tagged w/ cells
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Did a recent scientific study just change the way we should think about the safety of genetically modified foods? According to Ari Levaux at the Atlantic, the answer is a resounding yes.
The study in question, performed by researchers at China’s Nanjing University and published in the journal Cell Research, found that a form of genetic material — called microRNA — from conventional rice survived the human digestive process and proceeded to affect cholesterol function in humans.
Levaux argues that this new study “reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health” which should cause us to completely revisit the question of GM crops’ safety. And he’s right to be alarmed, just a little off on the reasoning.
Let’s take a closer look at how this study applies to current GM technology, shall we?
I would argue that several studies have already suggested that existing GM foods might present a health risk. For example, this study in The International Journal of Biological Sciences found evidence that Monsanto’s Bt corn causes organ damage in lab animals. Then there’s this one which showed that GM soybeans can alter mice on the cellular level — an indication that genetically modified material survives digestion and is active in animals that consume it.
Of course, advocates of genetically modified foods will observe that the phenomenon of genetic transfer through consumption applies to all plants and that GM foods are therefore “substantially equivalent” to non-GM foods. As Levaux explains at length, this concept of substantial equivalence has been used by the biotech industry as well as our government to push GM foods through safety testing with minimal scrutiny. What’s Monsanto’s defense of all this? On its website, the company claims:
There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods … DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard … So long as the introduced protein is determined to be safe, food from GM crops determined to be substantially equivalent is not expected to pose any health risks.
So the fact that the Chinese team found active genetic material going from plants to humans isn’t really new and doesn’t really change what we know about how existing genetically engineered crops might affect us.
But what is new — and what Levaux missed — is that the Chinese study happens to involve exactly the kind of genetic matrieral — microRNA — that biotech companies hope to use in their next generation of genetically modified foods.
Today’s GMOs are almost entirely based on adding new genes to crops like corn, soy, and cotton in order to alter the way the plants function. And even then new functions are mostly limited to making plants either able to tolerate herbicides or to produce their own. But if biotechnology companies are successful in their efforts, there may soon be genetically modified foods that use microRNA — simply put, snippets of RNA whose potency were only discovered around a decade ago — to target, and block the function of specific genes in pests.
Thus the news that plant microRNA can survive digestion and affect human systems brings into question the wisdom of pursuing this kind of technology in food.
As explained to me by Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists and expert in genetically modified foods, microRNA technology is an area that biotech companies are actively pursuing. Monsanto itself has a whole web page devoted to the technology, which they call RNA interference.
Gurian-Sherman notes that the Chinese study — though requiring confirmation and follow-up research — raises “an initial red flag.” It calls into question “any general statement that [microRNA] technology would be inherently safe,” he adds.
He observes that humans and insects share a surprising amount of DNA material — evolution favors reusing and recycling genes even among creatures as different as insects and humans. If this research bears out, then it’s entirely possible that microRNA meant to target a specific insect gene will also have an effect — possibly unpredictable — in humans. This is especially true because, for technology like this to work as a pesticide, the microRNA must be present in high levels in the plant, which makes it even more likely the genetic material will make it all the way into the human gut.
snip
UPDATE: Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist at Consumers Union wrote to me after this post was published with an important point about the significance of the Chinese study. While he agreed that the main implications relate to the possible risk from microRNA-based GM foods, he also felt that this study did make a new and somewhat startling finding regarding how plant genetic material affects humans. As he put it, the study “showed that the miRNA not only survived digestion [in humans] but also was taken up and moved to other parts of the body where a specific impact was noted. The studies you cited — from Seralini’s lab and Malatesta’s lab — only show that GE crops can have an adverse effect on animals.”
more at the linkDid a recent scientific study just change the way we should think about the safety of... more
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David Maisel ... Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of patient from a state-run psychiatric hospital. The patients died at the hospital between 1883 (the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum) and the 1970’s; their bodies have remained unclaimed by their families. The approximately 3,500 copper canisters have a handmade quality; they are at turns burnished or dull; corrosion blooms wildly from the leaden seams and across the surfaces of many of the cans. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/section-blog/43016-library-of-dustDavid Maisel ... Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing... more
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7 months ago
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Japanese and U.S. scientists in the young field of epigenetics have reported a rationale as to how specific genes are silenced and others are not. Because this effect can be reversed, it may be possible to devise therapies for cancer and other diseases using this information.
:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110512150719.htmJapanese and U.S. scientists in the young field of epigenetics have reported a... more
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suzane
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Computer scientists and IT engineers are increasingly looking to the human immune system as a model for preventing attacks by cyber-hackers. They hope that in the near future computers will be able to communicate among themselves, recognize threats, and be able to monitor their own health -- just like the cells inside our bodies.
:http://news.discovery.com/tech/cyber-security-immune-system-110421.htmlComputer scientists and IT engineers are increasingly looking to the human immune... more
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British scientists have found that counting the number of lung cancer cells circulating in a patient's blood could help determine how aggressive the cancer is and predict the best treatment to use.
link :http://www.zeenews.com/news694776.htmlBritish scientists have found that counting the number of lung cancer cells... more
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arigg
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Even if the planet doubled the amount of solar and wind power available tomorrow, there would still be a shortage of clean electricity. We need to grab energy from wherever we can find it, which is why piezoelectricity—the charge that gathers in solid materials like crystal and ceramic in response to strain—has recently begun to pique the interest of entrepreneurs and scientists alike. A number of materials are piezoelectric, including topaz, quartz, cane sugar, and tourmaline. That means a charge begins accumulating inside these materials when pressure is applied. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/30439-electricity-generating-dance-floors-and-piezoelectric-roadwaysEven if the planet doubled the amount of solar and wind power available tomorrow,... more
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A team of researchers will attempt to resurrect the species using cloning technologies after obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian mammoth research laboratory. It has already established a technique to extract DNA from frozen cells.
:http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-aim-mammoth-life.htmlA team of researchers will attempt to resurrect the species using cloning technologies... more
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Fluid inclusions in modern and ancient buried halite from Death Valley and Saline Valley, California, USA, contain an ecosystem of “salt-loving” (halophilic) prokaryotes and eukaryotes, some of which are alive. Prokaryotes may survive inside fluid inclusions for tens of thousands of years using carbon and other metabolites supplied by the trapped microbial community, most notably the single-celled alga Dunaliella, an important primary producer in hypersaline systems. Deeper understanding of the long-term survival of prokaryotes in fluid inclusions will complement studies that further explore microbial life on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system, where materials that potentially harbor microorganisms are millions and even billions of years old. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/22566-microbial-communities-in-fluid-inclusions-and-long-term-survival-in-halite-the-11th-hour-documentaryFluid inclusions in modern and ancient buried halite from Death Valley and Saline... more
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St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have identified key components of a signaling pathway that controls the departure of neurons from the brain niche where they form and allows these cells to start migrating to their final destination. Defects in this system affect the architecture of the brain and are associated with epilepsy, mental retardation and perhaps malignant brain tumors.
link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101125202308.htmSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have identified key... more
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What does not kill you, really could make you stronger, claim scientists after discovering that injecting stem cells into injured muscles makes them bigger and more powerful than they were originally.
link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8123925/Stem-cells-bulk-up-muscle-and-stop-them-ageing.htmlWhat does not kill you, really could make you stronger, claim scientists after... more
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November 8th, 2010
05:50 PM ET
Scientists convert skin to blood
Researchers at Canada's McMaster University report that they've figured out how to make blood out of human skin.
The breakthrough could eventually mean that patients needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions, the university said.
Skin cells that are removed from the patient can be multiplied in a petri dish and converted into a large quantity of blood cells, which themselves can be multiplied, lead researcher Mick Bhatia told CNN.
"We're hoping that about a 4-by-3-centimeters patch of skin could be removed from the patient, be converted through this process, which we clearly have to optimize, and ultimately have enough to transplant (enough blood for) a full-grown adult," said Bhatia, scientific director of the Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
The scientists were able to convert the cells directly without first converting them to pluripotent stem cells - the kind that can grow into any type of organ or tissue - and then converting them again to blood, Bhatia said.
"This groundbreaking work from Mick Bhatia's lab is both fascinating and important," said Samuel Weiss, professor and director, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary. "It heralds a new age by discovering a role for 'directed differentiation' in the treatment of cancers and other disorders of the blood and immune system."
The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Stem Cell Network and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. It was published in Monday's edition of the journal Nature.November 8th, 2010
05:50 PM ET
Scientists convert skin to blood
Researchers at... more
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The cells and tissues in our bodies grow, develop and interact in a highly complex, three-dimensional world. Likewise, the various microbial pathogens that invade our bodies and cause infectious disease interact with this complex 3-D tissue milieu.
Link : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101019111716.htmThe cells and tissues in our bodies grow, develop and interact in a highly complex,... more
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The main reason of Sickle Cell Anemia is the less amount of the hemoglobin the blood cells. Sickle Cell Anemia basically refers to the wrong shaped red blood cells in very lower quantity.The main reason of Sickle Cell Anemia is the less amount of the hemoglobin the blood... more
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mky786
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Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/) researchers want to develop solar cells with an efficiency of over 65 percent by means of nanotechnology. In Southern Europe and North Africa these new solar cells can generate a substantial portion of the European demand for electricity. The Dutch government reserves EUR 1.2 million for the research.
link :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100616122320.htmEindhoven University of Technology (TU/) researchers want to develop solar cells with... more
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The cells scientists call “HeLa” have been grown immortally in culture for decades, yet the African-American woman from whom these cells were derived died of cervical cancer at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, published this month by Crown, tells the story of the young mother of five whose own life could not be saved, but through the use of her undying cells, medical research has achieved enormous progress. Science writer Rebecca Skloot also explores issues of informed consent, race and access to health care in her extensively researched book. Skloot will present several readings around the Baltimore area this weekend.
Read more at http://www.examiner.com/x-6378-Baltimore-Science-News-Examiner~y2010m2d17-Skloot-to-discuss-AfricanAmerican-woman-behind-HeLa-cells-used-in-researchThe cells scientists call “HeLa” have been grown immortally in culture for... more
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"Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are “immortal”—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among scientists. In 1951, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, created the first immortal human cell line with a tissue sample taken from a young black woman with cervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research—though their donor remained a mystery for decades. In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line's impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family.
Who was Henrietta Lacks?
She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when she was 30. A doctor at Johns Hopkins took a piece of her tumor without telling her and sent it down the hall to scientists there who had been trying to grow tissues in culture for decades without success. No one knows why, but her cells never died.
Why are her cells so important?
Henrietta’s cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture. They were essential to developing the polio vaccine. They went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity. Many scientific landmarks since then have used her cells, including cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.
There has been a lot of confusion over the years about the source of HeLa cells. Why?
When the cells were taken, they were given the code name HeLa, for the first two letters in Henrietta and Lacks. Today, anonymizing samples is a very important part of doing research on cells. But that wasn’t something doctors worried about much in the 1950s, so they weren’t terribly careful about her identity. When some members of the press got close to finding Henrietta’s family, the researcher who’d grown the cells made up a pseudonym—Helen Lane—to throw the media off track. Other pseudonyms, like Helen Larsen, eventually showed up, too. Her real name didn’t really leak out into the world until the 1970s."
READ MORE AT THE LINK BELOW (FULL ARTICLE):
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Henrietta-Lacks-Immortal-Cells.html"Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of... more
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Japanese scientists have prevented age-related deterioration in the hearts of mice and they say the finding is potentially applicable to the control of heart failure in humansJapanese scientists have prevented age-related deterioration in the hearts of mice and... more
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Sep 23 - They may be bloodsucking parasites, but scientists say the saliva of the common South American tick could hold the cure to several forms of cancer.Sep 23 - They may be bloodsucking parasites, but scientists say the saliva of the... more
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