Yearly Archives: 2020


Can fasting reverse your ‘biological’ age? It can, according to Goop Lab experts – CNET

Gwyneth Paltrow gets a vampire facial in the fourth episode of Goop Lab.

Netflix's The Goop Lab follows Gwyneth Paltrow and the team that runs her wellness brand, Goop, as they experience various alternative wellness practices, from meeting with a psychic to taking aworkshop about how to orgasm. In The Goop Lab's fourth episode, The Health Span Plan, Paltrow, chief content officer Elise Loehnan and Goop's marketing VP Wendy Lauria explore the societal obsession with antiaging and the often expensive lengths many go to avoid it.

In their quest for eternal youth, members of the Goop staff try several different diets reported to reduce the risk of age-related disease, including fasting, veganism and pescatarianism. Paltrow and her team also set out on a quest to find "more natural" alternatives to plastic surgery and fillers, like facials and acupuncture.

Aging is one of many things that medicine can't stop, so that raises the question: Is there any validity to these diets and treatments? Can you really slow down the aging process with food? That's what The Goop Lab sets out to determine and the results are, surprisingly, somewhat valid.

The Health Span Plan episode explores diets and skincare treatments that claim to have antiaging benefits.

The Goop team chats with Valter Longo, the director of the University of Southern California's Longevity Institute, about the practice of fasting and how it can have positive effects on health. He promotes his fasting mimicking diet in the episode (for which he has a book and a $250 diet kit that Paltrow tries). Notably, the group doesn't talk about other forms of fasting -- such as intermittent fasting or alternate-day fasting -- which can have the same health benefits as Longo's diet.

Paltrow also talks with Morgan Levine, who studies aging at the Yale Department of Pathology. Levine developed a method of calculating a person's "biological age," based on several factors that intend to predict how likely you are to get age-related diseases or be at risk for early death.

Paltrow, Loehnan and Lauria are tested for their biological age before starting a new diet for three weeks. Lauria followed a vegan diet and Loehnan did a pescatarian diet, while Paltrow uses Longo's kit (which includes a nut bar, soup packets and kale crackers -- appetizing, huh?) for a five-day fast.

At the end of the three weeks, all three have their "biological ages" retested. The only person whose age did not "lower" was Lauria.

To round out this antiaging episode, all of the women try three different facial treatments -- acupuncture, facial threading and a vampire facial -- that are supposed to be more natural than using typical dermatological treatments such as skin fillers and Botox injections.

Loehnen tries facial acupuncture, which is reported to boost collagen production. Lauria gets a "facial threading" treatment that involves sewing a plastic thread that dissolves after nine months into her face in an effort to boost collagen and lift the face.

A Goop employee tries facial threading, a less invasive way to get the effect of a face lift.

Finally, Paltrow gets a "vampire facial," which is when a facialist extracts platelet rich plasma from your blood, and then microneedles it into the skin on your face. The PRP is supposed to help the skin resurface and look rejuvenated. Paltrow seems a bit weirded out by the process but notes that there's an "overuse of that stuff," (referring to injections, fillers and plastic surgery), and at least "this is your own blood and not a toxin, it's a more natural way."

Right now, there is a lot of hype surrounding fasting, intermittent fasting and ketosis and how those diets might benefit our overall health. It's not all hype -- there's definitely some sound science here and it's likely to keep expanding.

During the episode, Longo presents his fasting mimicking diet, which involves "tricking" the body into a fasting state while allowing specific amounts of food for at least five days. The idea is to give your body just enough nutrients that it thinks it's fasting, but not so few that you encounter the negative effects of prolonged fasting like a weakened immune system and nutritional deficiencies.

Fasting can help improve your overall health, some studies have shown.

Longo says that his clinical trials on the fasting mimicking diet showed to "reduce risk factors for multiple age-related diseases." That's not totally bunk -- science shows that when you restrict calories for certain periods of time, it does promote longevity. A study on this type of fasting did show that it can be effective in improving health markers that put you at risk for age-related diseases such as BMI, body fat percentage and blood pressure. Fasting can also lower inflammation levels in the body, improve cognitive impairment in miceand can decrease insulin-like growth factor, a hormone linked to cancer. The research is promising.

While Longo's diet might be scientifically sound, I found it hard to wrap my mind around the idea that eating processed, packaged foods for five days could actually be better for you than eating whole, unprocessed foods. Surely you can hit the same macronutrient targets (low carb, low protein and a total of 750-1,000 calories per day) he cites is necessary to "trick your body that it's fasting" with real food?

I'd be interested in seeing studies on groups who do the fasting mimicking diet versus groups that follow a pescatarian diet (as Loehnan did in the show). Also, I'd like to see results in a study of participants who follow the fasting mimicking diet with Longo's food packets and bars versus the same exact macronutrients in whole food form. My guess is that the results could be pretty different.

The facial treatments in the episode are pretty extreme. While they are touted as "more natural" alternatives to plastic surgery or fillers, Goop did not provide much information on why these treatments are "better" for you.

When each practitioner did each treatment, it sounded more like an infomercial about why you should do it, rather than a scientifically backed procedure. The episode lacked real information or science on if these treatments are actually safe, and how they compare to fillers or Botox. No one (at least that we could see) challenged the practitioners about the safety or quality of what was going on.

Facial acupuncture is said to help stimulate the production of collagen in the skin.

The science behind facial acupuncture is promising, but there's still a lot of work to be done. As for the facial threading, aka the noninvasive face lift, a study published in JAMAconcluded that the results of the threading face lift are not effective enough to justify the patient's risk of potential complications from the procedure.

I would describe the facial threading procedure more as a cosmetic procedure and less of a facial treatment. Even though the Goop staff say it's more "natural" than a face lift, it seems pretty invasive to me. You see the doctor literally sew a plastic thread into her face and if that isn't invasive plastic surgery, I don't know what is. Nothing about this treatment says "natural alternative" to me. It just says, "here is another way to get a face lift, and it's temporary."

Goop has long been criticized for presenting highly inaccessible treatments, and that's the same in this episode. The vampire facial costs over $1,000, and the facial threading pricing can start at $1,500 and go up to over $4,000. Facial acupuncture is typically less expensive, but it depends on where you go and how many treatments you get.

There's nothing wrong with showing what these extreme treatments are like, it makes for entertaining television. But if Goop wanted to better serve its audience, perhaps it would have been more helpful to show more accessible options for natural beauty products, regimens or other useful skincare advice.

This episode of The Goop Lab presents a few valid and several questionable antiaging practices for your body and face. While fasting to improve your overall health is backed up by science, there are plenty of other more accessible and doable ways to improve your health through nutrition, exercise and lifestyle alone.

Focusing on the basics like sleep, drinking water, moving more and lowering stress seems more realistic, and then you can experiment with fasting if you think it could help you. Fasting is not a very accessible wellness trend in that it's difficult to do, you should do it under the supervision of a specialist, certain health conditions can prevent you from doing it and it can be really triggering for someone who has a history of eating disorders.

Because of this, fasting is not my favorite wellness topic to explore, and I would have loved to see Goop cover more of the actual science on the benefits other diets such as pescatarianism and veganism, or even better the benefits of eating more plant-based diet versus a restrictive plan like veganism or vegetarianism.

As for the facial treatments, I found it interesting to see the different procedures on the market, but unrelatable for someone who can't afford to drop $1,000 and up on a treatment. It would have been much more interesting to me if Goop had talked to skincare experts, dermatologists and other pros in the space who can teach people about good skincare regimens, habits, ingredients and explain what clean or natural beauty products can help.

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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Can fasting reverse your 'biological' age? It can, according to Goop Lab experts - CNET

Efficacy and Safety of Sonidegib in Adult Patients with Nevoid Basal C | CCID – Dove Medical Press

John T Lear,1 Axel Hauschild,2 Eggert Stockfleth,3 Nicholas Squittieri,4 Nicole Basset-Seguin,5 Reinhard Dummer6

1Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester, UK; 2Klinik Fr Dermatologie, Venerologie Und Allergologie Universittsklinikum Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany; 3Universittshautklinik Bochum, Bochum, Germany; 4Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Inc., Princeton, NJ, USA; 5Department of Dermatology, Hpital Saint Louis, Paris, France; 6Skin Cancer Center University Hospital, Zrich, Switzerland

Correspondence: John T LearUniversity of Manchester, 46 Grafton Street, Manchester M13 9NT, UKTel +44 161 276 4173Fax +44 161 276 8881Email john.lear@srft.nhs.uk

Nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS), or Gorlin syndrome, is a rare hereditary disease characterized by the development of multiple cutaneous basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) from a young age.1 Loss-of-function germline mutations in the hedgehog-related patched 1 (PTCH1) tumor suppressor gene are the most common cause of NBCCS.1 The hedgehog signaling pathway plays a major role in embryonic development, and in adulthood, is involved in the renewal and maintenance of distinct tissues, including hair follicles, muscle stem cells, and gastric epithelium.2 Its abnormal activation is thought to drive the formation of both sporadic BCCs and those resulting from NBCCS.1 Patients with NBCCS inherit one inactive copy of PTCH1 and then acquire a second-hit mutation, resulting in hedgehog pathway activation and BCC formation.1 Mutations in Suppressor of fused (SUFU) or the PTCH1 homolog PTCH2 have also been found in a subset of patients meeting criteria for NBCCS.1,3

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Efficacy and Safety of Sonidegib in Adult Patients with Nevoid Basal C | CCID - Dove Medical Press

People who develop Parkinson’s before 50 may have been born with damaged brain cells, says study – MEAWW

People who develop Parkinson's disease at a young age might have malfunctioning brain cells -- even before birth. A drug used to treat pre-cancers of the skin may help treat the condition, finds a new study. At least 500,000 people in the US are diagnosed with Parkinson's every year, a majority of them over the age of 60. But about 10% of them develop the condition young -- between 21 and 50 years. People develop the disease when the brain nerve cells that make dopamine -- a substance that helps coordinate muscle movement -- malfunction or die. Consequently, these patients experience difficulty moving due to stiff muscles and tremors. Most often, young-onset patients have a family history of Parkinsons disease.

"Young-onset Parkinson's is especially heartbreaking because it strikes people at the prime of life," said Dr. Michele Tagliati, director of the Movement Disorders Program, vice-chair, and professor in the Department of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai. "This exciting new research provides hope that one day we may be able to detect and take early action to prevent this disease in at-risk individuals," says Dr Tagliati, co-author of the study.

In this study, the team turned cells from these Parkinson's patients into a kind of stem cell, meaning they turned adult cells into an embryo-like state. These cells can be programmed into developing into any cell types, including muscles, nerves or heart, for instance. The team turned these stem cells into cells that produce dopamine and grew them in their lab.

"Our technique gave us a window back in time to see how well the dopamine neurons might have functioned from the very start of a patient's life," said senior author Dr. Clive Svendsen, director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and professor of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine at Cedars-Sinai.

When the team observed these cells, they saw an abnormal accumulation of a toxic protein called alpha-synuclein, which is seen in patients with most forms of Parkinson's disease. This accumulation could be the result of malfunctioning "trash cans".

These trash cans of the dopamine-producing cells called lysosomes are tasked with the breaking down and the disposing of proteins - but they failed to do so in young-onset Parkinson's patients. As a result, the toxic protein buildup ends up damaging dopamine-producing cells.

"The cells of the brain cannot dispose of the toxic protein called synuclein a hallmark of dying neurons in Parkinsons disease even before birth. This does not kill the neurons until much later in life though," the researchers tell MEA WorldWide (MEAWW). "Now we know that this starts so early in life we can think about ways to reduce this protein early and use this model as a way to detect whether the Parkinsons is starting," they add.

Further, the team also tested several drugs that might reverse the abnormality seen in these cells. They found that that one drug, dubbed PEP005, which is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating precancers of the skin, proved effective in lab studies and mice. The drug brought down the levels of the toxic protein.

Encouraged by these positive results in the young-onset patients, the team is now testing whether these findings hold in patients who develop Parkinson's after the age of 50. "While we have shown our drug is effective in this cell model, it needs to be validated in actual patients before it is proven to be a treatment for Parkinsons. These studies are being planned," they add.

The study has been published in Nature Medicine.

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People who develop Parkinson's before 50 may have been born with damaged brain cells, says study - MEAWW

2020 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) Study: Global Markets, Technologies, Applications and Companies – Yahoo Finance

Dublin, Jan. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: Global Markets" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This study is focused on the market side of iPSCs rather than its technical side.

It has been over 10 years since the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. The market has gradually become an important part of the life sciences industry during recent years. Particularly for the past five years, the global market for iPSCs has experienced rapid growth.

The report includes:

The report has identified several key drivers for the rapidly growing market:

Key Topics Covered

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights

Chapter 3 Overview

Chapter 4 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Applications

Chapter 5 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Market Segmentation and Forecast

Chapter 6 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research Application Market

Chapter 7 Drug Discovery and Development Market

Chapter 8 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Contract Service Market

Chapter 9 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Clinical Application Market

Chapter 10 Research Market Trend Analysis

Chapter 11 Clinical Application Market Trend Analysis

Chapter 12 Company Profiles

Chapter 13 Conclusions

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/tvap34

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.comFor E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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2020 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) Study: Global Markets, Technologies, Applications and Companies - Yahoo Finance

Can Parkinsons be prevented as it stealthily develops? – Big Think

Parkinson's disease comes with slowness, rigidity, tremors, and loss of balance due to an insufficiency of the dopamine that coordinates muscle movement. This disease, of which the rate of diagnosis is rising, occurs when the neurons responsible for producing dopamine malfunction or die. About 500,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's each year.

Most of the time, Parkinson's disease is a condition of the elderly, diagnosed in people 60 and older. However, about 10% of the time, it's detected in people between 21 and 50. "Young-onset Parkinson's is especially heartbreaking because it strikes people at the prime of life," says Michele Tagliati, an author of a new study from Cedars-Sinai.

The study of brain cells from Parkinson's younger victims has found that the misbehaving neurons are present long before diagnosis typically taking some 20 or 30 years to produce detectable symptoms and may even be present prior to birth. The revelation raises hope for combatting Parkinson's because there's already an approved drug that can mitigate the damage done by the troublemaking neurons before the disease ever appears.

The research is published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Image source: Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

The authors' investigation began with an examination of neurons based on cells from young-onset Parkinson's (YOPD) patients who had no known mutations. From the cells, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were generated and differentiated into dishes containing cultures of dopamine neurons. Senior study author Clive Svendsen says, "Our technique gave us a window back in time to see how well the dopamine neurons might have functioned from the very start of a patient's life."

The scientists observed lysosomes within the YOPD neurons malfunctioning. Since lysosomes are counted on as "trash cans" for unnecessary or depleted proteins, the castoff chemicals began to pile up. In particular, substantial accumulations of soluble -synuclein, a protein implicated in different types of Parkinson's, were seen.

Says Svendsen, "What we are seeing using this new model are the very first signs of young-onset Parkinson's,"revealing that, "It appears that dopamine neurons in these individuals may continue to mishandle -synuclein over a period of 20 or 30 years, causing Parkinson's symptoms to emerge."

The researchers also saw unexpectedly high levels of the enzyme protein kinase C in its active form, though what that has to do with Parkinson's, if anything, is unknown.

Image source: sruilk/Shutterstock

The researchers tested a number of drugs on the cultures to see if any might address the observed accumulations of -synuclein. (They performed parallel tests of laboratory mice.) One drug, PEP005, which is already approved by the FDA for treating skin pre-cancers, did effectively reduce the -synuclein buildup, both in the iPSCs and the mice.

Since PEP005 is currently administered in gel form for treating skin, the researchers are now exploring how the drug might be modified so it can be delivered directly to the brain. The team also plans follow-on research to see if their findings apply equally to forms of Parkinson's beyond YOPD.

Related Articles Around the Web

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Can Parkinsons be prevented as it stealthily develops? - Big Think

Unpicking the proteome in single cells – Science Magazine

Recently, the throughput of single-cell RNA-sequencing (transcriptomics) and genomics technologies has increased more than a 1000-fold. This increase has powered new analyses: Whereas traditional analysis of bulk tissue averages all differences between the diverse cells comprising such samples, single-cell analysis characterizes each individual cell and thus has enabled the discovery and classification of previously unknown cell states. Yet, the nucleic-acidbased technologies are effectively blind to an important group of biological regulators: proteins. Fortunately, emerging mass-spectrometry (MS) technologies that identify and quantify proteins promise to deliver similar gains to single-cell protein analysis. These proteomic technologies will enable high-throughput investigation of key biological questions, such as signaling mechanisms based on protein binding, modifications, and degradation, that have long remained elusive.

The abundance and activity of many proteins are regulated by degradation and posttranslational modifications (PTMs) that cannot be inferred from genomic and transcriptomic measurements. Moreover, genomic and transcriptomic sequencing cannot report directly on protein-protein interactions and protein localization, which are critical for numerous signaling pathways (13). The extracellular matrix surrounding each cell is composed of proteins whose chemical and physical properties, such as stiffness, can also play vital roles in regulating cellular behavior, including proliferation, migration, metastasis, and aging (4). Yet, current single-cell sequencing tools provide little information about the protein composition and biological roles of the extracellular matrix (35). Thus, methodologies are needed that can directly analyze a broad repertoire of intracellular, membrane-bound, and extracellular proteins at the single-cell level.

Single-cell protein analysis has a long history, but the conventional technologies have relatively limited capabilities (6, 7). Most proteomics methods, such as mass cytometry, cellular indexing of transcriptomes and epitopes by sequencing, RNA expression and protein sequencing, and CO-Detection by indEXing, rely on antibodies to detect select protein epitopes and can analyze only a few dozen proteins per cell (6) (see the figure). However, many antibodies have low specificity for their targets, which results in nonspecific protein detection. Indeed, fewer than a third of more than a thousand antibodies tested in multiple laboratories bind specifically to their cognate targets (6). As a result, $800 million is wasted worldwide annually on purchasing nonspecific antibodies and even more on experiments following up flawed hypotheses based on these nonspecific antibodies (8). Although some highly specific and well-validated antibodies can be useful to analyze a few proteins across many cells, the low specificity and limited throughput of the current generation of single-cell protein analytical methods pose challenges for understanding the interactions and functions of proteins at single-cell resolution.

These challenges are being addressed by emerging technologies for analyzing single cells by MS without the use of antibodies, such as Single Cell ProtEomics by MS (SCoPE-MS) and its second generation, SCoPE2. These methods allow the quantification of thousands of proteins across hundreds of single-cell samples (9, 10) (see the figure). A key driver of this progress was the development of multiplexed experimental designs in which proteins from single cells and from the total cell lysate of a small group of cells (called carrier proteins) are barcoded and then combined (9, 10). With this design, the carrier proteins reduce the loss of proteins from single cells adhering to equipment surfaces while simultaneously enhancing peptide identification.

Other key drivers of progress include methods for clean and automated sample preparation, for which there is preliminary evidence (11), as well as rigorous computational approaches that incorporate additional peptide features, such as retention time, to determine peptide sequences from limited sample quantities (12). Further technological developments can increase the accuracy of quantification and numbers of analyzed cells by 100- to 1000-fold while affording quantification of protein modifications at single-cell resolution (7). For example, the carrier protein approach (9) can be extended to quantify PTMs by using a carrier composed of peptides with PTMs while avoiding the need to enrich modified proteins from single cells and, thus, enrichment-associated protein losses.

Although current methods can quantify proteins present at 50,000 copies per cell (which is the median protein abundance in a typical human cell), increased efficiency of peptide delivery to MS analyzers, e.g., by increasing the time over which peptide ions (proteins are fragmented into peptides and ionized in MS analysis) are sampled (7, 13), will increase sensitivity to proteins present at only 1000 copies per cell. In general, the emerging technologies offer a trade-off between quantifying low-abundance proteins with increased accuracy or quantifying more proteins. This trade-off can be mitigated by simultaneously sampling multiple peptides (7). Over the next few years, improvements in sample preparation, peptide separation and ionization, and instrumentation are likely to afford quantification of more than 5000 proteins across thousands of single cells, while targeted approaches are poised to enable analysis of even low-abundance proteins of interest (7).

MS methods have the potential to measure not merely the abundance and PTMs of proteins in single cells, but also their complexes and subcellular localization. When proteins form a complex, polypeptide chains from different proteins can get close enough to be cross-linked by small molecules. Because only proteins in the complex are likely to be cross-linked, the abundance of such peptides can report directly on complex formation and composition. Some cross-linked peptide pairs are observed only with specific complex conformations, and thus these pairs can be useful in distinguishing active and inactive complexes. Furthermore, if a protein complex is close to organelles, targeted MS analysis of cross-linked peptides between the complex and organelle-specific proteins may report on the subcellular localization. Such analysis has not yet been applied to single-cell MS, but is likely to be feasible.

Realizing these exciting prospects requires concerted effort and community standards devoted to ensuring that hype does not overshadow scientific rigor. For example, systematic artifacts, such as contaminant proteins introduced to single-cell samples during their preparation or chromatographic separation, may result in reproducible measurements. Despite their reproducibility, such measurements do not reflect protein abundances in single cells. If reproducibility is misinterpreted as accuracy, the resulting errors may erode the credibility of this emerging field.

Single-cell proteomics will find many applications in biomedical research. Some applications, such as classifying cell states and cell types, overlap with those of single-cell RNA sequencing. Other applications can only be achieved by measuring proteins. For example, the development of cells for regenerative therapies through the rational engineering of directed differentiation may benefit from single-cell proteomics. Although there has been much progress in developing directed differentiation protocols for certain cell types, these efforts tend to rely on trial-and-error approaches (14). Many of the resulting protocols remain relatively inefficient: Only a fraction of the cells differentiate into the desired cell type, and such cells may not fully recapitulate the desired physiological phenotypes (14).

Traditional methods identify and quantify a limited number of proteins based on antibodies barcoded with DNA sequences, fluorophores, or transition metals. Emerging single-cell mass-spectrometry (MS) methods will allow high-throughput analysis of proteins and their posttranslational modifications, interactions, and degradation.

Next-generation single-cell proteomics analysis offers an alternative to this trial-and-error approach. If the signaling events (usually mediated by protein interactions and PTMs) that guide cell differentiation during normal development can be identified, it should be possible to recapitulate such signaling in induced pluripotent stem cells. This would require identifying the signaling processes that lead to the desired cell types and then simulating them by using agonists and/or antagonists. Whereas single-cell RNA sequencing can identify the cells of interest, the amounts of messenger RNA are poor surrogates for the signaling activities mediated by protein modifications, such as phosphorylation or protein cleavage (2, 15). Single-cell proteomics could provide a robust means to characterize such signaling dynamics.

Another potential application is the identification of the sets of molecular interactions leading from a genotype or a stimulus to a phenotype of interest. This goal presents a substantial challenge in part because interacting molecules within a pathway are rarely measured across a large range of phenotypic states to constrain cellular network models. This limitation is particularly evident for proteins and their PTMs (13). Yet, proteins are key regulators in cells; models that ignore them cannot capture molecular mechanisms involving protein interactions. For example, the absence of direct protein measurements compromises the ability to study signaling networks because most of the key regulatory variables are missing from the data. Currently, when proteins and their PTMs are measured in bulk tissues, they have been analyzed in a few tens to a few hundreds of samples (2, 3). Analyzing so few samples tends to require assumptions about the specific sets of interactions and functional dependencies that occur between interacting proteins and molecules. Such assumptions fundamentally underpin the inferred biological mechanisms and undermine their validity (3).

Next-generation single-cell protein analytical technologies will reduce these assumptions and thus increase the validity of inferred mechanisms. If proteins, RNAs, DNA, and metabolites are measured across tens of thousands of individual cells, it may be possible to identify direct molecular interactions without the need to make assumptions about basic aspects of the pathway. Next-generation single-cell analysis is poised to generate just this type of data, which should underpin systems-level understanding of intracellular and extracellular regulatory mechanisms.

Single-cell proteomics may also have clinical applications. Protein measurements from limited clinical samples are attractive because they afford direct measurements of deregulated signaling pathways that drive disease. Furthermore, measuring protein concentrations allows the development of assays to test therapies that induce protein degradation, which are among the most rapidly growing therapeutic modalities (15). Additionally, protein assays may be more robust than RNA-sequencing assays because protein concentrations are less noisy and proteins degrade more slowly than RNAs. Moreover, the cost of protein analysis will decrease proportionately with increased multiplexing (7, 11).

The latest generation of nucleic acidbased single-cell analytical methods has opened the door to describing the varied and complex constellation of cell states that exist within tissue. The next generation of proteomics-based methods will complement current methods while shifting the emphasis from description toward functional characterization of these cell states.

Acknowledgments: N.S. is an inventor on patent application 16/251,039. N.S. is supported by a New Innovator Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (award no. DP2GM123497).

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Unpicking the proteome in single cells - Science Magazine

Osaka University transplants iPS cell-based heart cells in world’s first clinical trial – The Japan Times

OSAKA An Osaka University team said it has carried out the worlds 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 universitys 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.

As part of its first step in the project, the team conducted an operation on a patient this month, which was a success. The patient has since moved to the general ward at a hospital.

The cells on the degradable sheets attached to the surface of the patients hearts are expected to grow and secrete a protein that can regenerate blood vessels and improve cardiac function. The iPS cells have already been derived from healthy donors blood cells and stored.

Each sheet is around 4 to 5 centimeters wide and 0.1 millimeter thick.

The team will continue to monitor the patient over the next year.

I hope that (the transplant) will become a medical technology that will save as many people as possible, as Ive seen many lives that I couldnt save, Sawa said at a news conference.

The researchers said Monday they decided to conduct a clinical trial instead of a clinical study in hopes of obtaining approval from the health ministry for clinical applications as soon as possible.

The trial involves stringently evaluating risks, particularly cancer probabilities, and the efficacy of transplanting some 100 million cells per patient that may include tumor cells.

This is the second iPS cell-based clinical trial in Japan. The first was conducted on eye disease patients by the Riken research institute.

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Osaka University transplants iPS cell-based heart cells in world's first clinical trial - The Japan Times

Umbilical cord blood donation: The family of the Chinese New Year baby gives life – Daily Gaming Worlld

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Jack Chieh and Yinnie Wong with their baby, born last Friday (Chinese New Year). The couple donate their babys umbilical cord blood to BCs umbilical cord blood bank. Womens clinic & health center.

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Yinnie Wong and Jack Chiehs six-pound, 13-ounce boy still unnamed was born on a promising day, January 24, Chinese New Year, and is already doing well in the world.

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Everyone was really happy, its supposed to be a lucky day, said Wong.

Although the birth was a scheduled caesarean section, Wong had no control over the date the hospital administrators chose for the birth. What she controlled was the decision to donate her babys umbilical cord blood to BCs umbilical cord blood bank. Womens clinic & health center, which has just celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Umbilical cord blood is blood that is drawn from the umbilical cord and placenta immediately after the birth of a healthy child. Cord blood is rich in stem cells and can be used to treat over 80 diseases, including leukemia.

According to Canadian Blood Services, ethnically diverse donors are particularly in demand, since according to Stats Canada 67.7 percent of Canadians consider their ethnic origins to be different, but only 31 percent of Canadians with blood in the Canadian stem cell registry have an ethnically different background.

Crystal Nguyen, 20, is a former B.C. Childrens hospital patient whose life was saved by a stem cell transplant from donated umbilical cord blood. Nguyen was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia for the first time at the age of 12. After chemotherapy, she went into remission for almost three years. Then the cancer returned. She was told she needed a bone marrow transplant.

Crystal Nguyen, now 20, was first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia at the age of 12. She found a match between stem cells and a required bone marrow transplant via the international umbilical cord blood bank.

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When I fell behind, I was very confused, it was kind of surreal. The main thing when I was told that I needed the bone marrow stem cell transplant was confusion, fear, and restlessness.

Nguyen is of Vietnamese descent and needed a match to survive. In her family there was no match or stem cell match in the Canadian cord blood bank. Thanks to Canadian Blood Services partnerships with 47 international blood banks, a match was found.

I was told that it came from somewhere in the distance via the international cord blood bank, said Nguyen, who has been in remission since the transplant.

When she found out that the stem cell transplant was successful, Nguyen, who is now studying to become a pediatric oncology nurse, said it felt too good to be true.

There was a lot of luck, joy and excitement. Donating umbilical cord blood is so easy to save a life.

Although cord blood can be collected and stored by private companies for a fee and is reserved for use by the donor family, the cord blood donated through Canadian Blood Services is available to the public free of charge whoever needs the match.

Wong didnt hesitate when her son was born. I felt like I wanted to do it if it helped someone in public and if it could save lives I would have been very happy to help another child, said Wong, a B.C. nurse. Womens Hospital.

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Stem Cell Therapy for Knees: Process, Efficacy, and Cost

Throughout the United States, stem cell therapy is being touted as a miracle cure for everything from wrinkles to spinal repair.

Though very few of these applications have any scientific backing, stem cell therapy for knees has been the subject of quite a few promising studies.

Arthritis develops when the cartilage lining the joints starts to deteriorate, causing pain and limiting function. Osteoarthritis is incredibly common. Arthritis and similar conditions are a major cause of disability in the United States.

Every year about 600,000 Americans get a knee replacement, a number that could rise to 3 million by 2030. Until recently, treatment options were either temporary or surgical.

Now, in numerous cases, stem cell therapy for knees is reducing pain and repairing cartilage. As a result, many people have been able to improve their quality of life and avoid surgery.

As studies continue, the forms and combinations of stem cell preparations are improving, and outcomes are expected to improve as well.

The job of adult stem cells is to maintain and heal tissues by replenishing damaged and dying cells. In some areas of the body, such as the knee, blood supply is limited, so stem cells dont work as well as they should.

Alternatively, though, they can be injected, at which point they appear to initiate the self-recovery process.

The usual job of joint cartilage is to promote smooth movement of joint surfaces and protect bones from friction. This process allows for shock absorption of up to 20 times the weight of the body. Its essential to physical movement, especially in athletics.

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common chronic degenerative disorders and it very often affects the knee, causing deterioration of its joint cartilage over time.

Osteoarthritis can also begin as a result of a knee injury, such as a ligament tear, tendon damage, or a fracture.

In the face of damage, the joint becomes unstable and this wears down the articular cartilage. From there, the bone can suffer damage as well, in addition to the synovial joint lining, tendons, ligaments, and muscles.

Stem cell therapy for knees is minimally invasive. Its a procedure that can decrease inflammation, slow and repair all these forms of damage from arthritis, and delay or prevent knee replacement surgery.

Adult stem cells can be extracted from bone marrow or fat through simple methods. Its then concentrated and injected into the knee with image guidance, usually to successful results.

In one study, patients experienced improvement in both knees even though only one knee was injected. Although natural deterioration of the knee continues, at five years, those knees that are injected with stem cells are in better shape than they were before the injections.

Researchers believe that stem cell therapy for the knee works by:

Ongoing research is striving to determine which stem cell knee therapy techniques, cell choices, and dosages yield the most effective and consistent results.

While some seem more potent than others and overall results are promising, more research is needed.

Stem cell treatment for knees is noninvasive and rarely painful. Side effects are minimal.

The most frequent experiences after the procedure include mild pain at the injection site, swelling, and some joint stiffness.

A review of multiple medical institutions reveals an average cost for stem cell treatment for knees of approximately $3,000 to $5,000 per knee, depending largely on geographical location.

Most insurance companies dont cover stem cell injections yet, but that may be starting to change as more research accumulates showing the effectiveness of the process.

People typically complete the procedure in one visit, but usually have an initial consultation and a follow-up appointment. The injections take approximately two to three hours.

Although stem cell therapy can pose serious risks when performed on other parts of the body, such as the eyes or the spine, its relatively safe when performed on the knees.

Stem cell therapy using adult stem cells is safest because the stem cells are collected from the persons own body. This reduces the risk of a bad reaction.

Risks are increased if:

Because this is such a new area, new research is released frequently.

While the FDA is closely watching stem cell therapy developments, the only applications that are approved involve embryonic stem cells to treat blood or immune system disorders.

If youre experiencing knee pain or limited knee mobility, alternative initial treatments might include anti-inflammatory medications, opioid pain medications, or physical therapy.

Alternative treatments include injections with platelet-rich plasma, hyaluronic acid, or steroids.

Surgical treatments may be tried as well, such as arthroscopy, subchondral bone drilling, or microfracture.

Stem cell therapy for knees is still very new and the FDA is proceeding with caution, but studies so far are very promising.

Many people have successfully avoided knee surgery and side effects are minimal for this particular body part.

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Stem Cell Therapy for Knees: Process, Efficacy, and Cost

How Much Do Stem Cell Treatments Really Cost? – The Niche

Stem cell treatments of various kinds are now widely available in America at more than 100 stem cell clinics offering non-FDA approved interventions for dozens of conditions.

American patients are often recruited on the Internet to travel around the US or to Mexico and other countries.

How much do these stem cell treatments cost?

American clinics charge approximately $10,000 per treatment. Notably, many patients gets more than one of these non-FDA approved treatments and must pay each time of course.

Some clinics have reduced prices to the $7,000-$8,000 range. Interestingly, costs for treatments outside of the US are usuallyfar higher than in the US,charging anywhere from $20,000 all the way up to $100,000. These clinics still generally have Americans as clientele. Whether inside or outside the US, insurance does not cover the costs of these potentially dangerous, unproven treatments.

Clinic profits are difficult to estimate and vary depending on the type of stem cells and other factors such as malpractice insurance cost. However, I have heard estimates of the clinics own costs being around $1,000-$2,000 per treatment, yielding a very high profit margin.

Part of the way that clinics cut corners to boost their profitsis by not following FDA regulations, putting patients in danger. Clinics typically do not do pre-clinical studies to get evidence of safety and efficacy before starting to sell their offerings to patients. Clinics also do not include sufficient follow up in the cost of the treatments. They do not publish their data to get peer review and feedback. They often do not have GMP compliant facilities or devices.

Patients themselves are frequently unable to afford these expensive, unproven stem cell treatments, and so they turn to their communities including churches, friends, and family to do fundraisers. For example, a coach reportedlyrecently raised $70,000 for a stem cell intervention fromhis community. Update: The non-FDA approved Stemedica stem cell intervention sold in Tijuana via partner Novastem reportedly costs $32,000-$40,000 a pop.

With the rapidly increasing number of clinics right here in the US, in theory one might imagine costs would go down due to competition. Its not clear if that is driving some clinics to lower prices.

Of course othercosts to patients going to dubious clinics, sometimes not considered, include the price of false hope, potential injury due to dangerous stem cell treatments, possibly being excluded from a real clinical trial in the future, and injury from deferring other arguably more real treatments.

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How Much Do Stem Cell Treatments Really Cost? - The Niche