Posts Tagged ‘science’

Fund Scientific Research at 3AM

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

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(photo credit: Mark Ramsay)

Heard of Kickstarter? That new site where anyone with an idea and a plan to make it happen can raise money from the unwashed masses? Well until now it’s mostly been used to help bands record their breakout albums, help designers raise capital to manufacture life-improving products, and help slightly off do-gooders pay for various swing-installation projects.

But now scientists are getting in on the action. From the Kickstarter-funded Mexican quail research expedition to the new academics-only crowdfunding site Open Genius, the doors are open for promising researchers to avoid the pain of securing traditional government and foundation funding.

Which means that you have a unique opportunity to directly impact research you care about. It’s one thing to donate to a cancer research fund (which is a totally awesome thing to do, by the way), but it’s another thing entirely to choose the lab you want to support.

This is also a great opportunity to exercise your advocacy muscles. With just a little prodding and a link to a well-designed website, you can double, triple, or quadruple your donation by talking to friends or posting your pitch online.

Never underestimate the power of peer pressure and one-click donations.

Scientists Stumble Upon Potential Key To Eternal Youth In Stem Cell Research

Friday, February 26th, 2010

An unprecedented breakthrough in stem cell research may hold the key to combating a terrible disease and unlocking the gate to immortality…

  • In the process of working with a new type of cell—induced pluripotent stem cells, a stem cell similar to embryonic stem cells but made from ordinary skin cells—a team of researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute were able to reverse the aging process of a rare genetic disease.
  • The disease, dyskeratosis congenita, is a blood marrow disorder that causes premature aging, warped fingernails (among other symptoms) and an increased risk of cancer. In the process of creating iPS cells from diseased patients’ skin cells, the scientists found that a gene in the cells multiplied three-fold, helping to restore telomeres (little caps on the ends of the chromosomes that carry DNA), which are integral in the process of aging and death in cells. Replenishing the telomeres could, in theory, help reverse the aging process.
  • About half of the people with the disease have bone marrow failure (meaning that their bone marrow stops making blood and immune cells properly), and of those people, many often die during bone marrow transplants. However, researchers think that bone marrow transplants from a patient’s own cells may be a gentler process.

Facts & Figures

  • Dyskeratosis congenita is a very rare disease and is usually diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 30.
  • In dyskeratosis congenita, the cells lose telomerase, an enzyme that helps maintain the telomeres. As telomeres deteriorate, cells age, and disease and death follow.
  • In cancer, telomerase apparently helps tumor cells become immortal and proliferate. Experimental cancer drugs target telomerase.
  • TERC helps rejuvenate telomeres, and researchers suspect that tumor cells employ TERC in order to achieve immortality.
  • Researchers speculate that replenishing TERC might help the sufferers of dsykeratosis congenita.

Best Quote

“We’re not saying we’ve found the fountain of youth, but the process of creating iPS cells recapitulates some of the biology that our species uses to rejuvenate itself in each generation.” – Suneet Agarwal, Researcher at Harvard Stem Cell Institute