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Hi All; Seems to be good news all around today - Margaret Monty's Parkinson's Digest WWW page is in the Top 5% of all Web sites. Following is Point Communication's review. There's also an article about developments in growing human tissue. The headline to the article referred to PD as a potential application, but it isn't specifically mentioned in the text. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Parkinson's Digest http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PD_Digest/ Call this the home base of a thousand or so members of a Parkinson's mailing list. Visitors can stop by to see some of the more human aspects of this disease, including poetry, humor, and best wishes for Attorney General Janet Reno, who was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. This isn't a place for medical advice, although users do swap stories and even conduct surveys to find out what medications other patients are taking. The occasional media article is thrown in, too. If you want to learn a lot about the mechanics of the disease itself, there are better sites for that. But if you want to talk about it with the people it affects most, this is the place. Review category: * Health & Medicine -- Illnesses & Disorders (c) 1996 Point Communications Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Science on brink of creating replacement human parts Copyright ) 1996 Nando.net Copyright ) 1996 The Associated Press BALTIMORE (Feb 10, 1996 8:35 p.m. EST) -- Using chemical and biological wizardry, scientists are learning to grow tissues to substitute for faulty human skin, heart valves and insulin-producing cells. "We believe someday we'll be able to grow an entire human heart," said Gail N. Naughton of Advanced Tissues Sciences Inc. In reports at a national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers said Saturday they are now able to seed human cells onto cloth-like molds and then nurture the cells until they grow into useful replacement parts. Naughton said her company, based in La Jolla, Calif., is using the cell nurturing technique to grow new, healthy and living heart valves. Naughton said the process begins with cardiac fibroblast cells that are placed into a culturing machine that imitates the environment of the heart. The cells are grown on a polymer scaffold that resembles cheese cloth. The cloth is molded into the leaf-like shape of a heart valve. "The cells think they are developing valves in a fetal heart," Naughton said. Because the fabricated valves are of natural tissue, there is no rejection when they are surgically implanted. "In sheep, there is no difference between the engineered tissue and natural heart valve," she said. Experiments are under way to make natural heart muscle that could be used to patch cardiac muscle damaged by heart attack, Naughton said. Similar technology has been used to produce artificial human skin that already is being used to close ulcer sores common in diabetic patients and to temporarily cover burn wounds. Also in development are engineered cartilage that could be used to replace joint parts damaged by injury or disease. Dr. Anthony Atala of Harvard Medical School said clinical trials may begin this year on the use of laboratory-engineered replacement parts for failed tissue within the urinary system. He said lab experiments in animals have shown it is possible to selectively transplant engineered cells that will grow into new tissue to replace damaged segments of the urethra, bladder and kidneys. Other researchers report that laboratory animals have been cured of diabetes with the injection of tiny polymer spheres that contain insulin-producing cells from pigs. Human experiments with the technology could start within months. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Janet Paterson - 48 - 7 - [log in to unmask] - Bermuda