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CHIMERIC STEM CELLS TO GROW ORGANS IN PIGS. "If all goes according to plan, professor Hiroshi Nagashima's genetically-engineered pigs will grow up with functional organs. A few of those body parts, though, will have the genetic makeup of a human. In essence, they'll be mostly swine, partly human." http://lnkd.in/bwV3f2q View in LinkedIn

STEM CELLS TRANSFORMED BY TWO FACTORS TO EMBRYO. "Whereas numerous gene activities have been found to be essential during early embryogenesis, little is known about the minimal conditions and factors that would be sufficient to instruct pluripotent cells to organize the embryo," but now two growth factors have been identified to direct an embryo. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6179/87.long View in LinkedIn

FOOD AS THE NEW TOBACCO. "The food industry should be regulated like the tobacco industry as obesity poses a greater global health risk than cigarettes, say international groups ... "We want to avoid a situation like the 1960s, where the tobacco industry were saying there is nothing wrong with cigarettes, they are good for our health, and 30 or 40 years later millions have died." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27446958 View in LinkedIn

SCIENTISTS GROW KIDNEY FROM STEM CELLS. "This is the first time anybody has managed to direct stem cells into the functional units of a kidney." Within the next three to five years, the artificial organs could be used to allow doctors to repair damaged kidneys within the body, rather than letting diseases develop before proceeding with a transplant." http://lnkd.in/bwvEaxQ View in LinkedIn

PROF TAKEBE MAKES HUMAN LIVER. "Liver cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and cultured with developmentally important progenitor cells self-organize into functional, three-dimensional liver buds ... when transplanted into mice, the buds connected with the host circulatory system." http://lnkd.in/bNxJ-sW View in LinkedIn

STEM CELLS TO GROW ORGANS. "The research will have dramatic impact on the future use of stem cells to better the human condition, providing a framework for future studies in the field of regenerative medicine aimed at constructing tissues and organs from populations of cultured pluripotent cells." http://lnkd.in/btJDsvy View in LinkedIn

ANOTHER FIRST: PROF TAKEBE IN JAPAN. "Previously, scientists have made solid organs using stem cells that are seeded onto some kind of scaffold ... Pluripotent stem cells ... were induced to become liver endoderm ... mixed with mesenchymal stem cells, which produce connective tissue, and a population of stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood that grow into the tissue that lines blood vessels." http://lnkd.in/bXqY4bv View in LinkedIn

AFTER A DETOUR into cloned meat in the context of food scandals, we now return to cloned stem cells, and their use in test tube organ generation, a truly disruptive technology with immense human impact. Now that the issue of embryonic origin is behind us, adult-derived stem cell organs are the start of personalized medicine. View in LinkedIn

CULTURED LUNGS FROM STEM CELLS. "Under a clear dome inside a bustling Tucson laboratory, whitish-gray human lungs attached to a ventilator rhythmically expand and contract. The goal is to “grow” patients’ own stem cells on a skeleton of a discarded donor organ that’s been cleaned of the donor’s living cells, and then to transplant it into the patient." http://lnkd.in/br2SWEK View in LinkedIn

THE CLONED MEAT ISSUE may be an exemplar of related food issues, including GMOs: more about provenance transparency and individual choices than actual safety; more about heavy-handed paternalism masquerading for financial control of large markets. In the context of food scandals and industrialized food, a hugely negative public reaction was inevitable. View in LinkedIn