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Managing diseases using stem cells

The strategy to treat Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes is to implant near the blood system the insulin producing beta cells derived from cord blood stem cells

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The implant for diabetes treatment is seen as a short term therapy

It will take another 15 years to find a treatment for Parkinson’s

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No to cancer treatment: “We don’t promote stem cells for cancer treatment. Stem cells can’t cure cancer,” said Colin McGuckin, Professor of Regenerative Medicine, Newcastle Centre for Cord Blood, U.K. Cell based diseases such Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and diabetes were seen as the first candidates for being cured using stem cell transplantation. There is a probability that it would be possible one day. But some scientists are beginning to think that it will take another 15 years for a treatment using stem cells for Parkinson’s to emerge.

“The brain is so complex. We don’t understand every phenomenon in the brain,” said Colin McGuckin, Professor of Regenerative Medicine at the Newcastle Centre for Cord Blood, Newcastle, U.K. while explaining why it will take such a long time.

And unlike other organs, such as the heart, where the stem cells can be easily introduced, getting the stem cells into the brain poses an additional challenge.

Treating organs

According to Prof. McGuckin, treating organs and not cell-based diseases, may become a reality some time in the future. Even in the case of organs, such as the heart, the central idea is not about curing but managing the disease.

And if it were to come true, it would mark a paradigm shift in the way stem cells are seen as a treatment/cure option for many diseases.

The Newcastle centre has been in the forefront of cord blood stem cell research. The Centre was the first in the world to produce cord blood-derived embryonic stem cells, liver and pancreatic-like tissues, and neural cells from cord blood stem cells. It has a public cord blood bank started seven years ago and has about 1,000 samples.

Beta cell implant

Even in the case of diabetes, Prof. McGuckin feels that cord blood stem cells may only be able to treat diabetes. They may not be able to cure it.

The strategy is to implant beta cells that produce insulin anywhere near the blood system and allow these to control blood sugar. The strategy is the same for both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

“The patient would get better [with the implant]. “Diet control is a must [even after the implant],” he stressed, “sensible diet is the best way to control diabetes. In both the cases, the implant is seen as a short term therapy.

The Newcastle centre is not looking at using cord blood stem cells for treating or curing diseases alone.

They have been using stem cells to produce human tissues to study the way certain diseases manifest and progress and look for possible ways of curing or treating them.

The team has already found that some genes expressed only at the embryonic stage, when growth is at its peak, reappear later in life. Ideally these genes should not be expressed after the foetal stage. But when they do appear, it results in cancerous growth.

Genes reactivated

“These genes are reactivated [at a later stage] by accident, Prof. McGuckin said. The Newcastle team found that some cancers of the skin, lung and prostate are caused this way. They have developed a family of drugs that can slow down such cancers.

“When we slow down cancer, we can use less of chemo and the chemo will have more time to act [on the cancer],” he said while explaining the advantages of slowing down cancer.

“Can’t cure cancer”

Apart from leukaemia, can stem cells be used to cure cancers? “Stem cells can’t cure cancer; they [stem cells] really don’t fight. The cancer cells would ignore stem cells as they don’t respect the environment,” said Prof. McGuckin emphatically. “We don’t promote stem cells for cancer [treatment].”

While some cancers are caused by faulty genes within the cells, some are switched on by other cells. Animal studies are currently underway to test the drugs that can address cancers caused by both, the faulty genes and by other cells.

Finding the causal factor, as in this case, is one of the uses of studying human tissues produced using stem cells. Using them for testing new molecules for treating diseases is another promising area.

When used prior to taking up animal trials, such human tissues can help reduce the number of animals used for testing. “Can’t [totally] replace animal testing overnight,” he stressed.

Multicentric trials

The team headed by Prof. McGuckin was in Chennai recently to explore the possibility of collaborating with institutions for undertaking joint multicentric global clinical trials using cord blood stem cells.

While using the patient’s bone marrow for treating his disease (autologous transplantation) is considered to be safe and numerous clinical trials are currently underway in India, Prof. McGuckin was critical of such trials.

“Even if it is an autologous [transplantation], we are taking the cells outside [the body] and there are chances of contamination. If it is a clinical trial, the researchers must work with other institutions abroad so that it is an international trial,” he underlined. “It is a risk if the trial is done in India [alone] and not internationally. Trials should be monitored.”

Control of pineapple mealy bug

Control of pineapple mealy bug Pineapple mealy bug is a major pest occurring wherever pineapple is grown.

It is root feeding insect, yet some colonies are found on the basal portion of leaves and fruits.

The pest sucks the sap and simultaneously injects saliva containing wilt virus, inflicting heavy losses.

The first symptoms of the disease appear in the roots which cease to grow, collapse and then rot. An apparently flourishing crop will show the symptoms earlier than a slow growing poor crop.

Quick wilt

This is known as quick wilt. The discolouration of leaves to reddish yellow and stunted growth affects the size and weight of fruits.

Honeydew secreted by mealy bugs attracts ants which cause the spread of this pest. The mealy bugs live in underground colonies with only a small proportion living on the leaves.

Shape of the bug

The bugs are oval in shape with distinct segmentation and covered with white filamentous waxy secretion. Each female bug lays around 300 eggs which hatch in a couple of days and the emerging nymphs start sucking the sap and develop into adults in about 50 days.

Pest management

Resistant varieties should be selected for propagation. Planting of healthy cuttings (slips) of pineapple is suggested. Destroy grasses and other monocot weeds which serve as alternative hosts for the pest.

Pruning and burning of the infested plant parts is very effective. Fumigate the infested suckers of pineapple. Dip the cuttings in chlorpyrifos, endosulfan or malathion emulsion before planting.

For the control of mealy bugs control of ants is a must. Hence application of carbaryl dust around the collar region of the plant is a necessity. A layer of mulch and irrigation should also be provided around the infested plant after treatment.

Spray 0.05 per cent of fenitrothion or fenthion or diazinon. Care should be taken to spray the base and sides of the plant.

“We instituted a modified open access policy”

“We instituted a modified open access policy”

Emilie Marcus (left), Editor-in-Chief and Lynne Herndon, Chief Executive Officer, of Cell Press. Emilie Marcus, Editor-in-Chief, and Lynne Herndon, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of Cell Press, the premium life sciences imprint of the science publishers, Elsevier, were in India recently to attend a lecture series by Nobel Laureate David Baltimore arranged by TnQ Books and Journals and Cell Press. They also used their time here to visit science institutions and interact with scientists and science students with the objective of enhancing the editorial presence of Cell Press in India, and encourage more Indian scientists to publish with them. Dr. Marcus, a PhD in neuroscience, who joined Cell Press in 1998, and Ms. Herndon, who became CEO of the company in 2001, spoke to Parvathi Menon about their impressions on science research in India, and on how Indian scientists could improve their publishing visibility in international science journals. Excerpts: What are the objectives of your trip to India? Marcus: For me, from the journal’s angle, it has been to establish a dialogue with the Indian scientific community. Cell Press as a whole gets very few submissions from India and I think overall we are fairly unaware of Indian science and scientists.

A number of years ago the situation was somewhat similar with respect to Cell Press and China. I started travelling to China regularly and meeting scientists.

To run a journal at the forefront you need to know the community and we invest a lot of editorial effort in this. So for India we are really trying to model ourselves on the success we have had in establishing an editorial presence in China and making the Chinese scientific community aware of Cell and the other Cell Press journals, how to submit papers and contact editors. For me, for the journal, this is one of the major goals of our trip, and it has certainly been achieved.

Herndon: I think it is not likely that Cell Press will have an office of its own here in India, so this is a way to make our presence known with a fair amount of impact. It was important to establish that as other companies and rival journals are setting up their own offices here. You have visited Delhi and now Bangalore. You have met scientists and visited science institutions. What are your initial impressions? Marcus: Well, it is very premature for me to say at this point. The National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) at every level is in my mind on par with the top ten per cent of U.S. science.

The experience at IISC was very different because I did not really have the opportunity to hear as much as I would have liked.

The overall impression I came away with there was that there was very much an issue of presentation: of how they are presenting their science to an audience, how they are selling their science and getting it across.

It is different from how U.S. scientists by and large would present their work, which is more on the question that is being asked and the process taken to ask it, as opposed to, for example “I work in x system on y protein” where there is no question. It therefore becomes hard to evaluate the significance of the work.

It is very tied into how it is presented. That would be my first premature impression, based on my very brief interactions.

The huge crowds for David Baltimore’s talks in various cities are evidence of the standing of science in India, and the serious following it has. Is this interest commensurate with the publication presence of sc ientists from India in scientific journals including the Cell Press publications? Marcus: I think the most direct determinant of the amount and quality of publication is research funding.

I don’t know the state of funding (in India). In this day and age science is a very expensive pursuit as high quality, cutting edge science is very technologically driven.

To be competitive on the international landscape is a very resource-driven equation I think.

Then there is the human resource element and intellectual capacity, for sure. But resources and education – what is good science and how to do it – are key features.

The increase in publications out of China really came with this dramatic increase in government research funding for science.

How does Cell Press view the rise of Open Access journals like the PLoS group? Herndon: Well, we instituted a modified open access policy ourselves, so that our content becomes free after 12 months.

Open Access seems to be gaining in popularity rather slowly. But I think that the start-up of the PLoS group was indeed the right thing at the right time. They took money, invested it in the right way and created some fairly good journals.

Ultimately, I think open access, if it were to become the major way the people got their literature, would put more pressure on us as publishers to deliver something additional that they cannot get from the versions that are housed with government.

Marcus: From an editorial perspective I am very opposed to an author-pays based model, whether in a newspaper or a scientific journal. If an author pays to be published it undermines the editorial independence of the journal. But doesn’t the author pay most often through institutional grants, not out of his or her pocket? Marcus: Well, from the journal’s perspective it doesn’t matter. The money can come from anywhere. In an author-pays model the more you publish, the more the journal makes. There is no incentive really to reject anything.

And I think you can see that pretty clearly now in the events that are happening in PLoS. PLoS Biology started out by having an editorial model based on a subscription-based business model, i.e., they were very selective, and the model was not financially sustainable.

Because if you have a journal with a high rejection rate you cannot sustain a model based on author’s fees. So in order to fund the editorial efforts of PloS Biology, they have had to launch PLoS One which is an online journal of now extremely low quality, minimally peer reviewed, for which authors pay 1,500 or 2,000 dollars to have their articles published.

In three months they have published 1,000 articles! The author is responsible for copy editing, pre-press and all of that.

So you end up with a lot of publications and a lot of revenue, with no real service to the scientific community.

There is a fairly widespread perception of bias against papers submitted by scientists from developing countries like India and from lesser known institutes shown by editors of leading international scientific journal s. How far is that perception true? Marcus: I don’t think it is true. I do know that it is a common perception. At least from the editorial processes of the Cell Press journals it is impossible for me to see how that kind of bias could come in. Herndon: As more people have the experience of publishing in top journals and mentor other people to also do the same, it will help to change the feeling about the system.

It seems like the feeling about the system and how it works is stronger than any evidence of bias itself.

Marcus: There was a young woman graduate student from a new lab who came up to me after my talk and was insistent on this issue of bias.

The only advice I could give her was “Don’t let that distract you. That will become a self-fulfilling prophecy — if you think there is a bias and therefore you don’t submit.

Do the best science you can do, talk to as many people as you can, and try and find out from the journals where your work is appropriate. Be realistic with yourself, lobby with the editors on why you think (your paper) is interesting and appropriate.”

Cell has a very high rejection rate. It only publishes 15 per cent of everything that gets submitted to it.

We’ve spent a lot of time and effort to set a consistent editorial standard, and work with authors to meet that standard, but we don’t have the option of lowering the bar.

Call, email the editor, and argue for a paper…David Baltimore has no problem thinking he can do that (laughs).

That is an acceptable and encouraged thing to do if you think we have missed the scientific point.

We are there and available and eager to get to know scientists better. I do think the referees, in this case the editors, are being as fair as they can and you just have to get in the game and play it.

दुनिया का पहला कुदरती े लप्तोप , लो -पॉवर टीवी

Biodegradable laptop, low-power TV With its power-hungry gadgets and thousands of delegates flying in from across the world, an enormous technology conference hardly seems an appropriate venue for championing green issues. But the group behind the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week is trying to demonstrate that technology may be about saving the environment rather than damaging it.

Ecological concerns

With ecological concerns playing an increasing part in the decisions made by shoppers, plenty of the 2,700 companies showing off their latest technologies seemed desperate to claim any sort of green credentials.

However, some companies at CES really were attempting to produce innovative technologies to reduce damage to the environment.

Later this year the Japanese manufacturer Fujitsu will launch a laptop in its home market which is moving away from plastic: instead, the Biblo PC has a case made partially from corn oil.

According to the company this means it is biodegradable, although scientists have questioned whether it will make any difference since the corn-based plastic is mixed with a petroleum-based material.

Consumer demand

Using corn reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during its creation by 15 per cent, but it does nothing to minimise the toxicity of the computer’s internal workings. Fujitsu says the development is a response to consumer demand.

Seen by many inside the technology industry as the green successor to flat-screen televisions, the Organic LED screen uses less power than normal TVs and delivers a better picture.

Full production

The tiny pockets of material inside the screen produce their own light. Although OLED screens are small due to the difficulty of making them, Korean manufacturer Samsung showed off a 32-inch model at CES and says it will go into full production by 2010. Japanese rival Sony has an 11-inch model on the market — but it costs $2,500 (GBP1,276).

The world’s largest phone maker Nokia is trying hard to improve the image of the mobile phone industry, which is responsible for a large portion of the mountain of gadgets discarded every year.

Renewable material

Its latest drive is to encourage people to buy a phone made from recycled and reused parts — the Nokia 3100 Evolve.

Built from renewable material and packing a charger which claims much better efficiency than some of its rivals, it is available in Europe. The company also showed off an Eco Sensor Phone, which is able to analyse the owner’s health, environmental changes and local weather patterns.

Part of Nokia’s approach is based on research which shows that huge amounts of energy get wasted because people do not switch off their handsets after charging.

Green plug

Although the Finnish company is working on its own technology to stop this, one of the big stories of the conference has been the Green Plug.

The device promises to help the environment by using software that lets your gadget talk to its power supply. If no more charge is needed, the plug will switch itself off.

Alternative energy sources were in limited evidence at CES this year, despite technologies using hydrogen and ethanol to create no-emissions power having been heavily promoted in the past. Shanghai-based Horizon, however, was displaying what it says will be some of the world’s first commercially available fuel cell products, including a generator which needs only water.

Pouring liquid into a container the size of a large can of drink is enough to cause a fuel cell reaction with a chemical compound inside to generate power. One canister is enough to power 10 laptops, and they should be available to buy this year.

पीपुल्स फ़ोन मार्केट में उत्तर गया.

People's phone unveiled

Spice iMedia unveiled its recent range of mobile products

First the people's car was launched and now the people's phone -- the world's cheapest -- has been unveiled by India conglomerate -- Spice iMedia. The mobile phone which is just like that of Tata's Nano car, combines both affordabilty and effective functioning.

The potential of the Indian mobile market was a hot topic at the 2008 Mobile World Congress.
One of the companies that attracted a lot of attention for its designs on that market, was the Indian conglomerate -- Spice iMedia. It has unveiled a groundbreaking product range of mobile that includes the world's cheapest phone, called the People's Phone, and a high end movie phone that plays mini-discs.

Elated with the recent launch of product range Paul Shoker -- CEO, Spice said, "The people's phone, if you like, is going to be priced at well under twenty dollars and we are looking to take that in terms of distribution around the world."

The people's phone coincidently also comes in a braille edition, that follows hotly on the heels of the people's car also from India. Commenting upon the same, Paul Shoker said that it is not a coincidence, however, at the end of the day what the company is looking at is the emerging market, especially in India. They are focusing on a mass market product. There are a lot of people in the nation who have not yet made a phone call through a mobile.

With its emphasis on affordability on one hand and high end functionality on the other, Spice is betting that it will be well placed to capitilize on the fast moving Indian mobile market.

विर्तुअल देस्तिनाशन गाइड

A virtual destination guide

In Tech Plus today, we're featuring a device that would help one to reach his destination

Now wanderlust is something that afflicts many of us, and especially if one's a globe trotter with a bad sense of direction, then we might have a device for those people that would be just apt for all the wandering they'd do.

Yes, Hewlett Packard or HP has just launched a GPS device - that's Global Positioning System. The device is set to make the process of navigating one's way to his destination a lot simpler.

Sightseeing in Paris? Don't know which street to hit after the Eiffel Tower? Carrying one of these could help - the HP iPAQ 312 Travel Companion (a portable GPS device), meant for the tech savvy people and for those, who want something more than a paper map in their pocket.

In other words, the HP iPAQ 312 Travel Companion, is a modern day navigation tool with a touch-screen interface, 3D maps, access to the net, bluetooth and entertainment. Priced at over Rs 16,000, the gadget is a no mean bargain.

PDAs have become a household name now but the Travel Companion, is all set to launch itself in the new must-have lists of all gizmo freaks. The Travel Companion will hit store shelves in India in the next ten days.

A wireless world

The television, the net or the music system, all simply leaves quite a mess of wires in one's home. Tech Plus today explores a world without cables

The television, the net or the music system, all simply leaves quite a mess of wires in one's home. In Tech Plus today, we explore a world without cables. We'll now take a look at how Wifi can make life easier for anyone around the house.

The Wireless house

Essentials:

Wireless Broadband Router
Price: Rs 4,000-6,000

Wireless Adapters for your computer
Price: As low as Rs 2,000

Well if one hates wires but still wants to keep everything connected and in control, there's indeed a way out to dispense with those wires. What one needs to start off with, is a wireless broadband router, which would be priced anything between Rs 4000 to 6000 depending on the range. One other very lucrative accessory on offer is a wireless adapter for the computer, that'll cost about Rs 2,000.

Again with the 'Skype Phone', one can enjoy the following advantages:

a) Make International calls at a fraction of the cost
b) A very accomodative price

A 'Skype Phone' is wireless and it allows you to make VOIP calls around the world, for a fraction of the price of ISD - Cost about Rs 8,000-9,000

Wireless Print Server's yet another amazing wireless device.

a) Print documents without printer cables
b) Price - About Rs 6,600

Internet Video Camera helps in the under mentioned ways:

a) Keeps an eye around the house from anywhere
b) Price - About Rs 19,900

If kids are around the house, then it's always good to keep an eye on them. A wireless Internet Video Camera allows to do that from the next room, the office or even from halfway across the world.

Through the activation of a 'Wireless Music Bridge', one can benefit in the below cited manner:

a) In streaming music wirelessly to the home entertainment system
b) Price - About Rs 5,990

What's life without entertainment, a wireless Music Bridge allows one to stream music from the net or the computer to one's own home music sytem, without having to run wires all over the house.

So at the end of the day when one is enabled to do quite a lot, that one wants to do without making a mess of the house, then this goes on to prove that a wireless world is truly quite a luxury to indulge in and absolutely painless.