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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Regrow Human Limbs and Body Parts

Recently there have been news articles about research into growing/regrowing penises lost to injury, disease, or deformity, and others about regrowing women's breasts (not implants but real tissue) after amputations. See:
Regrow Penises
Regrow Breasts

Now there is news about research into regrowing human limbs and body parts like the salamander does and how lizards regrow a tail. If perfected, this will be a miraculous boon to humankind.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214121434.htm

How Do Salamanders Grow a New Leg? Protein Mechanisms Behind Limb Regeneration





A female wild-type axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum). The most comprehensive study to date of the proteins in a species of salamander that can regrow appendages may provide important clues to how similar regeneration could be induced in humans. (Credit: iStockphoto/Armin Hinterwirth)

ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2009) — The most comprehensive study to date of the proteins in a species of salamander that can regrow appendages may provide important clues to how similar regeneration could be induced in humans.

Researchers at the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues investigated over three hundred proteins in the amputated limbs of axolotls, a type of salamander that has the unique natural ability to regenerate appendages from any level of amputation, with the hope that this knowledge will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow limbs to regenerate.

"In some ways this study of the axoltol's proteins was a fishing expedition. Fishing expedition can be a derogatory term in biology but for us it was positive, since we caught some important "fish" that enable us to formulate hypotheses as to how limb regeneration occurs," said David L. Stocum, Ph.D., professor of biology and director of the Indiana University Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine, both in the School of Science at IUPUI, who led the study.

"Comparison of these proteins to those expressed in the amputated frog limb, which regenerates poorly, will hopefully allow us to determine how we might enhance limb regeneration in the frog and ultimately in humans, Dr. Stocum said.

With few exceptions -- notably the antlers of moose, deer and their close relatives, the tips of the fingers and toes of humans and rodents, and the ear tissue of certain strains of mice and rabbits -- the appendages of mammals do not regenerate after amputation.

Limb regeneration in the axolotl occurs when undifferentiated cells accumulate under the wound epidermis at the amputation site, a process known as the establishment of a blastema. These cells are derived by the reprogramming of differentiated cells to a less specialized state, and from resident stem cells.

"We found proteins that point to several areas that need to be studied closely to give us vital information about the mechanisms that operate to form a blastema that then goes on to regenerate the missing parts of the limb," said Dr. Stocum, an internationally respected cell and developmental biologist who has studied limb regeneration for over three decades.

Investigating the proteins found in the axolotl limb, the researchers noted three findings that appear to have significance in reprogramming cells to grow new limbs:

  1. Quantities of enzymes involved in metabolism decreased significantly during the regeneration process.
  2. There were many proteins that helped cells avoid cell death. Because amputation is very traumatic, this is critical.
  3. A protein which appears to keep cells from dividing until they are fully dedifferentiated and reprogrammed to begin forming a new limb was expressed at high levels throughout blastema formation.

Findings were published online in the journal Biomedical Central Biology on November 30 (BMC Biology 7:83, 2009). Co-authors of the study, which was funded by the W. M. Keck Foundation, are Nandini Rao, Ph.D. and graduate student Behnaz Saranjami of the School of Science; graduate student Deepali Jhamb and Mathew Palakal, Ph.D. of the IU School of Informatics; Fengyu Song, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D. of the IU School of Dentistry; Mu Wang, Ph.D. and Michael W. King, Ph.D. of the IU School of Medicine; Bingbing Li, Ph.D. of Central Michigan University; S. Randal Voss, Ph.D. of the University of Kentucky; and Derek J. Milner, Holly L. D. Nye and Jo Ann Cameron, Ph.D. of the University of Illinois. All except the final four are also affiliated with the IU Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine.

The School of Science, IU Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine, IU School of Dentistry, IU School of Informatics, and IU School of Medicine are all located on the IUPUI campus.

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Friday, December 11, 2009

OBAMA - Peace and War

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COMMENTS:
Blogger danielpagano said...

Gods mill grinds slow but sure........................................

Sunday, December 13, 2009 8:57:00 AM

Monday, December 07, 2009

Chaplain Joins the Fray and Coins a Battlecry.


Chapel services were in progress at 7:55 a.m. on the morning of December 7, 1941 when Japanese bombs began raining on Pearl Harbor. Dedicated chaplains did their best to care for the wounded and comfort the dying. Aboard the cruiser New Orleans Chaplain Howell Fogey joined the human chain passing ammo to keep the big guns firing back. When one enemy Zero began to fall from the sky he paused long enough to echo what would become a national battlecry: "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition."
click on link below for brief news item re: Chaplain Fogey

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition


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Pearl Harbor - 68 Year Anniversary

Cross posted at http://thefuturewasyesterday.blogspot.com

The USS Arizona burns, mortally wounded in attack on Pearl Habor by Japanese warplanes.
Memorial, built over her sunken body, grave to the men who went down with her. 68 years later she still lies bleeding - large globs of oil, her life blood, rise to the surface now and then.

To those Americans of a proper age to remember that awful "day of infamy", the anniversary is always an emotional time, dredging up the wounds to psyches that remain raw and painful beneath the surface, and reinjured during the terrible events of 9-11. I know Pearl Harbor only as history but my best friend and her peers were old enough to recall the attack and the reactions of the citizenry, how it affected the nation. I have seen my friend rock and weep on anniversaries and/or news reports, remembering old pains and griefs, and as she wept during 9-11 I asked her if that was like Pearl. She nodded wordlessly. There is more but it is not my story to tell.
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Sun Dec 6, 3:53AM PT

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The extraordinary heroics performed by the man caught unawares by the sneak attack on that peaceful Sunday morning demonstrates how they rose bravely to their duty, how fiercely they battled, and some willingly, knowingly sacrificed their lives in the service of their comrades, their ships, and their country. There are too many to publish on a blog but the url below is to a site that briefly tells a few. http://www.homeofheroes.com/pearlharbor/pearl_6nevada.html


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