Category: Research

Because it involves the destruction of days-old human embryos, stem cell research has sadly become yet another flashpoint in Americaâ??s cultural war over abortion.

Thatâ??s exasperating, because stem cells have vast potential for treating and even curing devastating illnesses and injuries. Because they can develop into any kind of human tissue, they could conceivably be used to regenerate severed spinal cords and diseased hearts, heal Parkinsonâ??s disease, and restore insulin-secreting â??isletsâ? to diabetic pancreases.

We have long been strong supporters of embryonic stem cell research, despite the controversy that swirls around it and the presidential veto over federal funding that stunted it.

But we share the excitement about a new breakthrough in this field, one that may hold the tantalizing possibility that embryonic stem cell research will be a thing of the past. What makes it particularly satisfying is that scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who first isolated human embryonic stem cells nearly 10 years ago, including James Thomson, are prominently involved in this development as well.

Patenting officials at the University of Wisconsin at Madison are sharing in the scientific excitement over last week’s announcements by researchers there and at Kyoto University that new techniques had been found to generate versatile stem cells without destroying embryos, even though they acknowledge the discovery could eventually undermine the value of the stem-cell patents and licenses that Wisconsin holds.

“Hey, that’s what science is about,” said Carl E. Gulbrandsen, managing director of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, in an interview last week.

Two teams of scientists reported last week that they had developed lines of human stem cells almost identical to embryonic ones, using a procedure that does not involve destroying actual embryos, an advance that could accelerate research into therapies based on stem cells, they said.

It’s called nuclear reprogramming, and it may have ended an era.

But the credit goes to science, not to any interest group or politician.

The subject is stem-cell research. Two independent research teams, reporting in the journals Cell and Science, announced last week they have induced plain, old human skin cells to behave much like embryonic stem cells.

NEW YORK –Despite all the excitement, big questions remain about turning this week’s stem-cell breakthrough into new treatments for the sick, and it’s not clear when they’ll be answered.

Scientists have to learn more about the new kind of cell the research produced. They also have to find a different way to make it, to avoid a risk of cancer. Even after that, plenty of steps are needed to harness this laboratory advance for therapy.

So, when will doctors and patients see new treatments? Scientists only hedge.

“I just can’t tell you dates,” says James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the scientists in the United States and Japan who announced the breakthrough on Tuesday.

In a surprising reversal of roles, nanotechnology scientists outrival the general public in seeing a cause for concern in some aspects of their work, according to a study published Sunday.

Nanotechnology — the science of making things measured in units 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair — holds spectacular promise in virtually every sector.

Hundreds of consumer products already contain nano materials, most of which are cosmetics, sunscreens and cleaning products with microscopic particles.

The unknown human health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology are a bigger worry for scientists than for the public, according to a new report published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The new report was based on a telephone survey and a sampling of 363 leading U.S. nanotechnology scientists and engineers. It reveals that those with the most insight into a technology with enormous potential – and that is already emerging in hundreds of products – are unsure what health and environmental problems might be posed by the technology.

“Scientists aren’t saying there are problems,” says the study’s lead author Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication and journalism. “They’re saying, ‘we don’t know. The research hasn’t been done.'”

Dogged and determined scientists appear to have given mankind a remarkable gift: a method for creating personalized medical repair kits using skin cells from a patient’s own body.

Two papers published this week, one in Cell by Dr Yamanaka and one in Science by Junying Yu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have shown how to do the trick in human cells. Dr Wilmut is so impressed with their data that he has said he is now going to concentrate his efforts on this alternative technique.

Tuesday’s announcement that scientists had found a noncontroversial way to make cells equivalent to human embryonic stem cells did not just change the scientific and ethical landscape. It generated economic and geopolitical tremors through California, New York and about half a dozen other states that have invested — in some cases heavily — in embryonic stem cell programs and research centers.

If the stem cell wars are indeed nearly over, no one will savor the peace more than James A. Thomson.

The breakthrough by researchers who’ve found a way to turn ordinary skin cells into embryonic stem cells is great news. It’s a rare case of a scientific leap defusing an ethical debate, rather than creating new ones.

Twenty-five days. That’s how long it took Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University to undo more than 30 years of exquisitely programmed biology packed into a woman’s cheek cell â?? and just maybe change the world. In a procedure that some scientists thought could take decades to discover, Yamanaka tricked the cheek cell into acting like an embryonic stem cell â?? capable of dividing, developing and maturing into any of the body’s more than 200 different cell types. And he wasn’t alone: on the same day that he published his milestone in the journal Cell, James Thomson, a pioneering University of Wisconsin molecular biologist, reported similar success in Science.

He refuses to own a TV, doesn’t read newspapers, hates stories about himself and talksthisfast on the rare occasions he does speak to reporters. Jamie Thomson, Wisconsin’s stem cell pioneer, does not suffer fools lightly, so you’d better get to the point and avoid personal questions.

In this episode, University of Wisconsin-Madison cheese researcher Carol Chen explains the physics, chemistry and biology of cheese. And Scientific American’s Christie Nicholson talks about our new web community. Plus we’ll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned on this podcast include: www.cdr.wisc.edu; www.cheese.com

The ethical debate over stem-cell research could be over now that the UW-Madison scientist who grew the world’s first human embryonic stem cells has created similar cells without using or destroying embryos.

We have long been strong supporters of embryonic stem cell research, despite the controversy that swirls around it and the presidential veto over federal funding that stunted it.

But we share the excitement about a new breakthrough in this field, one that may hold the tantalizing possibility that embryonic stem cell research will be a thing of the past. What makes it particularly satisfying is that scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who first isolated human embryonic stem cells nearly 10 years ago, including James Thomson, are prominently involved in this development as well.

In breakthroughs that burst like bombshells in biology’s hottest field, rival scientists in Japan and the United States have announced that they successfully turned human tissue into cells that behave like embryonic stem cells — potentially medicine’s most powerful weapon against an array of deadly diseases.

Scientists have created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells, a breakthrough that could someday produce new treatments for disease without the explosive moral questions of embyro cloning.

Researchers have transformed ordinary human skin cells into batches of cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells — but without using cloning technology and without making embryos.

Their breakthroughs, reported on Tuesday, could make possible the long-sought goal of tailor-made medicine, but without the political, scientific and ethical roadblock of using human eggs or embryos.

The discovery that skin cells can be reprogrammed to mimic embryonic stem cells is likely to transform the sticky political debate over the science, a debate that has pitted Mr. Bush against two-thirds of the American public including prominent Republicans like Nancy Reagan and has even helped decide some elections.

By genetically manipulating human skin cells, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a separate team in Japan were able to reprogram those cells to act like embryonic stem cells without using human embryos.

In a major advance, UW-Madison researchers say they have genetically reprogrammed human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.

Stem cell therapies for diseases such as Parkinson’s and diabetes could eventually be developed without destroying human embryos, following landmark experiments that have turned back the clock on adult tissue to make powerful master cells.

Adult skin cells have been genetically reprogrammed into stem cells like those from human embryos, with the potential to form any kind of human tissue, by two independent research teams from Japan the United States.The twin achievements pave the way for a new approach to stem cell therapy that skirts some of the ethical and practical problems that have limited its progress to date.

MILWAUKEE (AP) â?? He refuses to own a TV, doesn’t read newspapers, hates stories about himself and talksthisfast on the rare occasions he does speak to reporters. Jamie Thomson, Wisconsin’s stem cell pioneer, does not suffer fools lightly, so you’d better get to the point and avoid personal questions.

“I’m a very private person,” he warns.Or at least he would like to be. This may be wishful thinking by a man seen as a possible Nobel Prize contender, who at age 39 made a discovery that landed him on the cover of Time magazine and prompted President Bush’s first national television address.

Scientists have made ordinary human skin cells take on the chameleon-like powers of embryonic stem cells, a startling breakthrough that might someday deliver the medical payoffs of embryo cloning without the controversy.

Laboratory teams on two continents report success in a pair of landmark papers released Tuesday. It’s a neck-and-neck finish to a race that made headlines five months ago, when scientists announced that the feat had been accomplished in mice.

The “direct reprogramming” technique avoids the swarm of ethical, political and practical obstacles that have stymied attempts to produce human stem cells by cloning embryos.

Nearly a decade after University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists rocked the scientific world by first isolating human embryonic stem cells, they and a separate group in Japan have achieved another breakthrough, one that could make the field of embryonic stem cell research passé.

In a major advance, UW-Madison researchers say they have genetically reprogrammed human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.

This significant scientific achievement also potentially remakes the tumultuous political and ethical landscape of stem cell biology, as human embryos may no longer be needed to obtain the blank slate stem cells capable of becoming any of the 220 types of cells in the human body.

The new technique would avoid without the ethical and legal constraints that now hamper stem cell use use by scientists. Another major advantage of using reprogrammed skin cells is that any cells developed for therapeutic purposes can be customized to the patient.

In the quest to treat difficult diseases, researchers have created human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos or using hard-to-get eggs. The technique may prove to be easier, cheaper, and more ethically appealing than an alternative approach that requires cloning.

Two separate teams of researchers say they have sidestepped the cloning method and reprogrammed mature human cells into a primordial, embryonic-like state. Those cells were then transformed into other tissue types, such as heart cells. The long-term hope is that such freshly-created tissue may, for example, be used to heal a heart-attack patient.

Unlike cloning, “the wonderful thing about this approach is that it’s easy. You’re going to see lots and lots of labs give it a try,” predicts Robert Blelloch, a stem cell biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who has performed his own reprogramming experiments. He says he read the latest studies but wasn’t involved in them.

Two teams of scientists are reporting today that they turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo â?? a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.

All they had to do, the scientists said, was add four genes. The genes reprogrammed the chromosomes of the skin cells, making the cells into blank slates that should be able to turn into any of the 220 cell types of the human body, be it heart, brain, blood or bone. Until now, the only way to get such human universal cells was to pluck them from a human embryo several days after fertilization, destroying the embryo in the process.

The ship that will soon drill deep into an underwater earthquake zone completed its first science mission on 16 November. Chikyu , the world’s largest research drilling vessel, finished the initial 8-week leg of its research programme with only minor glitches.

“It’s a great site and it drilled well,” says Harold Tobin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the chief scientists on the expedition.

While the general definition of asthma is simple, its fundamental causes are still being debated in the medical community. However, some contributing factors are known. Asthma can be inherited and exposures to allergens early in life are believed to put a child at risk. Mothers who smoke during pregnancy increase the odds of delivering an asthmatic child.

Adding to the complex mystery of the disease is a study published by American Thoracic Society in the November issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which questions the positive effects of breast-feeding for babies of asthmatic mothers.

“Longer breast-feeding in infancy is associated with improved lung function in later childhood, with minimal effects on airflow in children of non-asthmatic mothers,” wrote Dr. Theresa Guilbert of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Arizona Respiratory Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “However, longer breast-feeding in children of a mother with asthma demonstrates no improved lung growth and significant decrease in airflows later in life.”

An Iranian scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found a way to substitute artificial sweeteners with natural ones.

Fariba Asadi has found a new method for the mass production of the sweetest natural material in the world.

Asadi has applied a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study the structure function relationships in brazzein analogs and their interactions with the sweet receptor.

It takes ice — and lots of it — for Thomas Gaisser to do his job.

And it can’t be just any old ice from a freezer — even one with the most sophisticated filter.

To catch what Gaisser is after, you need the purest ice on Earth.

That’s what has landed Gaisser and a team of University of Delaware researchers in one of the iciest, coldest, most austere places on the planet: the South Pole.

They’re after neutrinos — subatomic particles produced during cosmic explosions a very long time ago that are so small, they can pass through solid objects and never collide with molecules.

While a stressful family environment in childhood has long been blamed for various psychological effects later in life, new research suggests that hostile situations at home may also have big physical implications for young girls.

In a study released Thursday, researchers at the University of Arizona and the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked at families of 227 preschool children, following them as they progressed through middle school. Specifically, the researchers looked for the first hormonal signs of puberty in these children.

Scientists in Oregon have successfully cloned monkey embryos and used them to make two embryonic stem cell lines. It is the first time this has been accomplished in primates and brings the possibility of human stem cell lines one step closer to reality.

This is the heart of the controversy over stem cell research, which researchers hope will provide cures for diabetes, Parkinson’s and spinal cord injuries, among others. Embryonic stem cells are important because they can become almost any cell in the body. But the destruction of embryos to harvest those cells is vehemently opposed by right-to-life groups.

MADISON, Wis., Nov. 12 (UPI) — Chimpanzees living in a harsh African environment and using stick tools offer scientists new insight into early human behavior, U.S. researchers said.

Researchers found evidence of tool use among chimps living in western Tanzania’s Ugalla Forest Reserve to harvest tubers, roots and bulbs, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said in a news release Monday. Their study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Reid Bryson, a US meteorologist and climatologist whose team at the University of Wisconsin has developed its own method of looking at historical climate change.

He said he had had problems getting research published on the extent to which he believes volcanoes drive climate change. But he had not kept his rejection letters, so it was impossible to investigate specifically.

Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.

Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.

“There’s clearly impetus to develop complementary technologies that can provide better and more robust tools to look for cancer,” she said.

By John Oncken

Research is front and center at UW-Madison’s new Microbial Sciences Building.

The first floor Microbe Place allows visitors to see exhibits showcasing research in progress. There are dozens of laboratories to serve researchers and students. And there’s an overnight area equipped with cots and showers that provides a home away from home for researchers during lengthy experiments.

The $121 million building on the west end of campus is huge — 330,000 square feet — and is the largest academic building on campus. The only larger building is the Kohl Center.

The building is locked. Most of the windows are dark. But in a small room on the first floor of the Waisman Center, a group of four is gathered around Richard Davidson. It’s 8:30 p.m., and most people are at home letting their own minds unwind, trying to slough off a day’s work. But Davidson has shown up in the night to have his brain scanned, to have his mind read.
Actually, he’s here to read his own mind.

The room is lined with computer screens, and there is a small window that looks into the next room to the giant white MRI machine, which pulls mountains of data out of people’s brains. The four scientists are here to run the programs and sort through that data, mining it for nuggets of scientific gold.

“So,what are we doing?” Davidson asks crisply. He’s dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, as if this were no big deal to be here, peering into his own brain.

For Ken Skog, it came as a pleasant surprise.

“It was kind of a fun thing,” says Skog, an economist with the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, on hearing last month that he’d won â?? sort of â?? the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. “Folks at the lab made a big to-do about it.”

Skog, 58, is one of hundreds of scientists who’ve played a part in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the award with former Vice President Al Gore. He was a lead author of a chapter in an IPCC report, released in 2006, which dealt with carbon storage in harvested wood products.

Several UW-Madison scientists played similar roles on the IPCC. But their achievement has gone locally unrecognized and unheralded. “There was no pick-up,” says UW research spokesperson Terry Devitt, referring to a press release on this topic.