Major support for the Shamatha Project has come from the Fetzer Institute and the Hershey Family Foundation. Additional support has come from numerous private foundations including the Baumann Foundation; the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation; the Yoga Research and Education Foundation; and individual donors. Individual researchers also received fellowship and other support from the National Science Foundation; the Social Sciences, Humanities Research Council of Canada; and the Barney and Barbro Fund. The project recently won support from the John Templeton Foundation to continue and extend the work.


The Center for Mind and Brain is one of three overlapping research centers at UC Davis that bring together researchers from the School of Medicine, College of Biological Sciences, and College of Letters and Science to work on the function of the brain. Founded in 2002, the Center for Mind and Brain studies cognition, vision, language, meditation and music. The Center for Neuroscience, established in 1990, investigates brain structure, memory, and the genes and molecules involved in conditions such as schizophrenia and depression. The MIND Institute was founded in 1998 with the support of six local families, five of whom have children with autism. It works with autistic children and their families, and on fragile X syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome and other neurodevelopmental disorders.


View the original article here

April 19, 2013 admin No comments
Transcription , , , ,
Page 3 of 14212345...102030...Last »