anyone here (on this list) ever work in a lab?

medical?
research?
tissue culture?
biochemistry?

i'd like to know

.................................................................

i couldn't get to the british website--probably busy.
but, yesterday, i received a stem cell list digest...
with info on this topic of transformation of adult cells into stem cells,
possibly from the same source(?).

i would like to get my hannds on some of the latest journal papers,
not sure what has been published yet
(i'll go scan PubMed later today).

this story is interesting, in that the research came from a mistake,
the results were then repeated--however skeptically--by other labs.
now, we need to know the specific mechanism(s)...

this ties into immune system research...

tissue culture in this area is intriguing.
culture media requiring nutrients and growth factors
is a microcosm (in vitro) of a person (in vivo macrocosm).

cutting and pasting:
................................................................
[log in to unmask] wrote:

THE TIMES, Monday, January 15, 2001

Stem cell discovery reverses time

BY NIGEL HAWKES, HEALTH EDITOR

A researcher based in Britain claims to have achieved the biological
equivalent of reversing time. She says that she has perfected a method
of creating stem cells from adult cells, bypassing the ethical dilemma
of "therapeutic cloning" which recently divided the House of Commons.
Although Parliament voted in favour of research into therapeutic
cloning, many people remain uneasy about creating embryos solely for use
as a source of spare parts.

If Ilham Abuljadayel's claims are verified, treatments for a wide
variety of diseases such as leukaemia, Parkinson's disease and
Alzheimer's disease may be transformed. Not only does her method produce
a supply of healthy cells from the patient's own blood, but it generates
far more cells, more quickly, than alternative methods, and without
raising ethical dilemmas.

So unlikely does the claim seem to many biologists that she has found it
impossible to have it published in leading journals. But now, she says,
it has been replicated by one of the world's leading contract research
companies, Covance, and a company has been set up to market the idea.

Stem cells are the forerunners of the mature cells that make up the
organs of the body. They are "pluripotent", that is, they have within
them the capacity to develop into many different types of cell - brain,
muscle or blood, for example. The simplest source of a stem cell is a
developing embryo, but until now it has been thought impossible to
re-programme a fully developed adult cell and create a stem cell. That
is what Dr Abuljadayel says that she can do.

Born in Saudi Arabia and educated at King's College London, she went
back to her native country to work as an immunologist. She made her
discovery by accident. She was trying to kill white blood cells by using
a particular antibody when she forgot to add one ingredient to the
mixture.

The result was not dead cells, but cells that had been transformed into
stem cells. She calls the process retrodifferentiation: a reversal of
the normal process by which immature stem cells differentiate to become
mature adult cells.

Since the discovery she has worked to convince others that it is real.
She has used a laboratory in the department of physiology in Cambridge
and presented a seminar there before Christmas.

One leading scientist familiar with her work, Professor Adrian Newland
of the Royal London Hospital Medical School, said that he had repeated
her experiments with the same results.

"It's fascinating, but there could be other explanations for what is
going on," he said. "My own work suggests that it isn't possible to
reverse the process of differentiation, but I have repeated her work and
got similar results. I think more research needs to be done to eliminate
other possible explanations. As it stands, it could be amazing, or it
could be inconsequential."

The first clinical application of the technique could be in treating
leukaemia.

Dr Abuljadayel says that blood would be taken from the patient and
treated to create a population of new stem cells, a process that takes
only a few hours.

The patient would then be treated with drugs or radiation to destroy the
bone marrow cells and kill the cancer, before repopulating the bone
marrow with cells generated from the stem cells.

Dr Abuljadayel's husband, Ghazi Dhout, who is president of Tristem, the
Dublin-based company set up to exploit the discovery, says that a big
advantage is that a huge volume of cells can be generated.

He says that the first trials, on individual patients, might start in
the next six months.The company plans to seek partners among the big
drug and biotech companies to develop the business. The invention is
patented.

A cure for leukaemia may be possible with the discovery of an immune
cell that can seek and destroy infected cells. The development was
announced by researchers at London's Hammersmith Hospital and the
Imperial College of Medicine, who have spent six years investigating the
disease.

................................................................


Phil Tompkins wrote:
>
> According to a report in the Monday, January 15 2001, London
> Times, immunologist Dr. Ilham Abuljadayel, now working in a
> laboratory in the department of physiology in Cambridge, claims to
> have developed a method to create stem cells from adult white
> blood cells, thereby reversing the process by which immature stem
> cells differentiate to become mature adult cells.   See
> http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-68170,00.html.
>
> The process has been replicated by Professor Adrian Newland of
> the Royal London Hospital Medical School and by the contract
> research company Covance, and a company has been set up to
> market the idea.
>
> The first application to be developed based on this process will be
> a treatment for leukemia.
>
> The article seems to imply, but does not state specifically, that the
> stem cells created by the process are equivalent to the pluripotent
> stem cells which are found in the early stage embryo (blastocyst)
> and which may differentiate into most cells in the body. I am
> wondering whether the stem cells that were created are instead
> equivalent to the multipotent blood stem cells which differentiate
> into red and white blood cells.
>
> Phil Tompkins

--

                                 Ray Strand
                             Prairie Sky Design
 -----------------(   on  the Edge of the Prairie Abyss  )---------------
                          when  the  sky  is  clear
                            the ground is visible

                     49/dx PD 2 yrs/40? onset/retired

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process
he does not become a monster.
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
     -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche