#stem cell scientists

[katiajewelbox]

Plant Immune System Part 3

The plant immune system is the topic of my PhD thesis, which I'm currently writing following several years of lab-based research as a PhD student at Imperial College London under the supervision of Professor Colin Turnbull.

Here's an introduction to my research, which focused on how certain plants defend themselves against aphids.

Aphids are an important insect pest that threaten agriculture worldwide. As we learned in the previous post, plant resistance (R) genes control resistance to specific pests and pathogens through interaction with effectors from the invaders. Since examples of R gene-dependent aphid resistance have been documented in different plant species, aphid-specific R genes may enable the development of resistant crops.

In the model plant Medicago truncatula, there are some varieties that are resistant to aphids and other varieties that are susceptible to Pea Aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum). Whether the plant is resistant also depends on the variety of aphid. In my project, the A17 plant is resistant to PS01 aphids but not to N116 aphids, while the DZA plant is susceptible to both aphid varieties.

What is the key difference in the resistant versus susceptible plants? Resistant A17 plants have a portion of their genome “Resistance to Acyrthosiphon pisum 1” (RAP1) which determines resistance to PS01 aphids, but the genes controlling the defence response and physiological defence mechanisms remain unknown. Two candidate R genes located in RAP1, designated “RAP1A” and “RAP1B”, may control resistance.

My main objective in my PhD project has been to determine whether RAP1A and RAP1B control aphid resistance, and to investigate the RAP1-mediated defence response. I look forward to sharing the findings in publications and in talks next year!

Image credit: Original diagram by Katia Hougaard with images from the Turnbull Lab.

#katia_plantscientist#science#biology#research#plants#botany#plantbiology#phdproject#plantbiology#plantscience#sciencecommunication#diagrams#phd#imperialcollegelondon#phdthesis#medicago#aphid#plantimmunesystem#pestsandpathogens#plantpathology#womeninscience#plantbiologist

[birdsandproblems]

Im fucking crying has anyone seen the AI diagrams in the Scientific Study yet?

So, there was a Paper published on the 13th February 2024.

It was published in Frontiers in Cell and developemental Biology, titled

"Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway""

So far so good, right?

Not knowing anything about the topic, youd exepect a regular Paper: full of scientific theories hopefully to be confirmed and used to widen our human horizons with knowledge.

WRONG. 10 METERS RAT PENIS

Figure 1: Dissilced rat penis.

YES. This was a real picture included in the Paper. I think even without looking at rat dicks regularly (or if ever), you can /kinda/ guess this looks wrong.

If you dont know anything about rat dicks (dont blame you) seeing text like "iollotte sserotgomar cell" or "dck" or "di§locttal stem ells" should make you go hm. Mayhaps this may be wrong.

Another graphic shows the JAK/STAT signaling pathway.

This...is wrong. You cant read the labels. Its wrong and theres non existing symbols and letters and just imagine, imagine youre a newbie Student or scientist or even regular non-academic trying to read this.

Its teaches you nothing and only gives false information.

Of course, this paper passed /2 reviewers/ who said nothing is wrong with it!

This is absolutly unacceptable. Luckily the paper has been retracted now (16.02.2024)

But this is unacceptable. It should never have passed ANY reviewers and saying their job is to rate the scientific merit of the text without looking at the pictures is pure bullshit.

In a scientific papers, graphics and diagrams should have and need scientific merit and integrity, this is the whole point of writing it!

Shame on anyone for letting it get published and i wish the authors would have commissioned someone or even created graphics themselves- no matter how 'crude' or non aesthetic, any graphic drawn in a scientific manner is a thousand times better than AI. Please, stop using AI for important things like that.

I cant say much to the content of the text, but if this was a great paper- now its forever ruined as the Rat dick paper and i wouldnt trust any of the scientists working on it to have honesty and integrity on new papers. I wouldnt publish them.

Lazyness in academia is one thing, but this is just...so bad its sad.

Now, lets look some cells from the paper, shall we?

(I am in distress. This is not a cell.

This is not a cell girl help)

To end this on a better note, shout out to this great tweet lmao!

[angiospleen]

Just explained to my gf what a prion disease is and how dire they actually are. Pretty sure she was only half-listening out of pity but I hope she learned something

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

everyone should give me twnety million dollar. i will learn so much about blood

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Ann Kiessling

Reproductive biologist Ann Kiessling was born in 1942 in Baker City, Oregon. One of Kiessling's first major scientific achievements was the discovery of reverse transcriptase in normal human cells. She later shifted her focus to stem cells, and established the country's first human egg donor program for stem cell research. Kiessling has published over 100 scientific papers and is considered a global leader in both stem cell research and reproductive biology. In 2009, she won the Jacob Haskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, becoming the first woman to receive this honor.

[prodigalwitch]

yes. we have freezers full of sperm. if all males died tomorrow, women could recreate society. using advancements in modern medicine, multiple all-female generations could be born without male presence. a paradise.

males are deeply aware of their dependence on women, their fundamental inability to create life, and it kills them.

in nature, males have little purpose aside from breeding. it is only through violence, discriminatory policy, and brute force that human males have managed to flip the natural order.

patriarchy- especially the modern manosphere and MRAs- is a desperate response to their fear of irrelevance.

[mawusifitnesstraining]

Scientists Grew 'Mini Brains' From Stem Cells. Then, The Brains Sort-of Developed Eyes. : ScienceAlert

[kasplonk]

We're undertaking ground breaking research on embryology and stem cell treatments currently at Claire's. I'm the lead researcher there, if you even care

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Year - 2024 Edition

Welcome to our special edition newsletter recapping the best news from the past year. I've picked one highlight from each month to give you a snapshot of 2024. No frills, just straightforward news that mattered. Let's relive the good stuff that made our year shine.

1. January - South Korea passes law banning dog meat trade

The slaughter and sale of dogs for their meat is to become illegal in South Korea after MPs backed a new law. The legislation, set to come into force by 2027, aims to end the centuries-old practice of humans eating dog meat.

2. February - Greece legalises same-sex marriage

Greece has become the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples will now also be legally allowed to adopt children after Thursday's 176-76 vote in parliament. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the new law would "boldly abolish a serious inequality".

3. March - Global child deaths reach historic low in 2022 – UN report

The number of children who died before their fifth birthday has reached a historic low, dropping to 4.9 million in 2022. The report reveals that more children are surviving today than ever before, with the global under-5 mortality rate declining by 51 per cent since 2000.

4. April - Restoring sight is possible now with optogenetics

Max Hodak's startup, Science, is developing gene therapy solutions to restore vision for individuals with macular degeneration and similar conditions. The Science Eye utilizes optogenetics, injecting opsins into the eye to enhance light sensitivity in retinal cells. Clinical trials and advancements in optogenetics are showing promising results, with the potential to significantly improve vision for those affected by retinal diseases.

5. May - Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains

Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.

6. June - Bill Gates-backed startup creates Lego-like brick that can store air pollution for centuries

The Washington Post detailed a "deceptively simple" procedure by Graphyte to store a ton of CO2 for around $100 a ton, a number long considered a milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air. Direct air capture technologies used in the United States and Iceland cost $600 to $1,200 per ton, per the Post.

7. July - Stem cell therapy cures man with type 2 diabetes

A 59-year-old man had been suffering from diabetes for 25 years, needing more and more insulin every day to avoid slipping into a diabetic coma and was at risk of death. But then Chinese researchers cured his disease for the first time in the world. The patient received a cell transplant in 2021 and has not taken any medication since 2022.

8. August - Chinese drones will fly trash out of Everest slopes

Come autumn, Nepal will deploy heavy lifter drones to transport garbage from the 6,812-metre tall Ama Dablam, south of Everest. This will be the first commercial work an unmanned aerial vehicle does in Nepal’s high-altitude zone.

9. November - Tokyo to make day care free to boost birth rate

Tokyo plans to make day care free for all preschool children starting in September, the city governor has announced as part of efforts to boost Japan's low birth rate.

10. October - FTC Rule Banning Fake Product Reviews Takes Effect With Stiff Penalties

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan announced on Oct. 21 that the agency’s prohibition on fake online reviews was taking effect, imposing fines as high as $50,000 for violations. Khan encouraged followers to report the proscribed practices at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

11. November - Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in 'remarkable' Scotland rewilding project

The bumblebee population has made an impressive comeback in a developed area by increasing to 116 times what it was two years ago thanks to a nature restoration group.

12. December - Spain to enshrine gay marriage and abortion rights into its constitution so 'they cannot be undone in the future'

The left-wing PSOE leader made the announcement at an event marking the 46th anniversary of the Spanish Magna Carta.

“We believe that these are rights that we must protect in the Constitution so that no one can touch them in the future,” Sanchez said in a statement in parliament on Friday.

----------

That's it for last year :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to share this post with your friends.

[reasonsforhope]

"People living with diabetes might have a new hope. Scientists have tested a new drug therapy in diabetic mice, and found that it boosted insulin-producing cells by 700% over three months, effectively reversing their disease.

Beta cells in the pancreas have the important job of producing insulin in response to blood sugar levels, but a hallmark of diabetes is that these cells are either destroyed or can’t produce enough insulin. The most common treatment is regular injections of insulin to manage blood sugar levels.

But a recent avenue of research has involved restoring the function of these beta cells. In some cases that’s started with stem cells being coaxed into new beta cells, which are then transplanted into patients with diabetes. Researchers behind this kind of work have described it as a “functional diabetes cure.”

Now, scientists at Mount Sinai and City of Hope have demonstrated a new breakthrough. Previous studies have mostly involved growing new beta cells in a lab dish, then transplanting them into mice or a small device in humans. But this new study has been able to grow the insulin-producing cells right there in the body, in a matter of months.

The therapy involved a combination of two drugs: one is harmine, a natural molecule found in certain plants, which works to inhibit an enzyme called DYRK1A found in beta cells. The second is a GLP1 receptor agonist. The latter is a class of diabetes drug that includes Ozempic, which is gaining attention lately for its side effect of weight loss.

The researchers tested the therapy in mouse models of type 1 and 2 diabetes. First they implanted a small amount of human beta cells into the mice, then treated them with harmine and GLP1 receptor agonists. Sure enough, the beta cells increased in number by 700% within three months of the treatment. The signs of the disease quickly reversed, and stayed that way even a month after stopping the treatment.

“This is the first time scientists have developed a drug treatment that is proven to increase adult human beta cell numbers in vivo,” said Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Ocaña, corresponding author of the study. “This research brings hope for the use of future regenerative therapies to potentially treat the hundreds of millions of people with diabetes.”

The results are intriguing, but of course being an animal study means there’s still much more work to be done before it could find clinical use. So far, harmine alone has recently undergone a phase 1 clinical trial in humans to test its safety and tolerability, while other DYRK1A inhibitors are planned for trials in humans next year.

Perhaps most importantly, the team will soon experiment with combining beta-cell-regenerating drugs with others that modulate the immune system. Ideally this should help overcome a major hurdle: the immune system will continue attacking new beta cells as they’re produced.

The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine."

-via New Atlas, July 14, 2024

[dillytaunt]

Why do so many fans think Jun Wu has no control over who ascends? Like, yes.. people ascend without his permission because there really is a cosmic order in this universe but he literally only needs to fill the slot to prevent randos from ascending.

And YES he CAN artificially ascend people and he DOES. I’m fr about to write up a whole essay on ascension this weekend istg.

The man literally says:

“Even fates can be swapped. Why not spiritual power?” Jun Wu said. “There are many things that are hardly as difficult as you assume. It is only a matter of a few words and a few brush strokes from a few great heavenly officials.”

Right after he sucks out one homies spiritual power and injects it into another.

And let’s be real.. Do y’all really think Jun Wu actually ascended a second time using his own power?

The dude who has the suffering souls of his first attempt at human sacrifice plastered on his own face and.. screaming?

Hell nah. This dude became the grandmaster of demonic cultivation. He experimented on fetus spirits like some mad scientist interested in unethical stem cell research. He probs invented the damn fate swapping ritual himself.

He has an entire fucking Burial Mound volcano where he vents his resentful energy. You think all that energy is accumulating just cus he’s mad? Or from just the three faces?

No way fam. This man is actively cultivating the dark arts and probs needs so many followers just to help balance the yang to his yin.

I mean.. c’mon. You fr think Feng Xin and Mu Qing ascended back to back naturally? And just after they left Xie Lian? There’s a whole damn arc about how unusual it is for two people so close to ascend so fast and so young

Jun Wu gifts Feng Xin a bow called Fengshen which is a homophone for the name of an entire Chinese myth about appointing mortals to godhood for political reasons.

Blows my mind to see that so many collectively deny the possibility when the narration is screaming clues from every digital and physical page.

[mindblowingscience]

For the past two decades, scientists have been manipulating genes to grow human cells where you wouldn’t quite expect them. Human ears and skin have famously been grown on mice. More recently, early-stage human kidneys have even been grown in pig bellies. The world of bioengineering isn’t for the faint of heart.  Much of this tinkering is done in the service of one day using genetically modified animals to create spare organs and tissue for human patients lacking access to donors. Now, according to a study published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine, researchers have shown it’s possible to cultivate lab-grown human teeth cells inside of a pig’s mouth. The researchers believe these findings could one day lead to the development of biological tooth substitutes that could be used in place of imperfect synthetic dental implants currently used. The paper’s findings were first spotted by MIT Technology Review.

Continue Reading.

[reality-detective]

Stem Cell Scientist Reveals what the # 1 supplement people should take...

THE MIRACLE PLANT HAS BEEN SHOWN TO FIGHT OVER 300 DISEASES and reduce your risk of cancer, diabetes, and arthritis by 60% in just 2 months!

Moringa is full of cytokinins that are significantly slowing down the aging process, help renew every cell of the human body - making people look and feel decades younger!!! 🧬

The high amount of polyphenols reduces the inflammation by 95%, accelerates the anti-aging process and of course makes you resilient to viruses and illnesses!🧬

It’s the ultimate anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and immune-boosting superfood, proven to inhibit tumor growth and restore healthy cells. If you’re struggling with chronic illness, Moringa could be the lifeline you’ve been waiting for. 🤔

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

Not exactly new news (published in June) but something that's important and a bit underdiscussed.

By Devika Rao

Rare types of cancer are showing up in higher numbers since the Covid-19 pandemic. Doctors suspect that the virus itself may be contributing to the higher cancer rates, despite a solid connection not yet being established. The pandemic may have permanently altered the bodies of those infected, making them more susceptible to cancer. Those affected include people who were otherwise previously healthy.

What do cancer trends look like? Doctors have identified a marked increase in late-stage rarer cancers in people who had otherwise been healthy. Lung, blood and colon cancer, especially, have been rising in younger people. Specifically, medical experts have observed a rise in new cancer patients, multiple patients with multiple cancers, couples and siblings developing cancer within months of each other and cancer patients relapsing after years of remission.

The trend has been particularly noticeable since the Covid-19 pandemic. "This is an observation that has piqued the researchers' and clinicians' interest, that, is there an association with Covid, especially long Covid and cancer?" Dr. Suraj Saggar, chief of infectious disease at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey, said to Fox 5 New York.

Cancer is caused by errors in genetic code within cells. "The human body is made up of trillions of cells in a constant state of growth, repair and death," said The Washington Post. "Most of the time, cells with damaged DNA fix themselves, or simply disappear. Sometimes, they start collecting mistakes in their genetic code and rampage out of control into tumors."

What is more alarming is the prevalence of people suffering from more than one type of cancer. "Having multiple forms of cancer at the same time has also become more prevalent. Cancers typically start in one part of the body and spread," the Post said. "It's rare for discrete cancers to begin in different parts of the body during a short window."

What could be causing the rise? Some scientists posit that the Covid virus itself could be contributing to the higher numbers of cancer diagnoses, especially for those who are suffering from long Covid. "The idea that some viruses can cause or accelerate cancer is hardly new," said the Post. "Scientists have recognized this possibility since the 1960s, and today, researchers estimate 15% to 20% of all cancers worldwide originate from infectious agents such as HPV, Epstein-Barr and hepatitis B."

Because "infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurs in several organs either directly or indirectly, it is expected that cancer stem cells may develop in multiple organs," said a 2023 study published in the journal Biochimie. Lung, colorectal, pancreatic and oral cancer could particularly be exacerbated.

While not officially confirmed, the virus is said to cause full-body inflammation. "Inflammation triggers many genetic changes in a genome that can create a propensity of developing cancer in certain individuals," Dr. Kashyap Patel, CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, said to News Nation. "We are completely under-investigating this virus," Douglas C. Wallace, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said to the Post. "The effects of repeatedly getting this throughout our lives is going to be much more significant than people are thinking."

mentioned study: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10202899/?s=09

[feartoxinjelloshot]

clipsverse SWAP AU! for fun! character elaboration under the cut because it gets kind of wordy:

selina's deal is pretty straightforward: she has the typical “saw parents die as a child" backstory, but she’s obviously not a millionare so she’s operating out of some kind of condemned underground parking lot... somewhere. authentic gotham grunge i guess. she’s a functioning alcoholic and i am obsessed with her. she's a hardboiled detective like batman, but tends to be a bit more cynical - sort of like if rorschach from watchmen was a normal person and also didn't hate sex. firefly is her "guy in the chair" similar to what alfred is to batman in canon, minus the surrogate parent part, obviously. public opinion is pretty split on if the bat is a man or a woman under there. i don't really have swap ideas for the robins ironed out, but i'm thinking that cass and stephanie are her robin and red hood equivalents (cass being dick, stephanie being jason). cass would have an allblack bird theme going on, so she might be "crow" or "blackbird" instead of robin. dunno what stephanie's red hood rendition is like. purple hood? i'll figure it out eventually.

bruce’s parents are alive, but he has a terrible relationship with them and with his own wealth so he mitigates the guilt complex by dressing up as a cat to steal and redistribute resources to people who actually need it. he could probably do that in daylight but there is something very wrong with him. i don't think his dumb slutty playboy persona is entirely genuine even without his parents' deaths, but he does lean into it more and incorporate parts of it into his vigilante persona over time. i think this version of bruce is just generally very lonely under the surface. he tries to be normal in his daytime life and he's very bad at it - theft aside, in a certain sense being the cat(man? woman?) is his own break for freedom; he felt a need to plunge himself far into the deep end of what normal society calls a 'freak'. ...writing it out like this, we're probably lucky he didn't start killing people. fortunately batman isn't really that kind of guy in any universe.

meanwhile on the other side of the rails: ivy! her deal is slightly unformed right now due to the fact that the hatter and the joker also swap places in this au - so the hatter is a dangerous, evil mastermind intent on controlling gotham to suit their whims, and the joker is... just a harmless silly little guy. yeah. i don't have swap-hatter's exact personality ironed out yet, so detailing his and ivy's dynamic would be difficult, but i can say that while she is his loyal second-in-command at his table of advisors, she is also plotting against him. ivy is a consistent loner in both mainline cv and here, and while she doesn't have the same tumultuous, antagonistic, emotional relationship with him as harley does with the joker, she is also frankly not interested in being his number one until the end of time. she wants to do it herself and she wants to do it right. this is an ivy who, in lieu of her own world-altering gift, is scraping tooth and nail to successfully supersede the most powerful entity she can get her hands on. the hatter is blissfully unaware of this - we can't all be perfect.

harley, for her part, is very tame in comparison. she mirrors ivy's canonical backstory pretty closely: an esteemed scientist studying stem cell relations who was denied funding, mocked, and forced to experiment on herself to prove a point, unwittingly connecting herself to a worldwide hive-mind of plantlife. this version of harley, while still dressed as a scientist, is far more surface-level emotionally volatile than mainline ivy, more impulsive and irrational, and probably willing to lean much farther into the classic poison ivy reputation as a villainous seductress, to varying degrees of honesty and success. it takes ivy an incredible degree of patience and control to maintain the mental and physical balance she strikes with the green, and this version of harley has far less of both. she lets it use her body as a conduit of earthly rage and she lets the poison infect her skin and organs until mottled and decaying. she's not unhappy, but she's not exactly stable, either.

jonathan is a mysterious, faux-sleazy lounge singer who lost his left arm to a snake bite infection as a child and thereafter became obsessed with the symbolism of the balance of life via games, tricks and questions - winning and losing, birth and death, etc. the ouroboros is a common symbol in his theatrics. he possesses a certain degree of social confidence that the mainline jonathan has never quite been capable of - while he doesn't have the same fervent need for attention as edward, he takes a compulsory delight in the mental influence he achieves on small crowds and will employ many avenues to get ahold of it. he's certainly not outgoing: he keeps almost entirely to himself offstage, uninterested in fame outside of his show persona. unlike mainline jonathan who views the scarecrow as a genuine self-inflicted diety, this jon sees his persona as more of a mantle or responsibility that he must take on in order to discover new truths about the world. like his canon counterpart he is asexual and uninterested in sex, but i imagine that he has less qualms about leading people on as an act to get what he wants from them. he's not terribly famous in his singing career, but he's become a bit of an underground legend for his resolute 1920s-inspired style and occasional genuine debonair charm.

edward in comparison is not nearly as ritualistically compelled as mainline scarecrow, but he’s far less cagey about his own machinations and his mental relationship to them: he lives in a tricked-out barn somewhere on the far outskirts of gotham, and he spends his time as a propmaster creating elaborate saw-trap-esque haunted houses and escape rooms to invoke panic in his “guests”. he wanders the halls of his own houses along with the guests, repairing and tinkering, or just scaring the shit out of them. he also makes a genuine living by making and selling cosplay props and other related objects online; he's developed a bit of an internet presence through this channel, though he's not as fixated on it as the mainline riddler would be. he still craves spectacle and attention, but he's more of a "quality over quantity" guy according to his own standards and is rarely happy with the work he creates, hence the endless roundabout of creation and reinvention.

[fallershipping]

Right now enjoying the idea based on two videos I watch that Giovanni and Team Rocket was a much more complicated and adult scheme.

Like it wasn't just a gang-- Rocket Co. was his company/conglomerate with a chokehold on Kanto's enterprises. He owned pachinko parlors, entertainment establishments, and even Laboratories where he was financing their research just as long as they did a few favors for him. Team Rocket was just his personal yakuza, his dogs to make sure those promises are kept.

Giovanni took opportunity of people, such as Dr. Fuji, who were desperate to get funding on their research. Of course Team Rocket gracefully provided research material-- with poaching and stealing. Scientists are eager to work on stem cell research and genetic cloning. Some are even eager to work on illegal and controversial human cloning, perhaps seeking a potential to save lives or bring lives back.

The main man himself would feel like the kind of guy who wanted a foothold on the international cloning and genetic race. Giovanni commissioned them to make the ULTIMATE, STRONGEST POKEMON. This is the peak of designer genetics; this is modifying DNA to be everything he wanted. Intelligent, too. Capable of thinking like a human... Perhaps looks a little too human...

"Former Executive Ariana and several anonymous individuals have not confirmed the allegations of Team Rocket using donated eggs from their employees for the purposes of human genetic experimentation."