Customized nanofabrics advance tissue regeneration
Scientists have replicated a cell’s natural design principles that determine skin elasticity or contractility of heart muscle to help regenerate human tissues and make nanometer-thick fabrics that are both strong and extremely elastic.
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (Harvard University) – 2 June 2010
Clinical trials and the common good
A hard call when you are not living in a dying man’s shoes, but this insight into the purpose of clinical trials is well, clinical.
I have been engaged in a Twitter chat about stem cells and clinical trials. The gist of the chat was questioning whether I thought stem cells worked and that all apparent treatments were bogus. Within this was the comment that it is a shame clinical trials take so long in the West as loads of people would like to participate in them.
I thought this article in Science Progress (Clinical trials and the common good) gave a reasonable overview – even though it is opinion and US-based. I would tend to agree with the commentary, but then I am not living in the shoes of a dying patient.
For the record
I do think stem cell treatments work – those that been proven to do so anyway. I was simply trying to raise awareness about the clinics offering bogus or, at best, unproven treatments. On the topic of clinical trials I reiterated that the treatments offered by the Dodgy Brother clinics were not clinical trials. They are as far as one can tell simply an unproven treatment: you rock up, hand over cash, and generally speaking get an injection of stem cells and go home. You are, in effect, worse than a lab rat as you are not part of any controlled experiment.
Jason
TechNyou
New Aussie biofuels project
An Australian Government-funded research project aims to advance the understanding of second generation biofuels.
Australian Life Scientist: 1 June 2010
Copper nanowires enable flexible displays and solar cells
US chemists have perfected a simple way to make tiny copper nanowires that are ideal for thin-film solar cells, flat-screen TVs and computers, and flexible displays.
Eurekalert: 1 June 2010
Where next for synthetic life: report and editorial
Craig Venter’s creation of a synthetic cell was a tour de force, but the fruits of synthetic biology are more likely to come by other means. And Venter’s perspective on the implications of what his lab created.
New Scientist: 29 May 2010
Editorial J. Craig Venter, Clyde Hutchinson anbd Hamilton Smith
Special Report. The meaning of artifical life. Page 6