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Friday, June 15, 2012
Exclusive: 'Lola Versus' One Horrible Dating Profile
Greta Gerwig's character in "Lola Versus" has to not only deal with the heartbreak of a called-off engagement, but to get back on her feet, she tries to navigate the treacherous waters of online dating. Sites like Match.com might help her find the right guy for her eventually, but that's only if she can avoid [...]
'Magical state' of embryonic stem cells may help overcome hurdles to therapeutics
ScienceDaily (June 13, 2012) ? With their potential to treat a wide range of diseases and uncover fundamental processes that lead to those diseases, embryonic stem (ES) cells hold great promise for biomedical science. A number of hurdles, both scientific and non-scientific, however, have precluded scientists from reaching the holy grail of using these special cells to treat heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases.
In a paper published June 13 in Nature, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report discovering that ES cells cycle in and out of a "magical state" in the early stages of embryo development, during which a battery of genes essential for cell potency (the ability of a generic cell to differentiate, or develop, into a cell with specialized functions) is activated. This unique condition, called totipotency, gives ES cells their unique ability to turn into any cell type in the body, thus making them attractive therapeutic targets.
"These findings," says senior author Samuel L. Pfaff, a professor in Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory, "give new insight into the network of genes important to the developmental potential of cells. We've identified a mechanism that resets embryonic stem cells to a more youthful state, where they are more plastic and therefore potentially more useful in therapeutics against disease, injury and aging."
ES cells are like silly putty that can be induced, under the right circumstances, to become specialized cells-for example, skin cells or pancreatic cells-in the body. In the initial stages of development, when an embryo contains as few as five to eight cells, the stem cells are totipotent and can develop into any cell type. After three to five days, the embryo develops into a ball of cells called a blastocyst. At this stage, the stem cells are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into almost any cell type. In order for cells to differentiate, specific genes within the cells must be turned on.
Pfaff and his colleagues performed RNA sequencing (a new technology derived from genome-sequencing to monitor what genes are active) on immature mouse egg cells, called oocytes, and two-cell-stage embryos to identify genes that are turned on just prior to and immediately following fertilization. Pfaff's team discovered a sequence of genes tied to this privileged state of totipotency and noticed that the genes were activated by retroviruses adjacent to the stem cells.
Nearly 8 percent of the human genome is made up of ancient relics of viral infections that occurred in our ancestors, which have been passed from generation to generation but are unable to produce infections. Pfaff and his collaborators found that cells have used some of these viruses as a tool to regulate the on-off switches for their own genes. "Evolution has said, 'We'll make lemonade out of lemons, and use these viruses to our advantage,'" Pfaff says. Using the remains of ancient viruses to turn on hundreds of genes at a specific moment of time in early embryo development gives cells the ability to turn into any type of tissue in the body.
From their observations, the Salk scientists say these viruses are very tightly controlled-they don't know why-and active only during a short window during embryonic development. The researchers identified ES cells in early embryogenesis and then further developed the embryos and cultured them in a laboratory dish. They found that a rare group of special ES cells activated the viral genes, distinguishing them from other ES cells in the dish. By using the retroviruses to their advantage, Pfaff says, these rare cells reverted to a more plastic, youthful state and thus had greater developmental potential.
Pfaff's team also discovered that nearly all ES cells cycle in and out of this privileged form, a feature of ES cells that has been underappreciated by the scientific community, says first author Todd S. Macfarlan, a former postdoctoral researcher in Pfaff's lab who recently accepted a faculty position at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "If this cycle is prevented from happening," he says, "the full range of cell potential seems to be limited."
It is too early to tell if this "magical state" is an opportune time to harvest ES cells for therapeutic purposes. But, Pfaff adds, by forcing cells into this privileged status, scientists might be able to identify genes to assist in expanding the types of tissue that can be produced.
"There's tremendous hype over the practical applications of embryonic stem cells in clinical situations," he says. "The struggle in labs throughout the world is that the smallest changes in environmental conditions could subtly and unpredictably have an effect on these cells. So, the more we know about the basic requirements needed for these cells to be able to generate a full range of tissue types, the better off we'll be." While the findings shed light on the basic biology of embryonic stem cells, Pfaff says there is still a "long way to go" in terms of their practical, clinical value.
Other researchers on the study were Wesley D. Gifford, Shawn Driscoll, Karen Lettieri, Dario Bonanomi, Amy Firth, and Oded Singer, from the Salk Institute; and Helen M. Rowe and Didier Trono of Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
The work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R37NS037116), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Marshall Heritage Foundation.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Salk Institute for Biological Studies, via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Todd S. Macfarlan, Wesley D. Gifford, Shawn Driscoll, Karen Lettieri, Helen M. Rowe, Dario Bonanomi, Amy Firth, Oded Singer, Didier Trono, Samuel L. Pfaff. Embryonic stem cell potency fluctuates with endogenous retrovirus activity. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11244
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Giuliana Rancic: I?m Nervous About Dropping My Baby
"[I'm most nervous] about dropping the baby," the mom-to-be, 37, told PEOPLE with a laugh at E!'s 2012 Upfront Event.
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RIM: Don't worry, BlackBerry 10 devices with keyboards are on their way
Those decrying the death of the BlackBerry keyboard can officially put their mourning on hold. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins addressed the matter during today's keynote -- but just in case the QWERTY-inclined weren't quite convinced by the sentiment, a spokesperson for the Canadian smartphone maker has brought some reinforcement, telling Phone Scoop that, while early BlackBerry 10 devices will be focused on the virtual, physical keyboards will also be making their way into the mobile OS's ecosystem. Now we can all type a collective sigh of relief.
RIM: Don't worry, BlackBerry 10 devices with keyboards are on their way originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 May 2012 14:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Idaho case shows midwife tension with hospitals
This April 23, 2012 photo shows The Baby Place, the birthing center in Meridian, Idaho, owned by Coleen Goodwin. Goodwin and her daughter, Jerusha Goodwin, had their licenses to practice midwifery suspended by the Idaho Board of Midwifery after three babies died. A former employee says the Goodwins' hostile relationships with doctors at a local hospital caused them to delay transporting mothers and babies during emergencies. (AP Photo/John Miller)
This April 23, 2012 photo shows The Baby Place, the birthing center in Meridian, Idaho, owned by Coleen Goodwin. Goodwin and her daughter, Jerusha Goodwin, had their licenses to practice midwifery suspended by the Idaho Board of Midwifery after three babies died. A former employee says the Goodwins' hostile relationships with doctors at a local hospital caused them to delay transporting mothers and babies during emergencies. (AP Photo/John Miller)
In this April 18, 2012 photo, Rachel Rabey and her children, 3-year-old son Owen, left, and 3-week-old daughter Hadleigh sit in Ann Morrison Park in Boise, Id. In 2010, Rabey, in the throes of a difficult birth, let paramedics drive past two nearby hospitals to a third facility in Boise, adding precious minutes to a journey that ended in the death of her newborn child. Conflict between doctors and the Baby Place, the midwifery business Rabey used, is said to have preceded the death of Rabey's child and two others. (AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman, Chris Butler) MANDATORY CREDIT
In this April 18, 2012 photo, Rachel Rabey holds her 3-week-old daughter Hadleigh at Ann Morrison Park in Boise, Idaho. In 2010, Rabey, in the throes of a difficult birth, let paramedics drive past two nearby hospitals to a third facility in Boise, adding precious minutes to a journey that ended in the death of her newborn child. Conflict between doctors and The Baby Place, the midwifery business Rabey used, is said to have preceded the death of Rabey's child and two others. (AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman, Chris Butler) MANDATORY CREDIT
MERIDIAN, Idaho (AP) ? Midwives and doctors are longtime rivals in the politics governing where women should give birth: Home or hospital.
But that tension, typically played out privately between pregnant women and their health care providers, was laid bare this month in the case of two Idaho midwives suspended by the state after three babies died during a 14-month period between 2010 and 2011.
The Baby Place in Meridian remains open, but its midwife owner, Coleen Goodwin, and her daughter, Jerusha Goodwin, are barred for now from practicing, in part over decisions allegedly influenced by their distrust and frayed relationships with doctors in hospitals where they felt mistreated or disrespected.
A former employee who trained at The Baby Place said hostility the Goodwins developed for doctors ultimately led to delays in emergency transports to hospitals.
Dani Kennedy told The Associated Press this antagonism caused them to make decisions against the best interests of mothers and babies, broadening the historic midwife-doctor divide to a wide gulf ? with tragic consequences.
Coleen Goodwin "did hesitate to transport, and that was really upsetting to me," said Kennedy, who trained at The Baby Place between 2007 and 2010. She left to open a practice in Hawaii, in part over these concerns.
"I wanted to work in an environment where I was able to make my own decisions about the care of my clients," she said.
Kennedy was interviewed by Idaho investigators who began scrutinizing the Goodwins after one of the three mothers who lost babies lodged a complaint with the state.
The Goodwins, whose website indicates they've helped 1,400 women give birth, declined interviews, including on Monday. A receptionist who answered the phone declined to say who is providing services to women following the Goodwins' March 23 suspensions.
St. Luke's Health System spokesman Ken Dey in Boise declined to comment specifically about the Goodwins' interactions with doctors at the hospital's facilities in Meridian or Boise.
"The message we want to get across is, we're not anti-midwife," Dey said. "Women have the option to choose where they have their babies. But we want to make sure all the safety regulations are in place."
OB/GYN Associates, the Idaho business that provides doctors to St. Luke's, didn't return phone calls seeking comment.
Though more than 99 percent of U.S. women give birth in hospitals, home births are increasing, accounting for 0.72 percent of deliveries in 2009, up from 0.56 percent in 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Significantly more Idaho women have a midwife-assisted birth or home birth than the national average. About 3.2 percent of the 92,000 total births between 2008 and 2011 were midwife-assisted, either at birthing centers or home birth.
Given that, remedying feuds like the one Kennedy said influenced the Goodwins' decision-making is growing more important, said Oregon State University professor Melissa Cheyney, a medical anthropologist and certified midwife.
Midwives often feel disrespected by the medical establishment, Cheyney said, while doctors' objections to out-of-hospital births may harden with every traumatic transport.
This comes on top of the already-existing divide between the two views of childbirth, with midwives emphasizing the safety of natural births in a familiar, comfortable setting, while the American Medical Association contends women are best off in a hospital, where life-saving technology is nearby if something goes awry.
"You're having this compulsory interaction between two value systems," Cheyney said. "A transport means these two systems have to come together ? and work together."
The Idaho Board of Midwifery probe that preceded the Goodwins' suspensions highlights numerous instances where investigators said that didn't happen.
In August 2011, Jerusha Goodwin waited 11 minutes to call paramedics after a baby was born "limp, unresponsive and pale," investigators wrote. The mother labored for more than 48 hours, prompting the Meridian Police Department to launch an ongoing criminal negligence investigation after the baby died.
"There were some questions about the length of labor," Deputy Chief Tracy Basterrechea told the AP.
On Oct. 11, 2010, a student midwife improperly cut an infant's umbilical cord, resulting in significant blood loss before the baby died. Jerusha Goodwin failed to provide medical personnel at St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center with relevant records, investigators wrote.
And on June 30, 2010, Coleen Goodwin delayed paramedics from entering The Baby Place for four minutes. When they were finally allowed in, Coleen Goodwin instructed them to drive past two nearby hospitals to St. Luke's in Boise, adding precious minutes to a journey that ended in the infant boy's death.
The mother, Rachel Rabey, said in an interview Coleen Goodwin whispered to her, "If we go to Meridian, they won't let me stay with you." Rabey said she was perplexed.
"I didn't care where I went, or if Coleen could stay with me," remembers Rabey, who recently had her third child, a girl, at St. Luke's in Boise. "All I cared about was getting to a hospital."
The Baby Place's web site does indicate negative feelings toward hospitals, with one employee writing in a testimonial to prospective clients that she began her midwife studies after a hospital birth where she felt "cheated out of the birth experience."
The Goodwins do have troubled relationships with doctors, said Alison Hunter Stucki, who planned her eighth child's delivery at The Baby Place in 2007 but was forced by complications to transfer to nearby St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center.
Stucki said her family witnessed hostile doctors force Coleen Goodwin from the delivery room.
Still, Stucki, an ardent Baby Place supporter, doesn't believe those experiences led Goodwin to endanger women or their babies.
"What I've experienced is nothing but professionalism," said Stucki, who gave birth to her ninth baby at The Baby Place in 2009. "I do believe the doctors are upset with her. Every baby she delivers in her birthing center is one baby they don't get."
In addition to the three babies that died, the Goodwins were hit by a separate 2010 lawsuit, filed by the parents of a baby that suffered permanent brain damage. Last week, the midwives agreed to pay $5 million to Adam and Victoria Nielson, the couple that sued.
The Nielson's attorney, Eric Rossman in Boise, said he pursued the case pro bono because he couldn't "in good conscience dismiss the case as long as they continue to practice in this facility."
Objective measures of Idaho's midwife-doctor relationships ? and their impacts on babies ? are difficult to come by, because the state doesn't keep comprehensive records of the outcomes of midwife-assisted births requiring hospital transports.
A private effort, the Idaho Perinatal Project run by St. Luke's, documented 138 instances between 2005 and 2011 where mothers who planned a home birth were transported to a hospital.
Though its records are also incomplete ? reporting is voluntary; there are no reports for 2012 ? they do point to the trauma that accompanies a planned out-of-hospital birth where something goes wrong. There were at least nine cases where infants died at or before arriving at the hospital and several instances of birth asphyxia, fractures, post-partum hemorrhage and unexpected twins.
For many doctors who don't see the cases of successful home births, these tense interactions add to already deep misgivings about midwifery.
"There were also 34 cases which had no infant outcome listed," said Dr. Scott Snyder, medical director of St. Luke's Newborn Intensive Care Units. "The data is not an overestimation of what we're seeing. It's an underestimation."
Snyder does believe standards set by Idaho's midwife licensing that took effect in 2010 have fostered communication between most midwives and doctors, despite problems investigators found at The Baby Place. Midwives now visit St. Luke's, attending some staff meetings. Doctors' appreciation for midwives' services has grown, he said.
Snyder is also hopeful when the Idaho Legislature reviews the state's midwife rules in 2014, when the existing licensing law expires, they'll make it mandatory for midwives and doctors to track outcomes of transfers.
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Dramatic storm clouds win photography prize
Caroline Morley, online picture researcher
(Image: Mitch Dobrowner, US, L'Iris d'Or, professional winner, Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards 2012)
This photo taken in Dundee, Texas, shows a supercell storm, which are formed when updrafts create convective rotating movements within a cloud. Supercells are associated with severe weather such as tornadoes, which are common in Texas and other southern US states and cause widespread damage.
Yesterday, fine art photographer Mitch Dobrowner was announced as the winner of the L'Iris d'Or for his series of dramatic black-and-white photos of weather taken in the plains of the American South.
Dobrowner's series of photos and the other winners and entrants of Sony World Photography Awards are on display at Somerset House in London until 20 May (entry ?7.50, concessions available).
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