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  • From: tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] More economical Gee Gee upgrade
  • Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:02:50 -0500

The Catawba Primate Lab may no longer have to pay Tyson Turkey Division to raid their dumpster for Gee Gee Body parts. Yes, folks, the days of payiing Tyson fifteen cents for four-day-old turkey brains may be behind us We're going to use Professor Zhu Jianhong's new process---create brain cells in Grow Bags for a cheaper and long overdue Gee Gee mental upgrade.




The Sunday Times - Britain

January 16, 2005

First brain cells grown in lab
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
SCIENTISTS have successfully grown human brain cells in the laboratory for the first time and used them to repair the damaged brains of head-injury victims.

The breakthrough brings new hope in the search for therapies not only for accident victims but also for those suffering the effects of strokes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and a range of other degenerative conditions.

The researchers emphasise the research is experimental, but it suggests there may one day be hope for spinal injury victims such as the late Christopher Reeve, the Superman star paralysed in a riding accident who died last year. In the initial experiments a man given the cultured brain cells apparently regained the ability to walk.

The research was carried out in China by Professor Zhu Jianhong of Fudan University hospital, who will announce the results of his work in London later this month.

“This is a world first,” said Professor Stephen Minger, director of the stem cell biology laboratory at the Wolfson Centre for age-related diseases at King’s College London. He has already been to Shanghai to examine the methods used by Zhu and to see the eight patients he has treated.

“Many people have been trying to grow brain cells in the laboratory, but nobody has succeeded. If the initial results prove accurate, then this has huge implications for new treatments,” said Minger.

Scientists have long recognised that if they can find a way to grow neurones, the cells that comprise the functional parts of the brain and spine, then they will be able to treat a wide range of currently incurable conditions.

That is because in adult humans such cells have almost no ability to divide, grow and replace themselves as they die off through disease, injury or old age. By contrast, most other tissues, such as skin or muscle, can repair and rebuild themselves, so offsetting the ravages of time and disease.

After the age of 25 a typical adult loses millions of neurones a week, a process that can be accelerated in later years by diseases such as Alzheimer’s, leading to loss of cognitive skills and eventually the destruction of the personality.

Scientists have, however, always wondered if they could find a way to kick-start neurones so that they regain the ability to divide, grow and repair themselves.

The discovery of stem cells in the 1990s prompted new hope. Stem cells are primitive cells that have the potential to divide and grow into almost any kind of specialised cell. In adults there are different stem cells for most types of tissue, including the brain.

However, all previous attempts to use these to grow brain cells have failed. This is partly because of the difficulty of obtaining fresh brain cells to work on, meaning many groups have had to use samples from dead bodies.

Zhu is, however, understood to have used a different and much simpler method. He is said to have obtained his brain samples from the accident and emergency department of Hua Shan hospital where he works and which treats thousands of people with head and brain injuries each year.

A scientific report to the conference describes how he realised the potential of such material when he treated a patient who had been stabbed in the eye with a chopstick.

When the stick was removed it was covered in brain material, which Zhu was able to grow in a culture medium.

In the West such an approach would be hard to attempt because of the welter of ethical regulations that surround research on samples taken from living people. In China such rules are much looser. Zhu experimented with a range of culture mediums and growth factors — hormones that encourage cells to divide and grow — and found his approach had worked.

Two months later he had grown several million cells that he transplanted into a patient with a serious head injury. This was done by drilling tiny holes into the skull and placing several clumps of cells around the site of the injury.

The report, written by Minger on Zhu’s behalf, said subsequent brain scans showed the cells had grown further and integrated with the patient’s surviving brain cells to help them recover abilities lost through the injury.

Dr Peter Mountford, chief executive of Stem Cell Sciences, a leading British company in such research, said the breakthrough was outstanding. “What stands out is the simple fact they are actually undertaking clinical trials while we here in Britain are just beginning to think about it.




  • [Homestead] More economical Gee Gee upgrade, tvoivozhd, 01/16/2005

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