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New Breast Implant Designed As Alternative To Silicone Gel
At a time when breast augmentation tops the list for U.S. cosmetic surgical procedures, women are still left choosing between either the safety of saline or the natural result of silicone gel. Plastic surgeons are now looking to offer the best features of both in the revolutionary new technology of the IDEAL IMPLANT® Saline-filled Breast Implant. A clinical trial is launching this month in select markets nationwide, giving some women the opportunity to be among the first to have this new implant.

Three Organizations Form Alliance To Address Global Malnutrition
"Three internationally known organizations based in St. Louis - the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children"s Hospital" - have entered into a partnership, known as the Global Harvest Alliance (GHA), which aims to "create inexpensive, nutritionally complete food to help the world"s hungry and undernourished," the AP/Google.com reports. Alliance researchers will focus on several of the most successful approaches used to combat malnutrition and attempt to further enrich foods already used to fight it. "In addition, the alliance aims to help testing and distribution of crops genetically modified to boost nutritional content. They hope to provide the crops cheaply to farmers to produce more nutritious foods," writes the AP/Google.com (Taylor, 7/29).
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New HIV Study Shows That Large Numbers Of Women And People Of Color Can Be Successfully Enrolled In U.S. HIV Clinical Studies
Data from a historic HIV study demonstrate that it is possible to recruit large numbers of women, African Americans and Latinos into U.S.-based HIV-1 treatment studies. The study, known as GRACE, is the largest study to date in treatment-experienced adult women with HIV-1 to examine gender and race differences in response to an HIV-1 therapy -- PREZISTA(R) (darunavir) coadministered with ritonavir as part of combination therapy. GRACE findings were presented at the 5th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment, and Prevention (IAS 2009) in Cape Town, South Africa.
Medical Devices

Stem Cell Surprise For Tissue Regeneration

Scientists working at the Carnegie Institution"s Department of Embryology, with colleagues, have overturned previous research that identified critical genes for making muscle stem cells. It turns out that the genes that make muscle stem cells in the embryo are surprisingly not needed in adult muscle stem cells to regenerate muscles after injury. The finding challenges the current course of research into muscular dystrophy, muscle injury, and regenerative medicine, which uses stem cells for healing tissues, and it favours using age-matched stem cells for therapy. The study is published in the June 25 advance on-line edition of Nature. Previous studies have shown that two genes Pax3 and Pax7, are essential for making the embryonic and neonatal muscle stem cells in the mouse. Lead researcher Christoph Lepper, a predoctoral fellow in Carnegie"s Chen-Ming Fan"s lab and a Johns Hopkins student, for the first time looked at these two genes in promoting stem cells at varying stages of muscle growth in live mice after birth. As Christoph explained: "The paired-box genes, Pax3 and Pax7 are involved in the development of the skeletal muscles. It is well established that both genes are needed to produce muscle stem cells in the embryo. A previous student, Alice Chen, studied how these genes are turned on in embryonic muscle stem cells (also published in Nature). I thought that if they are so important in the embryo, they must be important for adult muscle stem cells. Using genetic tricks, I was able to suppress both genes in the adult muscle stem cells. I was totally surprised to find that the muscle stem cells are normal without them." The researchers then looked at whether the same was true upon injury, after which the repair process requires muscle stem cells to make new muscles. For this, they injured the leg muscles between the knee and ankle. They were again surprised that these muscle stem cells, without the two key embryonic muscle stem cell genes, could generate muscles as well as normal muscle stem cells. They even performed a second round of injury and found that the stem cells were still active. The scientists then wondered when these genes become unnecessary for muscle stem cells to regenerate muscles. It turned out that these embryonic genes are important to muscle stem cell creation up to the first three weeks after birth. What makes the muscle stem cells different after three weeks? The scientist believe that these two embryonic muscle stem cell genes also tell the stem cells to become quiet as the organism matures. After that time is reached, they "hand over" their jobs to a different set of genes. The researchers suggest that since the adult muscle stem cells are only activated when injury occurs (by trauma or exercise), they use a new set of genes from those used during embryonic development, which proceeds without injury. The scientists are eager to find these adult muscle stem cell genes. "We are just beginning to learn the basics of stem cell biology, and there are many surprises," remarked Allan Spradling, director of Carnegie"s Department of Embryology. "This work illustrates the importance of carrying out basic research using animal models before rushing into the clinic with half-baked therapies." The research was funded by the Carnegie Institution, NIH, and the Riley Children"s Foundation. Listen to the scientist in his own words here. Christoph Lepper Carnegie Institution


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