Stem Cell Therapy: A Panacea or Perturbed Claim!

Stem cell therapy is considered the most promising of all medicines. Many patients with degenerative diseases as well as life-threatening diseases look forward with a pinnacle of hope to stem cell therapy. Is it panacea for all these diseases or merely perturbed claims!


But what actually is stem cell therapy? What are the stem cells?


In layman’s language, stem cells are a type of cells from which potentially all other types of body cell can be derived. They keep dividing and renewing themselves without becoming a specific cell type. Even though stem cells are unspecialized type of cells, they can give rise to all types of specialized cells for example cardiac cells, neural cells, kidney cells and so on which lose the capacity to divide or proliferate. The ‘adult stem cells’ have been identified that exists in our body tissues and circulate in blood. In labs, adult stem cells generally give rise to the type of cell from where they are derived. Now-a-days stem cells are isolated and enriched from tissues and grown in culture dishes in laboratories for the research purposes.

Source: grosovsky.wikispaces.umb.edu

However, initially young embryos were considered to be the sole source of stem cells, called “embryonic stem cells”. In fact an organism’s whole body has been derived from one stem cell that is zygote. After an egg, a female gamete, gets fertilized by a male gamete, a sperm, it forms a zygote which gives rise to the complete organism after several cell divisions and differentiation. The research leading to clinical use of embryonic stem cells has been banned in many countries due to obvious ethical concerns.

Source:www.abpischools.org.uk

The embryonic stem cells derived from early embryo possess the capacity to keep renewing themselves without becoming any specialized type of cells in laboratory as opposed to the adult stem cells, which lose this potential after few division cycles. This could be the limitation of the adult stem cells and may handicap their use in the clinical application.


Before going further to see how scientists found answers to these limitations, let’s see how did scientists thought that stem cells could potentially exit in the adult tissues as well? The concept of their existence in somatic tissue, other than gonads where male and female gametes are produced, came from the fact that to keep the body healthy and repair it from time to time one would require a pool of cells with potential to renew themselves and form different types of cells and tissues in body. The scientists started looking for ‘stem cells like cells’ in the blood and other tissues. Using different stem cells markers, now such cells have been identified in many tissues. In fact, the bone marrow derived stem cells or “hematopoietic stem cells” are the major source of adult stem cells that are actually being utilized to treat some blood disorders.

Source: stemcells.nih.gov

Indeed, unabated growth of cancer and remission of cancers after treatment has been identified to be due to the presence of “cancer stem cells” which are found to be hard to kill by radiotherapy or chemotherapy and bounce back after the treatment regimen is over.


Now let’s come back to our original question about stem cell therapy.


Addressing the road block for isolating adult stem cells and maintaining their “stem-ness” and to coax them to the lineage that one wants, Dr Yamanak, a Nobal Prize Winner of 2012 for physiology or Medicine, identified that normal somatic cells can be induced to become stem cells by modulating a set of at least four transcription factors. Transcription factors are specialized proteins that are formed in cells to regulate the expression of other proteins. These stem cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).


The iPS cells have ability to divide regularly and can be transformed into any cell type or tissue as regulated by specific set of transcription factors. This discovery removed both the limitations of adult stem cells and has obvious clinical implications. Scientists have successfully tried to coaxed iPS cells from one tissue to transform into another cell type. For example stem cells derived from skin fibroblasts were made into cardiomayocytes by regulating a set of key transcription factors.

Source: stemcells.uct.ac.za

The technological feasibility to make the iPS cells and potentially transform them into organ of choice is complete. Scientists now believe that it will be possible to use the patient’s cells to make iPS cells and transform them into specialized tissue as may be needed. This will also ensure that tissue thus formed may not be rejected by the patient’s immune system.


It appears that stem cell therapy is certainly not a perturbed dream but a potential cure for many diseases and will be a paradigm shift, if not already, in the health care sector.

Does our immunity suffer from forgetfulness?

While studying immunology in college, we had learned that our immune cells, upon infection and subsequent successful immune response create memory cells that persist in the body and through a highly selective process get mature and protect our body from future infections of same pathogen. This is also a basis of vaccination against various illnesses caused by different pathogens.

The common sense says that if there is memory it aught to suffer from forgetfulness. The forgetfulness of immune system came to my mind on several occasions. Whenever, after spending a few years at a stretch in the western countries where high levels of hygiene is practiced, we visit our natives in the India, our first worry is to not consume unfiltered water. Most of the energy, and money too, goes in amassing bottled or filtered water. If it’s not available in the local market, which is the usual scenario because no one buys them there and thus vendors do not sell them, then next best thing is to boil the hand-pump water, tap water being rarity in villages even in twenty first century India.

But if by mistake or in desperation, because water is necessary to live, we consume the normal water, most of our energy, and money too, goes in amassing medicine to combat the aftermath i.e. loose motion or diarrhoea.

What happens that the water we had grown up drinking becomes source of all trouble?

Image source: bigstock.com

The forgetfulness of immune system came to my mind again when a group of scientists recently suggested that in the young children the repeated cause of illness could be that their immune system is forgetful.

World health organization (WHO) says that worldwide one third of total infant mortality is due to infectious diseases! This happens besides the strong vaccination programs being run by the government’s public health department.

As I recalled earlier about memory immune cells created during the immune response or vaccination that get mature by a highly selective process, they also require presence of pathogenic antigen for this selection process. It turns out that in children memory rapidly vanishes in the absence of booster dose of vaccine. The non-compliance of vaccination becomes fatal for these children.

The answer to forgetfulness of adult immune system could be that when we are away in societies where the hygiene level is high, our memory immune cells do not get to see the antigens and they tend to get negatively selected out, a kind of 'out of sight out of mind' thing. Having no specific memory immune cells, these same pathogen becomes “new” and body responds to it as if it is seeing them for the ‘first time’.

Ideally, once a vaccine shot given at birth should be sufficient for long lasting or say life-long protection from disease, but no such vaccine exists. And we do need to follow-up for the vaccination shots to boost-up the child’s immune system and keep it alert and ‘mindful’.

In case of adults, it is probably because immune system is a dynamic process and is shaped by the environment we live in. It's job is to protect us from the pathogens lurking in our surrounding. If, for some reason, we fail to interact with the ‘environment’ our immune memory cells raised against pathogens in that environment get negatively selected out from our body and our immunity become forgetful of those antigens.

Google's Nanobots to diagnose fetal disease early

The search engine and internet giant Google is trying to host a search engine in our bodies by using a magnet based nanopills, which will help diagnose the various disease including cancer and heart diseases. These nanopills will send the signals to the sensors located outside the body which then translate the signals into diagnostic indicators. 

Source: bigthink.com

The pills will be able to identify discrete changes in the cellular biochemistry which will be identified as an early warning to diagnose the diseases such as cancer. This could be a path breaking tool to catch the fetal disease like cancer early.... read more.....  Here

Goodness of Fruits & Vegetables For Health

Ever since the discovery of 'FIRE' our food habit has evolved in such a way that we cook our meals, sometimes char it or overcook it. Overcooking modifies certain food constituents, especially those present in the meat and protienacious foods, and make them toxic. 

The proteins in our food contain amines and aromatic compounds which when heated excessively get converted into various toxic compounds including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines, and nitrosamines. A well known polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is benzopyrene which is a potential carcinogen. These chemicals are toxic to cells and know to cause damage DNA, the genetic material in our body cells.

The damage to DNA results in various mutations and DNA breaks which may cause cells death or excessive and unregulated cell growth forming tumors. Both of these condition are deleterious to human body.

Further, these chemicals also produce excessive reactive free radicals with induce inflammation in our bodies during damage to the cells and creating a inflammatory condition in body. Inflammation is bad and a starting point to many diseases including aging-related diseases, cardiovascular diseases, various types of cancer and many more. 

Therefore, overcooking and deep frying of food items should be avoided for better benefits of the food that we consume.

Image Source: everydaylife. globalpost. com

In addition including more fruits and vegetables in our diet is always a better option to minimize the risks of developing these complications and diseases. It has been found that some of the fruits and vegetables which include deep colored berries such as blueberries and blackberries, other fruits like cherries, guava, dates, resins, red grapes, apricots, cantaloupe; and vegetables such as green pepper, Olive, Mushrooms, Tomato, Radish, Chicory, cucumber, Spinach, Broccoli and sweet potato contain an potential anti-inflammatory compound salicylic acid. 

Salicylic acid is a know inhibitor of an enzyme in our body called cycloxygenase-2 or Cox-2. Cox-2 produces a pro-inflammatory compound called  prostaglandins which are known to induced and promote inflammation and excessive proliferation of our body cells. Thus, presence of salicylic acid in our diet will suppress the activation of Cox-2 and thereby prevent any onslaught of inflammation on our body.

The take home message is to avoid overcooked meal so that any exposure to toxic chemicals that may damage DNA and thus our health may be prevent; and include appropriate amount of fruits and vegetables in diet so that natural anti-inflammatory compounds present in them could protect the body from any onslaught of oxidants and inflammatory mediators and promote health.

Artificial Sweeteners Cause Metabolic Disorders

For the diabetics, obese and weight conscious individuals artificial sweeteners (AS) are considered safe choice to help regulate the blood glucose level and manage body weight. Use of AS considered good choice to sweeten the drinks and deserts as opposed to the common table sugar mostly due to low amount or lack of calorie in them.  Because of the same reason many food and beverage companies market their “calorie free” “Lite” and “diet” drinks and food items to cater the need of various “calorie conscious” customers.

Image curtsy: huntnewsnu.com

Food and drug administration (FDA) of USA identifies some of these sweeteners as “high-intensity sweeteners” and regulates them as food additive, meaning that they must undergo premarket review and approval by FDA before it can be used in food.  Accordingly nearly six artificial sweeteners have been approved by FDA as food additives in the USA. These are saccharin, aspartame, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), sucralose, neotame, and advantame. The agency considers these FDA approved AS safe for the general population in certain conditions of use¹.  

The use of AS has become more common in general population due to reported ill effects of common sugar including sudden increase in blood sugar, tooth decay, weight gain, obesity, and an array of life style diseases such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and dementia among others. The increased use of AS has propelled the scientists to examine the long-term effects of AS on humans.

In a recent study scientists have observed that use of AS may lead to the development of glucose intolerance (GI). GI is a hyperglycaemic state that is linked to insulin resistance and generally occurs in pre-diabetic individuals. AS induced glucose intolerance, scientists observed, develops due to alteration in the composition and function of the microorganism or microbiota that live in our intestine.

The group of scientists led by Jotham Suez² found that when mice were fed AS, they showed altered GI and also their intestinal microbiota composition changed from that of normal mice not fed AS. Further, when the intestinal microbiota from AS consuming mice was transferred to germ- free mice they also showed altered GI and other metabolic defects. These defective metabolisms were abrogated by the use of antibiotics which is known to kill the intestinal bacteria suggesting that the effects were caused due to the changed intestinal microbiota. 

When scientists compared the bacterial population from glucose-fed verses AS-fed mice by genetic analysis, they found that not only the composition, but the functions of the bacteria also had changed in AS-fed mice. The bacteria from AS-fed mice intestine showed increased carbohydrate degrading mechanisms. This means that they can degrade even complex carbohydrates easily leading to elevated glucose levels that may contribute to GI.

The scientists also examined and compared the intestinal microbiota of AS consuming individuals with those who did not consume AS and found that AS consuming people had different bacterial population in their intestine which correlated with markers of obesity and GI. When they fed AS to the volunteers, they showed increased blood glucose levels as well as altered intestinal bacteria in just four days.

These scientific evidences clearly indicate that consumption of AS is associated with increased GI, risk of obesity related metabolic disorders and these changes are not direct but by altering the bacterial community in the intestine. Thus, a caution regarding the excessive use of AS as food additive needs reassessment and in-depth study before being approved for use by general population

References:

1. http://www.fda.gov/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/FoodAdditivesIngredients/ucm397716.htm

2. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, Zilberman-Schapira G, Thaiss CA, Maza O, Israeli D, Zmora N, Gilad S, Weinberger A, Kuperman Y, Harmelin A, Kolodkin-Gal I, Shapiro H, Halpern Z, Segal E, Elinav E. Nature. 2014 Sep 17. doi: 10.1038/nature13793

Diet and Disease

What we eat affects how we live - disease free or with diseases. Several of the scientific research and clinical & epidemiological studies warn us about the ill effects of artificial, over-cooked, fried and so called fast food. Yet rarely such information impact our food choices or eating habit.

The choices we make with what to fill our platter does not depend on a logical and well thought out decision making process. Most of the times immediate urge to sooth taste buds leads to bad choices. On other occasions real limitations of availability of healthy options affects our choices. In any case we end up filling our tummies with so called junk food, which we know will harm us.

Image curtsy: thehealthsite .com

We all know that eating green vegetables, colorful, seasonal and fresh fruits, and home prepared healthy meals are good choices. But most of us opt for calorie loaded, frozen, preservative added and overcooked meals on some pretext. We spend more or less equal amount of time and money in procuring either types of food items but if only a little thinking about long-term effects of these choices is practiced, we can save ourselves from many health problems. 

Scientific studies indicate that junk food items affect and alter physiology of our body cells drastically and propel them towards a state where only disease can develop. The high calorie besides being stored in body as increased weight, also fires the mitochondria excessively which leaks many highly reactive molecules called free radicals that destroy the basic fabric of our cells, the proteins, DNA and other molecules. These damages are initially small and do not cause major problems. With time, however, they accumulate and till then it becomes too late and managing the after effect becomes difficult, costly and some times irreversible. 

Image curtsy: tdmu.edu.ua

The plants from where we derive most of our food supply including cereals, vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices possess many molecules, which evolved simultaneously with our own evolution. The prehistoric day-to-day interaction and co-evolution has resulted in a perfect bio-compatibility  of these molecules with our body cells and their functions. It provide certain definite advantages compared to drastically modified artificial meals which contain many synthetic chemicals.

The plant derived bio-molecules have been shown to be effective in preventing and/or treating a number of pathological conditions. For example, studies show that Lycopene, a molecule from tomato, could prevent heart diseases, strokes and even prostrate cancer in humans.  The examples of Turmeric derived curcumin, ginger, garlic,  and some other spices have filled the scientific literature. In all societies and cultures such examples are in plenty, and we just need to take note of them and make conscious decisions regarding what we bring to our plates.

image curtsy: greennewyorkersmeetup.blogspot. in

We must realize that wrong choices and modern food habit is creating consistent problems for our own health leading to increased incidence of metabolic diseases including obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and Alzheimer disease among others. An intelligent choice made once creates opportunity for repeat of similar choices, and same is true if one makes bad choices.

Therefore, our goal must be to eat healthy, live healthy and have a long and disease free life. This indeed is a life long investment to have a graceful aging without major disease and of course bitter pills. The choice is ours and so does the outcome :)

Why its still tough to do science in India

The scenario has certainly changed and improved since I was a graduate student, there is no doubt about it. But when I put things in perspective with other countries where our young minds migrate to advance their careers in science, I find a stark backwardness the way we do it here. It also explains why those young scientists, in most cases, do not want to return even when our government is offering lots of doles to attract them back. 

One of the main reasons for lagging behind is consistent lack in the supply of some of the basic items required to conduct the experiments. Take for example, if a student needs an antibody to quickly scan whether his hypothesis stand true or not, he needs to wait for at least one month after placing the order. Lack of timely availability of key materials delays things and increases the frustration and disenchantment of students. 

Now lets see why does this delay occur? The delay in procuring these basic items, in most cases, is because we do not manufacture these research materials here locally and for most of these items we are dependent upon other advanced countries. That is one the many reasons why things get delayed. I do agree that some of the items do get delivered in a couple of weeks time, but most of the items do not.

Another factor is ordering process in which the order itself takes two to three weeks or more to be processed due to apathy of our colleagues in the university offices. Either the said apathy is due not lack of understanding why and how importantly a particular item is needed, or its due to a deep rooted inertia and slow pace of working on files or deliberate attempt not to expedite the process. There may be many other reasons locally at other places, all of which may not be compressed in one blog. And these things cause further unnecessarily delay.

I have noticed another serious thing in research material procurement, and that is related with how much we pay for these items? It is exorbitant double or triple amount of money that we pay as compared to their price in those countries from where the items are procured.The reasons why we pay that much includes shipping charges, which is some times much more than the cost of the material shipped, import duty, taxes and profit margin of the vendor procuring the material for the scientist. 

No doubt that Government is trying to enhance the funding in science education and research and this investment is indeed encouraging and appreciable yet the pace and quality of research has not improved as expected. There are many bottlenecks which create hurdle in realizing the true potential of our young minds.

What needs to be done in this regard? I think to increase the pace and quality of our scientific research we must manufacture and create the material at home. We must encourage entrepreneurship so that investment can come in establishing companies to generate and make available research items such as antibodies, cell culture products, cells, and related consumables needed in a lab. For this government would be required to make clear policy of promoting such activity. In doing so proper guidelines of international standard are must so that we can assure the quality of the products. The country like China has done so much in so little time in this area, and it is showing in the quality of research and the quality and quantity of research papers that they publish in international journals. We must not lag behind and should take it with utmost urgency or we may miss the flight.

Next, we must create labs and lab products of international quality, train and hire our youths in these labs, create an efficient scientific work culture, make the science more lucrative as a career option so that a science graduate gets handsome payment and job option when he steps out with a degree. This will ensure that our youth do not look to go abroad to further their career in science and we loose them for ever.

I do not know, at this time, who will take these steps and many other things necessary to take India to another level of scientific prudence and productivity for which we have been known. But, as a scientist and educator we must discuss and deliberate at various fora, so that these words reach right ears. Indeed, we have had a rich scientific culture which needed to be revived and advanced. At least 

Scientific Innovations of Next Decade

As humans we always get enthralled by future predictions. Many seers, astrologers, tarot readers and fortune tellers live by their profession as many queue in front of them willing to know what is in store for them.  We all know Nostradamus and have read about his “prophecies” about various global events, or at least their correlations. But that may not hold true when it comes to predicting what will be discovered or invented scientifically, say in next decade, which will change how we live and many things will become a thing of past.

Just think of it, could our parents tell, when they were kid, that they would speak to a person thousands of miles away looking at them at the same time. The communication technology has innovated and developed so fast that it was indeed unimaginable just a decade or so back.

The medical field has also advanced dramatically, especially in the last couple of decade that many fatal diseases are now manageable, if not treatable. At least we now know enough that we can prevent many of them.

So how can we predict what would be innovated or discovered in science in next decade?

Image source:denovodrugs.com

Thomson Reuters have come up with a list of ten top innovations of the next decade based upon the analysis of patents and scientific data. Based upon the citation ranking and global patent data they identified ten emerging scientific front and top ten patent fields. From this data they identified ‘hot spots’ of innovation that will breakthrough of tomorrow.

1. According to their prediction the solar energy would become the main source of energy on earth as technology of harvesting sun light and converting it to usable energy by masses will improve significantly.

2. Higgs Boson project has been in much discussion lately in general public as well as in scientific community. In next decade scientists will be able to apply this technology for teleporting thing at the speed of light.

What’s teleporting? It may sound really futuristic, but it is simple scan of your body to the subatomic level and then sending the scanned data to where you want to be transported. Once transported to the chosen destination, a computer would convert that data and build you back, that too in a fraction of a second. A life size 3-D hologram is already in practice which will make teleporting possible.

3. Next innovation would be digitization of everything everywhere as the world will be wired and connected digitally. This would be possible by improvements in semiconductors, cell free networks and 5G technology. However, the gap in rich and poor countries may create a significant hurdle for this to happen. In many countries even 2G is not accessible while other advanced countries already started talking of 5G.

4. The study suggests that use of RNA technology will advance enough in next decade to create a platform for diagnosis and treatment of diseases like diabetes. 

5. Genome mapping and screening would be possible at birth with advancement in nanotechnology and data analysis tools. 

6. The advancement in the treatment of cancer would lead to more efficient and less toxic chemotherapy. 

7. The decline in the mental ability of people due to various reasons i.e. dementia, would get reduced significantly.

8. The eco-friendly and green technology advancement would lead to biodegradable cellulose-based packaging in place of petrolium-based packaging  .

9. Today the air transportation is mostly fuel-based but in next decade it may become possible that electric based air transportation will rule the airspace.

10. According to food and agriculture organization (FAO) more than 800 million that is one in eight people in the world are suffering from chronic hunger. It is predicted that the food shortage may become the thing of past in next one decade. The advancement in biotechnology and agricultural research would enhance the food production to meet the global need. However, will it really reach to every mouth and stomach will remain to be seen.

So, cross your finger and look ahead for a bright horizon which is as far as a decade from now and many things that we can only dream of today will become part of our routine…. Amen!!

To Save Mother Nature, Now is the time!

Self-motivation for exercise

Disclaimer: The writer is not an expert in the physiotherapy and training exercise. Reader must consult their physician or physiotherapist before starting any new physical exercise.

At the outset let us except that all the motivational images, photos and pictures that are put in public domain to promote adoption of a routine for healthy living are extremely glossy. They, although attract momentarily but fail to motivate in long run.  Even if one gets motivated and begins to exercise, in a few days s/he may revert to old routine. 

This happens mostly because we are not able to associate ourselves with the image of a perfectly shaped model, male or female. They have perfect abs, biceps and butts, which as a common man we aspire but hardly achieve it. This results in disillusion from the newly adopted exercise regimen.

Source: www.dumblittleman.com

These images do not show the harsh reality of exercise and present only pleasing and attractive images which are far removed from the day to day rigor of the exercise routine. Therefore, in most cases they do not actually motivate, rather they excite the misplaced and misinformed commitment, leading to failure.

Instead, an image of a new and motivated entrant who does not have as fit body as those models may motivate much better.

Just imagine a picture of an individual who is little overweight. S/He is exercising in the gym or a ground, sweating, almost out of breath but still managing to reach his target. Now imaging a satisfaction of completing her/his routine successfully on his face and the pleasure of doing it one more day, don’t we think this satisfaction will bring her/him back to the gym/ground again tomorrow. I do. This I can say with certainty from my own experience.

Source: www.six3nine.com/blogs

The image of real thing i.e. reality of sweating, tiring, struggling to catch the next breath, exercise-related pains and aches etc. may put us close to what we feel when we start a new exercise routine. And chance of sticking to this new regimen may increase because the motivating image had these elements and when we committed to the new exercise routine, we knew it well that these things are part of it.  

On the contrary, an image of well sculptured body of models worked out with the help of professionals and in guidance of dietitian will bring guaranteed dissatisfaction after few days, leading to disillusion form exercise routine. Not only that, the chance of reverting to exercise also gets a severe blow.

Now let me share some personal experiences which helps me stay motivated as far as sticking to the exercise routing is concerned:

1. Even if it is for only few (say ten) minutes, make it a point to go to the ground or gym and start warm up. I guarantee that by the end of warm up routine you have already entered an active exercise routine and ten minutes will easily become 30 minute or even more.

2. Many a times I, and others too, have felt that once in the active phase of exercise, quitting becomes tough. It’s the same feeling that we have while getting up early morning, we want to get 5 minutes of additional sleep, which sometimes extends to an hour long sojourn. It has both positive and negative consequence.

Positive side of this is that you feel motivated to complete the routing and that gives satisfaction, however sometimes we end up overdoing the routine giving in negative result. We need to be careful and do every routine in a planned and targeted manner.

3. Once you enter the active phase, do not strain yourself and overdo it because that may result in pains and aches which will become excuse for not doing it the next day.

4. Try to develop a habit for going to the gym daily, even on holidays. One day of excuse may extend to another day, to one week and finally breaking of the routine altogether. 

5. While following an exercise routine, our diet should be balanced including appropriate amount of proteins, carbs, fat and minerals. We cannot expect to decrease the weight and find the good shape with either only a glass of juice or an energy rich meal after an active exercise routine, diet must be supplemented with balanced nutrients. Therefore, help of a dietitian or self-learning from many websites available on the internet may be helpful.

Reversal of aging by young blood transfusion

Can an old person regain new strength and repair his depreciated organs such as heart and skeletal muscles, some brain cells and neurons by getting a blood transfusion from a younger person?

Source: agingscience.com

It has been earnest desire of the man kind to either live for-ever and at least delay the aging process so that one can remain youthful.

Scientists have been doing research to understand the aging process and many experiments have returned encouraging results. For example, we now know that there is a terminal segment in our DNA, called telomere which plays important role in how many times a cell will divide. With every cell division the length of telomere recedes resulting in loss of telomere length. Such is our DNA replication process which eventually leads to cellular senescence and aging.

Source: telomerance.net

Recently, the stem cell research has open a vast horizon of possibilities in terms of defying aging, replacing damaged organs and scientists have understood what are the factors needed to transform a stem cells into different body organ.

Now, this new finding has come where the researchers have provided a clue to the first question I put in the beginning. Working on the problem raised in 1950s by Dr. Clive M. McCay of Cornell University that why after parabiosis, a process of connecting two individuals by their blood vessels, of an old and a young mice, the older mice got rejuvenated by the plasma of the younger mice, two unrelated groups of scientists have claimed that blood transfusions from younger individuals may make an older individual young, repair their hearts and may cure an aged brain.

Source: neurorexia.com

The answer lies in the availability of some proteins in higher amount in the blood of young person which appears to stimulate the stem cells leading to the formation of new and young tissue in old person.

We all have stem cells in our body and they help us maintain our body homeostasis, vigour and adulthood. As we age, the factors which direct and guide the stem cells to repair the damaged organs and form new ones decrease leading to aging and aging-related diseases.

The scientists have identified some of the factors in blood plasma that may turn the clock for older individual. For example, the team scientists led by Dr. Amy J. Wagers of Harvard University identified a protein called GDF11 in young blood plasma that may stimulate the stem cells in old individual leading to the formation of new heart tissue.

Clinically, it means that this protein can be used a medicine to rejuvenate the damaged heart of an aged person after an attack. It may also be used as a supplement for older people to strengthen their heart and reduced the risk of heart diseases.

The same may be possible in case of Alzheimer's disease and many other neurodegenerative conditions that results due to aging.

After this path-breaking discovery, it is necessary to understand the mechanism how different factors guide the stem cells to convert into a specific cell of a specific organ. Such understanding should result in devising some cocktail drug which affects majority of body organs than taking individual drug to repair specific organ.

In science, every new discovery has potential harmful side too. In this case as well, there are concerns. The stem cell stimulation may also result in cancerous tissue which will be required to be negated for beneficial use.   Also that these experiments have been performed on mice and it will take time to try and test if these results hold true in humans.

Nonetheless, ‘hope is a great thing’. I am going close my eyes and think of possibilities of playing soccer with my great grand-children, why not!!

Further readings:

1.      http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3569.html

2.      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6184/630

Communicating Science to a Common Man

On my way to the airport recently I was enjoying the view outside and trying to understand the growth model in this part of the country which boasts the presence of greenery along with the upcoming multistory buildings. Suddenly, car driver’s voice broke the stream of my thought. He inquired who we were going to receive and what was the purpose of his visit. I was not surprised by his inquisitiveness and accepted this invitation to initiate the conversation. In this I saw an opportunity to interact with a common person, who probably has no science background, in his language and see if he could appreciate what the scientists do.

We were headed to the airport to receive our guest speaker who was going to deliver an award lecture on the role of biotechnology in insuring food security for steeply growing population of our country as well as that of the world as a whole.

It has always been difficult task for scientists to communicate what they do in their labs to the general public. Thus, to address his inquiry appropriately, I had to think for few seconds before replying. I thought that if I told him that the scientists around the world are trying to use the tools of biotechnology and information available from genomics and proteomics to enhance stress tolerating capacity and increase the productivity of our crops, will he be able to comprehend. Definitely not, and our conversation would not survive even for a minute.

This dilemma has been the root source of miscommunication between what scientists do in their laboratories and how common people perceive that. This communication gap has complicated the situation and has resulted in many incidences of friction and non-acceptance of many new technologies which are directly associated with addressing prime problems that our societies are facing. However, I took the challenge and tried to make it interactive and interesting for him.

I asked him, if our population kept increasing and the land for farming kept decreasing due to various construction activities and other factors such as drought, salinity, wetlands; how he thinks we are going to feed these many people.

Image curtsy: www.jayhanson.us

He seemed clueless but was curious to know if we have answer this question.

Image curtsy: World food programme

I challenged his imagination and asked whether he can think of getting many fold more grains from a single wheat or a rice plant, and whether rice plants can grow even in semi-dry condition, and whether these possibilities will answer my first question.

He said if farmers can grow water based crops in semiarid areas and if those crops can give more yield than usual we certainly have the answer.

Then, I told him that the speaker we are going to receive today is a scientist who has done a lot of breakthrough work in this area. He and his colleagues have made a rice crop by inserting some genes so that it may tolerate, grow and survive in salty and dry soil and produce increased amount of rice.

The common man in the driver realized the implication of this scientific achievement and said that the scientists are doing much more for the society and people than many VIPs that he goes to fetch from airport on daily basis. Although I did not heed to his comparison, I was certainly relieved that he understood the potential of science to take the future challenges of humanity.

This conversation with a common man, a cab driver, proved one point undoubtedly that there indeed is a gap in how scientific achievements are communicated to our public and how our people perceive it or how their perceptions are manipulated by the vested interests.

There is urgent need to fill this gap by better communication in simple and non-scientific words so that public acceptability of scientific accomplishments can be increased and any unfounded fear of the new technologies is thwarted.

In an illuminating lecture our guest speaker, a honorable and highly acclaimed scientist, presented his findings in a very simple and lucid manner how his team inserted some genes in the crop, rice, plant so that it can tolerate the salty and dry condition and grow without drying. The new crop was transferred to an indigenous seed company to test it further on the larger scale and, if successful, transfer it to farmers for cultivation. However, due to broader opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMO) technologies the field trial could not see the light of the day.

The concerned audience put forth few relevant questions regarding the various social and economic issues associated with GMO debate. As has been stated earlier at different platforms, per se the GMO technique itself is not bad and anything which comes out for public use is tested on many scientific parameters and has to pass many controls and regulations. If the products pass all these regulations and controls and found to be safe for public use then only it is, and should be, released in public domain. The same is true of any technology that has potential for general use.

Then, why these crops should be treated any differently? In pharmaceutical sector as well, the drugs are tested and trial are conducted at various levels for its safety and efficacy and if found safe on all counts then only it is released and allowed for public use. If, however, it turns out to be not safe or have serious side effects even after the release, it is quickly and completely withdrawn.

Can’t the same be done for GMOs? The governments all over the world should devise proper regulations and controls rather than banning this technology. They should allow the improved crop varieties with increased yield and nutritional values so that world food and nutrition security is assured. By public funding of the research, new crop varieties can be made accessible and affordable to the poorest of the farmers.

Indeed, science has the answers to our new and emerging problems, it is up to us how we communicate it to our public, the end user, to enhance the understanding and acceptance and utilize it for the betterment of humanity.