Yesterday at 6:48 PM The Defense Department-funded project combines bioengineering with physical therapy to spur stem cells to turn into the right kind of tissue. By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press WASHINGTON Scientists implanted thin sheets of scaffolding-like material from pigs into a few young men with disabling leg injuries and say the experimental treatment coaxed the mens own stem cells to regrow new muscle. click image to enlarge Dr. Stephen Badylak, a surgery professor at the University of Pittsburgh and deputy director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, holdings a sheet of scaffolding-like material derived from pig bladder. His team implanted a similar version into a handful of men with severe leg injuries and reported Wednesday that the experimental treatment helped regrow muscle. The Associated Press/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The research, funded by the Defense Department, included just five patients, a small first step in the complex quest for regenerative medicine. But the researchers described some of the men improving enough to no longer need canes, or to ride a bicycle again, after years of living with injuries that today have no good treatment. The real rush for someone like myself is to see this patient being … Continue reading →

If the producers of television's hit comedy "The Big Bang Theory" ever need to add a teenage star to their cast of brilliant, eccentric minds, then Jasmin Joseph of Woodland Hills El Camino Real would fit right in. She's an aspiring scientist and a top softball player for the No. 1 team in the City Section. She ranks No. 2 in her class academically and is headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She gets about three hours a sleep each night juggling her many responsibilities and couldn't be happier. She never forgets her long-term ambitions. "I want to see a world where there's no genetic diseases, no Parkinson's, no Tay-Sachs, no Huntington's, no cystic fibrosis," she said. Her dreams and aspirations started when she sat in the biology class of Annie Darakjian as a freshman and sophomore. She remembers also being inspired by the movie "Lorenzo's Oil," about parents searching for a cure for their ill son. "I fell in love and wanted to go into genetics and bioengineering," she said. "I want to work in a lab and do research." Her softball teammates joke that at MIT, "they have rulers on their bats." Her coach, Lori Chandler, said, … Continue reading →

April 30, 2014 Image Credit: Rice University [ Watch The Video: Keeping Fat And Nutrients In Tube-Fed Preemies With Nutriflow ] Rice University Fat, the bane of many an adult, is precisely what babies born prematurely need to gain weight and grow strong and healthy. Some students at Rice University have invented a device to ensure preemies get enough fat, which has been a challenge. Babies born more than five or six weeks before their due dates are unable to feed from a bottle or breast because they cannot coordinate sucking, breathing and swallowing. They must be tube-fed milk, but that too presents problems: Some 20 to 50 percent of the fat content in mothers milk clings to the tubing and never reaches the child. Also lost are essential nutrients, including calcium, phosphorus and magnesium, that bind to the fat. Fat is essential for preemies, but its always been a problem getting it to them, said Mika Tabata, a senior bioengineering student and a member of the design team Nutriflow at Rice. Our task was to figure out a way to increase the amount of fat they receive, which has been difficult. Other team members are Alexa Juarez, Denizen Kocak … Continue reading →