Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Research Institute (SBP) have conclusively identified the protein complex that controls the genes needed to repair skeletal muscle. The discovery clears up deep-rooted conflicting data and will now help streamline efforts towards boosting stem cell-mediated muscle regeneration. Such strategies could treat muscle degenerative diseases such as muscular dystrophies, and those associated with aging and cancer.

The research, published today in eLife, describes the essential role of a TBP-containing TFIID-protein complex in activating genes that regenerate muscle tissue, and shows that an alternative protein called TBP2 is not involved in this task in adult muscles.

“Our discovery clarifies the identity of the ‘molecular switches’ that control the activation of muscle genes in muscle stem cells (MuSCs),” said Barbora Malecova, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Pier Lorenzo Puri, M.D., professor in the Development, Aging and Regeneration Program at SBP, and first author of the article. “Understanding what drives muscle gene expression gives us insights into molecular targets for regenerative medicine-based interventions (drugs) to treat muscle degenerative disorders.”

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This bionic spine could help paralyzed patients walk again.

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Interesting. Hope they cure this!

Suresh Mahalingam and Michael Rolph discuss how the development of a Zika vaccine compares with the other mosquito-borne viruses.

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The US military is looking for ways to insert microscopic devices into human brains to help folks communicate with machines, like prosthetic limbs, with their minds. And now, DARPA’s saying scientists have found a way to do just that—without ripping open patients’ skulls.

In the DARPA-funded study, researchers at the University of Melbourne have developed a device that could help people use their brains to control machines. These machines might include technology that helps patients control physical disabilities or neurological disorders. The results were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

In the study, the team inserted a paperclip-sized object into the motor cortexes of sheep. (That’s the part of the brain that oversees voluntary movement.) The device is a twist on traditional stents, those teeny tiny tubes that surgeons stick in vessels to improve blood flow.

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Another cancer therapy; healthcare seems to be on a roll.

An experimental nanoparticle therapy that combines low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and fish oil preferentially kills primary liver cancer cells without harming healthy cells, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

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If there was ever lifetime commitment & act of love; its remembering those that were robbed from us on a battlefield called “Cancer”.

When we recognized the Ebola emergency, we adapted. Saving cancer victims is just as urgent.

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Great story; I hope it helps many talented game developers realize what you mean to kids; and especially those children who fight cancer.

A lot of people are coming together right now to help a teenager who is fighting cancer in a local hospital. It’s not just his family or doctors and nurses either. Complete strangers are giving their all to help him accomplish his high-tech dream.

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A team of researchers from Germany have developed what could become a revolutionary treatment for male infertility — they build spermbots. The key is a tiny metal helix that attaches to individual sperm cells, allowing them to move more effectively. You can think of it like a prosthetic tail for sperm.

Male fertility issues are usually not related to having an unusually low sperm count, but to having sperm with low motility. That is, they don’t get around very well. Each sperm has a copy of half of a man’s genome in the “head” portion. The tail is actually a flagella with banks of energy-producing mitochondria to power its movement. If either the tail or power source don’t work correctly, a sperm cell will have trouble reaching and fertilizing an egg.

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Awesome; this will be wonderful for these brave children of St. Jude.

The St. Jude Medical OPTIS Mobile System combines OCT, FFR and angiography to provide hospitals in Europe and Japan with multiple cath labs the technology for more accurate PCI guidance.

St. Jude Medical, Inc.

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