Clearer Day For Gene Therapy: New Vector Carries Big Genes Linked To Inherited Blindness
For some inherited diseases, one barrier to successful gene therapy is that a commonly used vector (package into which the curative gene is placed) cannot accommodate the large size of the curative gene. However, a newly developed vector derived from the AAV5 form of adeno-associated virus has been used to successfully carry large genes into cells and to improve eye function in a mouse model of an inherited disease causing progressive loss of sight.

Menstrual Blood: A Valuable Source Of Multipotential Stem Cells?
Researchers suggest that stromal cells derived from menstrual blood may represent a potentially unlimited, ethically unencumbered, easily collectable and inexpensive source of stem cells for use in regenerative medicine. The study found that MenSCs are easily expandable to clinical relevance and express multipotent markers at both the molecular and cellular level. The abundance and plasticity of MenSCs suggest a potential role for MenSCs in regenerative transplantation therapies for many different organs and tissues.

Heart Derived Stem Cells Develop Into Heart Muscle
Researchers have succeeded in growing large numbers of stem cells from adult human hearts into new heart muscle cells. A breakthrough in stem cell research. Until now, it was necessary to use embryonic stem cells to make this happen.

Vitamin E May Help Alzheimer's Patients Live Longer, Study Suggests
People with Alzheimer's disease who take vitamin E appear to live longer than those who don't take vitamin E, according to new research. The study found people who took vitamin E, with or without a cholinesterase inhibitor, were 26 percent less likely to die than people who didn't take vitamin E.

How Big Is Your Brain? Its Size May Protect You From Memory Loss
From autopsies, researchers have long known that some people die with sharp minds and perfect memories, but their brains riddled with the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's disease. New research shows that those people have a larger part of the brain called the hippocampus.

How Dietary Restriction Slows Down Aging
Scientists have uncovered details about the mechanisms through which dietary restriction slows the aging process. Working in yeast cells, they have linked ribosomes, the protein-making factories in living cells, and Gcn4, a specialized protein that aids in the expression of genetic information, to the pathways related to dietary response and aging.

New Insights Into Cellular Death And The Aging Process
Protein researchers have clarified a complex safety mechanism that drives damaged cells to cell death when they can no longer be rescued. They identified on the one hand the part of Protein p66Shc that is responsible for a cell's suicide and they additionally ascertained the precise mechanism of its regulation. In order for the self-destruction to be initiated, several protein components must work together as a complex.

Stem Cells Offer Cartilage Repair Hope For Arthritis Sufferers
New research could offer hope that bone stem cells may be harnessed to repair the damaged cartilage that is one of the main symptoms of osteoarthritis. Scientists have successfully identified stem cells within articular cartilage of adults, which although it cannot become any cell in the body like full stem cells, has the ability to derive into chondrocytes - the cells that make up the body's cartilage -- in high enough numbers to make treatment a realistic possibility.

Protein Protects Embryonic Stem Cells' Versatility And Self-renewal
The protein REST protects the pluripotentiality and self-renewal of embryonic stem cells by suppressing a specific microRNA. The basic finding has implications for regenerative medicine. The new research builds on earlier work connecting the protein to medulloblastoma -- an aggressive childhood brain cancer.