I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Years. I know I did. I’m posting this to welcome everyone back and to let you know that my vacation from my blog is over. I am getting back to doing the research for my next blog post so stick around.
While you are waiting for my lazy butt to get some work done here are some articles around the internet that I found interesting:
I hope these articles are as interesting to you as they were to me.
Filed Under: Clean Energy, Environment, Genetic Research, Science by Aron Brown
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Apligraf® living tissue treatment
The cell-based or “systems-based” healing techniques are still a growing field. There is not much research going on due to the unbelievable amount of regulations scientists have to go through in order to bring these techniques to patients. Enter Organogenesis, founded in 1985 they are the first company to have a living, allogeneic, cell based product approved by the FDA. This product is known as Apligraf®, and it is a “bi-layered bio-engineered cell based product” used in the treatment of venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers. These wounds for one reason or another do not heal on their own; however through the use of this product, a group of living cells working together (“systems-based”) with the body, “wounds previously unresponsive to treatment” will heal.
Apligraf® is a 44 square centimeter circular bio-engineered cell construct, which when placed on a wound integrates into the wound thus helping the wound to heal. Apligraf® has been used in over 200,000 patients. On average, each patient is treated with one to two applications of this living cell therapy.
Organogenesis is also looking into using Apligraf® for treating burn victims and epidermolysis bullosa “a rare genetic disease characterized by the presence of extremely fragile skin and recurrent blister formation, resulting from minor mechanical friction or trauma.”
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Filed Under: Genetic Research, Medicine, Science by Aron Brown
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Over at physorg.com they have just released a new article, Gene therapy repairs injured human donor lungs for the first time, about a new method of using a technique called ex vivo gene delivery to “deliver” the IL-10 gene into human donor lungs.
Credit: Dr. Marcelo Cypel
A team of scientists, in the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University Health Network have successfully used this new technique to repair injured human donor lungs!
The implications for this technology are staggering. As Dr. Keshavjee said “For the first time, we hope to improve the health of donor lungs that we could not have used before by using gene therapy to decrease inflammation and repair cells before transplantation.” Future research into this technology could help solve the two major problems that transplantation surgery face today.
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Filed Under: Genetic Research, Medicine, Science by Aron Brown
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