Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2019

The evolution of micro and nanofabrication approaches significantly spurred the advancements of cardiac tissue engineering over the last decades. Engineering in the micro and nanoscale allows for the rebuilding of heart tissues using cardiomyocytes. The breakthrough of human induced pluripotent stem cells expanded this field rendering the development of human tissues from adult cells possible, thus avoiding the ethical issues of the usage of embryonic stem cells but also creating patient-specific human engineered tissues. In the case of the heart, the combination of cardiomyocytes derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells and micro/nano engineering devices gave rise to new therapeutic approaches of cardiac diseases. In this review, we survey the micro and nanofabrication methods used for cardiac tissue engineering, ranging from clean room-based patterning (such as photolithography and plasma etching) to electrospinning and additive manufacturing. Subsequently, we report on the main approaches of microfluidics for cardiac culture systems, the so-called “Heart on a Chip”, and we assess their efficacy for future development of cardiac disease modeling and drug screening platforms.

Circa 2020

The FRESH technique of 3D bioprinting was invented in Feinberg’s lab to fill an unfilled demand for 3D printed soft polymers, which lack the rigidity to stand unsupported as in a normal print. FRESH 3D printing uses a needle to inject bioink into a bath of soft hydrogel, which supports the object as it prints. Once finished, a simple application of heat causes the hydrogel to melt away, leaving only the 3D bioprinted object.

Continue reading “3D bioprinted heart provides new tool for surgeons” »

OSAKA – An Osaka University team said it has carried out the world’s first transplant of cardiac muscle cells created from iPS cells in a physician-initiated clinical trial.

In the clinical project to verify the safety and efficacy of the therapy using induced pluripotent stem cells, Yoshiki Sawa, a professor in the university’s cardiovascular surgery unit, and colleagues aim to transplant heart muscle cell sheets over the course of three years into 10 patients suffering from serious heart malfunction caused by ischemic cardiomyopathy.

Summary: Neuroinflammation may be a key player in the pathological brain changes produced as a result of chronic opioid use. Microglia is likely responsible for the majority of the changes.

Source: boston university school of medicine.

Prevalence rates of opioid use disorder (OUD) have increased dramatically, accompanied by a surge of overdose deaths–nearly 50000 in the U.S. in 2019. While opioid dependence has been extensively studied in preclinical models, an understanding of the biological alterations that occur in the brains of people who chronically use opioids and who are diagnosed with OUD remains limited.

Stem cell biologist Hugo Vankelecom (KU Leuven) and his colleagues have discovered that the pituitary gland in mice ages as the result of an age-related form of chronic inflammation. It may be possible to slow down this process or even partially repair it. The researchers have published their findings in PNAS.

The pituitary gland is a small, globular gland located underneath the brain that plays a major role in the hormonal system, explains Professor Hugo Vankelecom from the Department of Development and Regeneration at KU Leuven. “My research group discovered that the pituitary gland ages as a result of a form of chronic inflammation that affects tissue and even the organism as a whole. This natural process usually goes unnoticed and is referred to as ‘inflammaging’—a contraction of inflammation and aging. Inflammaging has previously been linked to the aging of other organs.” Due to the central role played by the pituitary, its aging may contribute to the reduction of hormonal processes and hormone levels in our body—as is the case with menopause, for instance.

The study also provides significant insight into the stem cells in the aging pituitary gland. In 2012, Vankelecom and his colleagues showed that a prompt reaction of these stem cells to injury in the gland leads to repair of the tissue, even in adult animals. “As a result of this new study, we now know that stem cells in the pituitary do not lose this regenerative capacity when the organism ages. In fact, the stem cells are only unable to do their job because, over time, the pituitary becomes an ‘inflammatory environment’ as a result of the chronic inflammation. But as soon as the stem cells are taken out of this environment, they show the same properties as stem cells from a young pituitary.”

In a minute and 27 seconds we get the what from an eye regeneration for mice, to monkey trials to start later this year, to human trials by 2023, and full body in a decade.

David Sinclair—a world-leading biologist, Harvard Medical School Professor, and author of The New York Times best-selling book @Lifespan.

Continue reading “When can we begin to apply age reversal gene therapies to humans? Harvards David Sinclair explains” »

The resulting implant consists of cells attached to the scaffold, which permits the targeted delivery of therapeutic cells to the diseased region within the eye. A non-cryopreserved formulation of this cellular therapy is being employed in an ongoing Phase I/IIa clinical trial sponsored by RPT. The cryopreserved formulation enabled by the work of Pennington and colleagues will facilitate anticipated Phase IIb and Phase III clinical trials as well as ultimate commercialization and clinical application of the product.

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara, University of Southern California (USC), and the biotechnology company Regenerative Patch Technologies LLC (RPT) have reported new methodology for preservation of RPT’s stem cell-based therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

The new research, recently published in Scientific Reports, optimizes the conditions to cryopreserve, or freeze, an implant consisting of a single layer of ocular cells generated from human embryonic stem cells supported by a flexible scaffold about 3×6 mm in size. This implant is currently in clinical trial for the treatment of AMD, the leading cause of blindness in aging populations. The results demonstrate that the implant can be frozen, stored for long periods and distributed in frozen form to clinical sites where it is designed to be thawed and immediately implanted into the eyes of patients with macular degeneration. The capacity to cryopreserve this and other cell-based therapeutics will extend shelf life and enable on-demand distribution to distant clinical sites, increasing the number of patients able to benefit from such treatments.

Continue reading “A frozen leap forward for age-related macular degeneration stem cell-based therapy” »

Not the most informative article, but it does have a map giving you an idea of how many of these facilities exist and in which countries. China is not the only place with labs.

Three of the 23 countries with BSL4 labs (Australia, Canada and the US) have national policies for oversight of dual-use research. At least three other countries (Germany, Switzerland and the UK) have some form of dual-use oversight, where, for instance, funding bodies require their grant recipients to review their research for dual-use implications.

Rising demand for BSL4 labs

Continue reading “Fifty-nine labs around world handle the deadliest pathogens – only a quarter score high on safety” »

The World Health Organization classifies processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen. Processed meat includes ham, sausage, bacon, pepperoni; they’re meats that have been preserved with salt or smoke, meat that has been cured, and meat treated with chemical preserves. Other Group 1 carcinogens include formaldehyde, tobacco, and UV radiation. Group 1 carcinogens have ‘enough evidence to conclude that it can cause cancer in humans.’

There is no question whether or not our current meat production complex is inhumane, unsanitary, or bad for the environment. Almost all chickens (99.9%), turkeys (99.8%), and most cows (70.4%) eaten in the United States are raised on factory farms. There are horrific consequences to this practice.

For example, the EPA estimates agriculture is the biggest contaminator of rivers and streams, to the point where feedlots, crop production, and manure runoff have led almost half (46%) of the U.S.’s rivers to be “in poor biological condition.”

Continue reading “Vegans Diets and Longevity: What Existing Science Actually Says” »