Biomedical Laboratory Science

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Scientists are growing billions of blood cells in the lab

From helping humans live longer and hacking our performance, to repairing the body and understanding the brain, WIRED Health will hear from the innovators transforming this critical sector. Read all of our WIRED Health coverage here.

Jo Mountford is making billions of red blood cells in a laboratory in Glasgow. And now she wants to scale-up production. Big time.

Mountford, from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, started trying to create blood in the lab in 2007 and is now able to create it on demand.

In 2008, her team produced 100,000 red blood cells; by 2014 output had reached ten billion cells for the year. The ten billion cells were stored in 88 flasks and made up 8.8 litres of blood.

The team – funded by the Wellcome Trust and incorporating universities and organisations from around the UK – is now able to produce the cells in 30-31 days. "We can choose what blood group we make," Mountford told the audience at WIRED Health.

The NHS Blood and Transplant facility in Bristol, where donated blood is screened. A British team
called Novosang wants to render this process obsolete

Source: Greg White

Human sperm created from mature skin cells for infertility solution

Scientists in Spain say they have created human sperm from skin cells, which could eventually lead to a treatment for infertility.

The researchers said they were working to find a solution for the roughly 15 per cent of couples worldwide who are unable to have children and whose only option is to use donated gametes (sperm or eggs).

"What to do when someone who wants to have a child lacks gametes?" asked Dr Carlos Simon, scientific director of the Valencian Infertility Institute, Spain's first medical institution fully dedicated to assisted reproduction.

"This is the problem we want to address: to be able to create gametes in people who do not have them."

The result of their research, which was carried out with Stanford University in the United States, was published on Tuesday in Scientific Reports, the online journal of Nature.

Infertile sperm cells were created by adding genes to skin cells

Source: ABC News Breakfast

Organ regeneration with skin cells turning Into brain and heart cells

In a breakthrough study, researchers were able to chemically change skin cells to heart and brain cells.

When a person’s own body fails them, there are plenty of roadblocks to getting it running again. Adult hearts have a very limited ability to regenerate, so oftentimes the only way to help a person with a failing heart is to get them a new one. This is risky, though, since the patient’s body may reject even a perfectly matched organ. Scientists have been making strides in overcoming that problem by using a patient’s own stem cells to regenerate tissue, and researchers from the Gladstone Institutes have made a major breakthrough in the area — they successfully used a combination of chemicals to transform skin cells into heart and brain cells.

The feat is unprecedented, since all previous attempts to reprogram cells required scientists to add outside genes. Published in Science and Stem Cell, the research gives scientists a foundation for one day being able to regenerate lost or damaged cells with pharmaceuticals. The system is both more reliable and efficient than previous processes, and avoids medical concerns surrounding genetic engineering.

“This method brings us closer to being able to generate new cells at the site of injury in patients,” Dr. Sheng Ding, a Gladstone senior investigator, said in a press release. “Our hope is to one day treat diseases like heart failure or Parkinson’s disease with drugs that help the heart and brain regenerate damaged areas from their own existing tissue cells. This process is much closer to the natural regeneration that happens in animals like newts and salamanders, which has long fascinated us.”

Brain cells are hard to fake, but it may now be possible.

Source: Pixabay

Disorders that can affect the placenta during pregnancy

The placenta and its health are vital to the health of a woman's pregnancy and fetal development. This organ provides oxygen, nutrients, and filters fetal waste during pregnancy.

It also plays an important role in hormone production and protects the fetus from bacteria and infections.

The blood-rich placenta is joined to the uterine wall and connects to the baby by way of the umbilical cord.

Most often the placenta attaches itself to the top or side of the uterine wall. At times, however, it may grow or attach to the uterus in a way that can cause health problems.

The risk of placental disorders is affected by ethnicity, lifestyle and medical history.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Female hormones may decrease risk of kidney failure in women than men

Female hormones may play a role in women's decreased risk of developing kidney failure relative to men, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings may be helpful for future attempts at safeguarding women's and men's kidney health in sex-specific ways.

Sex differences between men and women affect most, if not all, organ systems in the body, but there is a significant gap in knowledge of female physiology aside from organ functions involved in reproduction. Regarding the kidneys, while international registries show that fewer women than men develop kidney failure, the underlying causes are unknown.

To investigate, a team led by Judith Lechner, PhD and Thomas Seppi, PhD (Medical University of Innsbruck, in Austria) examined whether hormone changes due to the female menstrual cycle might affect the health of kidney cells. For this purpose, urinary samples from healthy women of reproductive age were collected daily and analyzed for menstrual cycle-associated changes of different proteins.

Source: umm.edu

Friday, April 29, 2016

Esophageal Cancer

Overview

Esophageal cancer starts at the inside lining of the esophagus and spreads outward through the other layers as it grows. The two most common forms of esophageal cancer are named for the type of cells that become malignant:

Squamous cell carcinoma: Cancer that forms in squamous cells, the thin, flat cells lining the esophagus. This cancer is most often found in the upper and middle part of the esophagus, but can occur anywhere along the esophagus. This is also called epidermoid carcinoma.
Adenocarcinoma: Cancer that begins in glandular (secretory) cells. Glandular cells in the lining of the esophagus produce and release fluids such as mucus. Adenocarcinomas usually form in the lower part of the esophagus, near the stomach.

The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program estimates that some 16,980 people in the United States will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer and 15,590 will die of the disease in 2015. The average five year survival rate is just 17.9 percent.

Smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and Barrett esophagus can increase the risk of developing esophageal cancer. Other risk factors include older age, being male, and being African-American.

Islet transplantation, blood sugar and type 1 diabetes

New clinical trial results show that transplantation of pancreatic islets--cell clusters that contain insulin-producing cells--prevents severe, potentially life-threatening drops in blood sugar in people with type 1 diabetes. Researchers found that the treatment was effective for people who experienced episodes of severe hypoglycemia--low blood sugar levels that can lead to seizures, loss of consciousness and death--despite receiving expert care.

The Phase 3 trial was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), both part of the National Institutes of Health, and was conducted by the NIH-sponsored Clinical Islet Transplantation (CIT) Consortium. The investigators designed the study in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enable potential future licensure of the manufacture of purified human pancreatic islets. The results appear online today in Diabetes Care.

"The findings suggest that for people who continue to have life-altering severe hypoglycemia despite optimal medical management, islet transplantation offers a potentially lifesaving treatment that in the majority of cases eliminates severe hypoglycemic events while conferring excellent control of blood sugar," said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

Transplantation of pancreatic islets--cell clusters that contain insulin-producing cells--prevents severe,
potentially life-threatening drops in blood sugar in people with type 1 diabetes, according to new research

Source: ibreakstock/Fotolia

Obesity, stress and even cellphone use can influence men's ability to conceive

Certain lifestyle factors are linked to higher rates of damage in the genetic material in men’s sperm. This could affect men’s ability to conceive as well as the genes they pass on to their children.

According to researchers, the damage may stem from factors such as obesity, stress and even cellphone use.

Semen analysis usually looks at the numbers and the condition of whole sperm. But the authors of a small study in Poland believe the degree of breakage, or fragmentation, in DNA strands in the sperm might be a better indicator of fertility. DNA carries the cell’s genetic information and hereditary characteristics.

Men with fragmentation have lower odds of conceiving naturally and through such procedures as in vitro fertilization, the scientists write in the International Journal of Impotence Research.

Researchers have noticed before that lifestyle factors can influence the level of sperm DNA fragmentation, said Ricardo P. Bertolla of Sao Paulo Federal University in Brazil, who was not part of the new study.

In a new study, older men and those with higher work stress had more fragmentation of the DNA in
their sperm, which might affect their ability to conceive as well as the genes they pass on to their children.

Source: De Agostini/Getty Images

Biosafety Levels 1, 2, 3 & 4

Biological safety levels are ranked from one to four and are selected based on the agents or organisms on which the research or work is being conducted. Each level up builds on the previous level, adding constraints and barriers.

Biological Agents, Work Practices, Safety Equipment, and Facility Design Specific to Each

A very specialized research laboratory that deals with infectious agents is the biosafety lab. Whether performing research or production activities, when working with infectious materials, organisms or perhaps even laboratory animals, the proper degree of protection is of utmost importance. Protection for laboratory personnel, the environment and the local community must be considered and ensured. The protections required by these types of activities are defined as biosafety levels. Biological safety levels are ranked from one to four and are selected based on the agents or organisms on which the research or work is being conducted. Each level up builds on the previous level, adding constraints and barriers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are our main sources for biological safety information for infectious agents. The publication Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories1 is a principal reference and the resource for much of the information presented in this month’s column. As an introduction, we summarize what the different biosafety levels encompass in terms of the typical biological agents used, safe work practices, specialized safety equipment (primary barriers) and facility design (secondary barriers).

The Brain-to-Brain Loop in Molecular Oncology Laboratory Testing

Various Methods Allow Clinical Laboratories to Maximize Their Efficiency and Usefulness

The delineation of a brain-to-brain loop in clinical laboratory testing first published in 1981 has never been more pertinent. Its subsequent development and current application in clinical molecular oncology in 2016 can make all the difference.

This discussion focuses on the factors that drive the ordering of a lab test and the many components thereof, itemizes pre- and post-analytic causes of diagnostic error, and recommends how a laboratory can help ensure the usefulness of the entire process.

Just as a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, a loop that isn’t closed is (obviously) still open.

Technical and laboratory workers tend naturally to define their work by their technical products and procedures, as well they should. In clinical laboratory testing, that tends to be the step called “analysis.”

The success or failure of an “analysis” may well depend upon the pre- and post-analytic phases at least as much as the analysis itself.

Source: DepositPhotos

Biomedical Laboratory Science