Researchers in Maryland unleash synthetic DNA

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute have created the largest man-made DNA structure to date, putting them one step closer to producing a completely synthetic organism, according to the institute.

The work, published online by Dan Gibson, Ph.D. in the journal Science, raises hopes for benefits like new drugs and pollution scarfing micro-organisms while spooking some with visions of biological warfare and patent wielding corporations controlling all future forms of synthetic life.

The researchers chemically created DNA fragments in the lab then used homologous recombination (a process that cells use to repair damage to their chromosomes) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to rapidly build the entire bacterial chromosome from large sub-assemblies, according to the press release. "This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished JCVI team," said president and founder J. Craig Venter.

Venter dismisses concerns that what JCVI is really creating is the "microbesoft" of synthetic life. His team has long been concerned with the societal issues surrounding its work and has undergone"significant ethical review" by experts who founds no reason why work should cease "as long as the scientists involved continued to engage public discussion," according to the JCVI Web site.

Critics remain unimpressed. "Venter is claiming bragging rights to the world's longest length of synthetic DNA, but size isn't everything. The important question is not 'how long?' but 'how wise?'" said Jim Thomas in a bio-watchdog article castigating Venter.

"While synthetic biology is speeding ahead in the lab and in the marketplace, societal debate and regulatory oversight is stalled and there has been no meaningful or inclusive discussion on how to govern synthetic biology in a safe and just way. In the absence of democratic oversight profiteering industrialists are tinkering with the building blocks of life for their own private gain."

Next step would be to insert the synthetic DNA into living cells and hope it becomes the world's first artificially created, self-replicating organism.

Finnish patient gets new jaw from own stem cells

Scientists in Finland said they had replaced a 65-year-old patient's upper jaw with a bone transplant cultivated from stem cells isolated from his own fatty tissue and grown inside his abdomen. Researchers said on Friday the breakthrough opened up new ways to treat severe tissue damage and made the prospect of custom-made living spares parts for humans a step closer to reality.

"There have been a couple of similar-sounding procedures before, but these didn't use the patient's own stem cells that were first cultured and expanded in laboratory and differentiated into bone tissue," said Riitta Suuronen of the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine, part of the University of Tampere.

She told a news conference the patient was recovering more quickly than he would have if he had received a bone graft from his leg. "From the outside nobody would be able to tell he has been through such a procedure," she said. She added, the team used no materials from animals -- preventing the risk of transmitting viruses than can be hidden in an animal's DNA, and followed European Union guidelines.

Stem cells are the body's master cells and they can be found throughout the blood and tissues. Researchers have recently found that fat contains stem cells which can be directed to form a variety of different tissues. Using a patient's own stem cells provides a tailor-made transplant that the body should not reject. Suuronen and her colleagues isolated stem cells from the patient's fat and grew them for two weeks in a specially formulated nutritious soup that included the patient's own blood serum. In this case they identified and pulled out cells called mesenchymal stem cells or immature cells than can give rise to bone, muscle or blood vessels. When they had enough cells to work with, they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months. The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said. The block was later transplanted into the patient's head and connected to the skull bone using screws and microsurgery to connect arteries and veins to the vessels of the neck.

The patient's upper jaw had previously been removed due to a benign tumor and he was unable to eat or speak without the use of a removable prosthesis. Suuronen said her team had submitted a report on the procedure to a medical journal to be reviewed.

Simple Jokes For Twisted Minds

Clean Jokes For Slightly Twisted Minds

Work Out and Drink Up

This article by Sanjay Gupta in this weeks Time magazine was provocative & interesting. Thought our blogeurs would appreciate a bit of tippling-news.

If you want to live a long and healthy life, you're probably trying to eat right, exercise regularly and get enough sleep. Good steps. Now how about adding a little alcohol to your regimen?

That's right. It is well documented that tossing a few drinks back in a week (and that means a few: up to one a day for women, up to two for men) has potential heart benefits. But researchers in Denmark decided to look further. Could drinking alcohol have a benefit similar to that of exercise?

"If you don't want to exercise too much," asks Dr. Morten Gronbaek, epidemiologist with Denmark's National Institute of Public Health, "can you trade it for one to two drinks per day and be fine?" A study Gronbaek and colleagues just published in the European Heart Journal suggests the answer just may be yes. That finding, not surprisingly, has proved to be a crowd-pleaser.

There are a number of reasons a drink can be such a tonic. First, alcohol and exercise affect your heart health in similar ways. "They help increase good cholesterol, or HDL [high-density lipoproteins], and clean the circulatory system's pipes," says Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist and researcher at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. "HDL helps remove fatty deposits, created by bad cholesterol, or LDL [low-density lipoproteins], from blood-vessel walls. The higher the HDL, the less likely vascular disease becomes. The lower the HDL, the more likely."

Gronbaek and his team surveyed 12,000 people over a 20-year period. They found that exercise and drinking alcohol each had an independent beneficial effect on the heart and a compounded effect when practiced together. The investigators got even greater insight when they separated the study participants into four categories.

People who don't drink at all and don't exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. Teetotaling exercisers had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes. "There's an additional protective effect to doing both," says Gronbaek. "That's the new finding."

This study is part of a growing body of work that makes a medical virtue out of what was once seen as a vice. There is evidence that alcohol in combination with caffeine can limit the damage to your brain after a stroke, even though it may not lower your risk of having a stroke in the first place. Other possible benefits include lowering your risk of diabetes, improving insulin sensitivity in postmenopausal women and decreasing dementia rates in older adults who had been consuming one to six drinks per week.

Before you rush off to hit the bar after your workout, keep in mind that your age matters. Alcohol may do you no coronary good until you reach the age at which heart disease becomes an appreciable risk. "You wouldn't advise everyone to drink," says Gronbaek. "You shouldn't even think about doing it until age 45 or 50. There's absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect before age 45." Also, younger women who have a higher risk of breast cancer and anyone who has a family history of alcoholism should pass on the pint and order a soda.

And remember, moderation is everything. Gronbaek's study, like most, stuck to the one-drink-a-day standard for women and up to two a day for men. It did not distinguish between type (wine vs. beer) or size (pint vs. shot). But here common sense must rule. A 10-oz. martini is a lot more than a 6-oz. serving of wine, even if they each fit in one glass. And it goes without saying that you should never drink your weekly allotment all at once!

Viagra & Assisted Reproduction

In order for successful implantation to occur, an adequately prepared endometrium has to be built up during the menstrual cycle. Endometrial development is regulated by steroid hormones and various growth factors and cytokines. Some of these factors are produced locally and act via paracrine mechanisms; others have to be transferred to the endometrium. Sufficient uterine blood supply is required for these factors to reach the endometrium, especially to its functional layer. Several studies have tried to evaluate the association between the morphologic characteristics of the endometrium and pregnancy rates in assisted reproduction therapy (ART) cycles. Although the results are sometimes conflicting, most studies agree that the endometrium has to reach a certain thickness for successful pregnancy to occur. We have found that endometrial thickness was significantly associated with in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcome. In addition, pregnancy rates were higher when the endometrium was thicker than 8-10 mm.

Various agents that influence blood flow have been evaluated to determine whether their use during ART has an impact on implantation/ pregnancy rates. Antithrombotic agents, aspirin, and heparin have been evaluated by several groups. Two prospective, randomized studies reported opposing results with aspirin use in an unselected IVF population. A third study including donor egg recipients found a positive effect of aspirin on implantation rates among those women whose endometrium was thinner than 8 mm. Heparin was found to improve pregnancy rates among women with thrombophilia and recurrent abortions. Currently the literature does not support the routine use of these medications among infertile women.

Nitric oxide relaxes vascular smooth muscle, an effect that is mediated by cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). Guanylate cyclase and cGMP have been detected in human myometrium obtained from both nonpregnant and pregnant women. Sildenafil is a selective inhibitor of the type V cGMP-specific phosphodiesterase. With the use of sildenafil, cGMP levels remain elevated, which leads to vascular relaxation and increased blood flow. Sher and colleagues evaluated the effect of sildenafil (viagra), administered in the form of a vaginal suppository, on endometrial development in 4 women who had had thin endometria during previous ART treatment (< 8 mm). Doppler studies revealed a decreased pulsatility index with sildenafil use, and in 3 of the 4 women a significantly thicker endometrium was achieved with the addition of sildenafil. All 3 of these women became pregnant. In a second study from the same group using a larger cohort of women (n = 105), improved endometrial development was achieved among 70% of women selected similarly to that in the initial study. Among these women, a 29% ongoing pregnancy rate was achieved. The pregnancy rate was significantly lower -- only 2% -- among those whose endometrium remained thin despite sildenafil(viagra) use.

The safety of sildenafil among infertile women has not been established, although no increased incidence of adverse events has been observed based on limited information. Most of the reported adverse events with sildenafil involved men with underlying cardiovascular disease or were possibly due to an interaction with other drugs. Animal studies have not revealed any adverse reproductive effects, but there are no human data evaluating sildenafil effects during pregnancy.

The exact mechanism by which vaginally administered sildenafil could improve pregnancy rates is not clear. One possible mechanism is that it may improve the uterine blood supply. Alternatively, sildenafil may have an effect on any of the cytokines that regulate endometrial development or implantation. Further, improved pelvic blood flow can have a beneficial effect on ovarian function. The effects of sildenafil among infertile women need to be evaluated in well-designed studies. The safety has to be established as well. At this point, sildenafil use should be considered experimental.

Mera Bharat Mahaan