We are what we eat. And drink. And how we sleep, detox, and exercise or not.

Nothing new there. But in a world where new-to-market serums, creams, and spiritual berry tonics extracted by hand by Tibetan monks are in our (digital) face every day, were being presented with so many cool options on how to cleanse, moisturize, and treat wrinkles, lackluster skin, and hair that its next to impossible to keep up, let alone care for.

And while I wont be ditching my tried-and-true products any time soon, these newer, technologically advanced plant-based offerings are, in truth, quite effective. Products flooded with adaptogens help the body respond and adapt to various kinds of stress and inflammation. And how we weave them into our lifestyle regimens can be fun too.

Rather than barrage you with a ton of products, I thought a conversation regarding upcoming trends that embrace these new, full-circle, inside-and-out additions to our anti-aging routines is in order. We may have to look a little harder for these over-the-counter retail items, but not for long. Keep in mind that several of these brands combine two or three categories as ingestibles and topicals, which include CBD, functional mushrooms, and waterless skin care all of it nonpsychoactive, of course.

While recreational and medicinal marijuana are slowly becoming legal in more and more states, its tempting to get into the weeds with a cannabis/hemp/CBD tutorial. Lets simplify: it all comes from the same hemp plant thats loaded with restorative and preventative properties. CBD is legal (no high) and widely used for general to advanced wellness. Categories include singular isolates (113+ CBD extracts); broad spectrum (whole plant extract minus THC); and full spectrum (whole plant extract with less than 0.3 percent THC, the legal limit for all CBD products in the U.S.).

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A Groovy Guide to Anti-Aging Products With CBD and Mushrooms - Out Magazine

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The concept of synthesizing small-scale human organs in lab dishes has matured from pure science fiction to legitimate bioscientific reality in recent years. However, the usefulness of organoids as a research tool for studying the digestive system quickly ran into a roadblock, due to the fact that these in-demand tissues remain difficult to create.

Organoids are stem cell-derived three-dimensional tissue cultures that are designed to exhibit detailed characteristics of organs or act as model organs to produce a specific cell type in laboratory conditions. However, when growing organoids, the yield from each batch of starting material can vary massively and can even fail to produce any viable organoids at all. This of course results in severe delays in their production and utilization in pre-clinical experiments that test the efficacy and safety of drugs.

In a recently published paper from Stem Cell Reports, researchers from Cincinnati childrens (OH, USA) have developed a new practice that overcomes the organoid production hurdle. This novel procedure is already being utilized within the medical facility to boost organoid studies. However, because the materials utilized can be frozen and thawed while still producing high-quality organoids, this discovery allows for the shipment of starter materials to other labs anywhere in the world, foreseeably leading to a dramatic increase in the utilization of human gastrointestinal organoids in medical research.

This method can make organoids a more accessible tool, explains the first author Amy Pitstick, manager of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility at Cincinnati Childrens. We show that the aggregation approach consistently produces high yields and we have proven that precursor cells can be thawed from cryogenic storage to produce organoids of the small intestine.

Using this approach will make it possible for many research labs to use organoids in their experiments without the time and expense of learning how to grow induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), states corresponding author Chris Mayhew, director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility. The ability to freeze the precursor cells also will allow labs to easily make organoids without having to start each new experiment with complicated and highly variable iPSC differentiation.

Generally, organoid creation begins with the collection of skin or blood cells, which are then transformed in the lab to become induced pluripotent stem cells. To create intestinal organoids, highly skilled lab professionals produce a flat layer of organ precursor cells known as the mid-hindgut endoderm.

Under the correct conditions, early-stage organoids, termed spheroids, autonomously develop into a three-dimensional ball of cells. These are then collected and placed into a growth medium, which supplies the required signals for the cells to develop into the specialized cell types of a human organ.

However, the quantity of spheroids produced in this manner has been unpredictable. The Cincinnati Childrens researchers discovered that they could harvest the unused precursor cell layer and employ a centrifuge to transport cells into hundreds of tiny wells housed on small plastic plates. This causes the creation of 3D cell aggregates, which may then be collected and utilized to produce organoids.

The experiment described in the research paper demonstrates that the spheroids created in this manner had no discernible differences from those that formed naturally. The scientists then stored samples of the progenitor cells in freezers. These cells generated viable spheroids after being frozen and aggregated.

The paper goes on to verify that these spheroids can be consistently grown into mature organoids, which can simulate organ function. In the case of this research, the mature organoids went on to mimic the function of the small intestine, large intestine and the antrum, the portion of the stomach that links to the intestine.

Although this development is a welcome and promising advance in organoid fabrication, years of research will be required to create organoids large enough and complex enough to be utilized as replacement tissue in transplant surgery. However, having access to a large number of readily manufactured organoids offers up numerous possibilities for medical study.

More labs will be able to create patient-specific organoids in order to evaluate drugcombination therapiesfor precision treatment of complex or rare disease states that necessitate personalized care. Scientists also conducting basic research to understand more about the genetic factors and molecular pathways at play in digestive tract diseases will be able to incorporate organoids in their experiments by procuring frozen spheroid precursors.

In his current effort to generate transplantable intestinal tissues, Michael Helmrath, Director of Clinical Translation for the Center for Stem Cell & Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM) at Cincinnati Childrens, has already begun employing materials made from this new method.

This is a great step forward for the field on many fronts, Helmrath says. To be able to reduce the complexity of the process and provide higher yields is beneficial to our work. And to be able to translate the methods to other labs will help move regenerative medicine forward.

Source: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2213671122003599

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New milestone organoid synthesis will boost disease and drug development research - RegMedNet

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Professor Augustinus Baders skincare products contain the patented TFC8 technology, backed by 30 years of science and research - and results have shown an increase by 110% of more elasticity in the skin as well!

Image: Augustinus Bader)

When we hear on the grapevine that celebrities are obsessing over skincare products or with a beauty brand - we too are equally eager to hear the secret behind their gorgeous, glowing skin.

Augustinus Bader, whos earned a cult-beauty status thanks to his rejuvenating skin care products, is the man whom Jennifer Aniston, Kim Kardashian and Victoria Beckham all love too. And its not just celebrities who hail his namesake products as the secret weapon behind nourished and renewed skin, but beauty editors and dermatologists too. Not to mention contain the patented TFC8 technology, which is backed by 30 years of science and research.

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Augustinus Bader

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Not to mention his products have received 90 industry awards in just four years - and products have been voted The Greatest Skincare Of All Time.

Best of all? The results of Augustinus Bader products are proven through extensive clinical trials - and who wouldnt want younger looking skin in as little as four weeks?

Based on a 4-week clinical trial, with participants using hero product The Rich Cream: Forehead wrinkles visibly reduced by 37%, crow's feet wrinkles visibly reduced by 54%, crow's feet fine lines visibly reduced by 46% and of those testers, skin felt 92% firmer and 110% more elasticity in the skin - in just 4 weeks!

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Have you used any of the Augustinus Bader skincare products before? Or are you keen to give them a try and see what they could do for you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Victoria Beckham and Kim Kardashian are fans of Augustinus Baders skincare range - and you can get 20% off - The Mirror

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease that targets motor neurons, gradually bereaving patients of their ability to control muscle movements. Scientists discovered more than 50 potential disease-causing genes and linked several cellular pathways to ALS, but the syndromes diverse clinical and genetic nature make it difficult to predict and interfere with disease progression.1

Researchers discovered a T cell population in mice that mirrors ALS-4 disease progression.

In a recent study published in Nature, Laura Campisi, Ivan Marazzi, and colleagues at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai discovered an immune cell signature in patients with early onset ALS (ALS-4) that mirrors disease progression and may contribute to neuronal death.2 These findings could have significant implications for ALS diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutics.

Laura Campisi joined Marazzis laboratory wanting to better understand how the body mounts immune responses. She set out to molecularly profile activated immune cells and discovered several immunity regulators, including SENATAXIN (SETX). Because SETX mutations cause ALS-4, Campisi wondered if ALS might join the suite of other neurodegenerative diseases such as narcolepsy, Alzheimers disease, and Parkinsons disease that scientists recently connected to the immune system.3,4,5,6

To test whether the immune system plays a role in ALS-4 disease progression, Campisi turned to a mouse model that carries the most common human SETX mutation.7 She replaced their mutated hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs)progenitors that form immune cellswith wildtype ones and found that they protected against disease. In contrast, replacing healthy HSCs with SETXmutant ones in wildtype mice did not cause disease. This set of experiments showed that mutant HSCs and their progeny contribute to disease, but do not cause disease on their own. This is extremely strong preclinical evidence that forms a basis for pharmaceutically targeting these cells, said David Gate, an assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University, who was not involved in this study.

Campisi and her colleagues next characterized the immune system in pre-symptomatic mice and discovered an ALS-specific immune cell signature: ALS-4 mice contained more CD8+ T cells in their blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) prior to symptom onset, and this cell population continued to expand as the disease progressed. While Campisis team faced pandemic-related difficulties in recruiting enough ALS-4 patients to confirm these findings, they are now teaming up with clinicians to expand their preclinical trials. We want to follow this [T cell] population in patients to see if they express specific markers that can predict if and when the disease progresses, Campisi said.

My hypothesis is that the T cells are autoreactive, so they are reacting against a cellular antigen.Laura Campisi, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

To find what these T cells responded to, Campisi sequenced them and found that nearly all cells expressed the same T cell receptor, suggesting they bind the same antigen. The problem is that it is very difficult to find the antigen. I dont think it is an infection because [the] mice live in a pathogen-free facility. My hypothesis is that the T cells we found are autoreactive, so they are reacting against a cellular antigen, Campisi said.

Given that ALS targets motor neurons, Campisi wondered if the ALS-4 T cells promoted disease progression because they react to and are activated by a protein in the brain. To test this hypothesis, Campisi injected ALS-4mice with brain cancer cells that express neuronal antigens to see if the T cell population would react and confer protection against the cancer type. It was pretty striking: the tumors became so big in wildtype mice that I had to stop the experiment, but the [mutant] mice that were in the same cage were completely fine, their tumor was not growing, Campisi said. In contrast, there was no protection against skin-related cancer cells that she injected as a control. The T cells that infiltrated the ALS-4 mices brain tumors expressed the same T cell receptor as cells found in their CSF. While Gate cautions that cancer cells typically express many newly created neoantigens, Campisis data suggests that the T cell population likely recognizes a brain cell-related antigen.

Campisis challenge now lies in identifying the actual antigen and therapeutically targeting these T cells to slow and restrict the disease course. In ALS, you probably have a defect that starts with neurons, triggering a cascade of events. So, even if you restore what is wrong in neurons, we have to [also] target the other players, Campisi said.

References

Excerpt from:
Mutant T Cells That Drive Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Progression May React To a Brain Antigen - The Scientist

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Mutant T Cells That Drive Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Progression May React To a Brain Antigen – The Scientist | August 10th, 2022

The procedure recommended by most doctors might not always be a good option, as it could turn a potentially benign situation into a malignant one.

Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D., professor in the biology department at Boston College, is a leading expert and researcher in the field of cancer metabolism and nutritional ketosis. His book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management and Prevention of Cancer is a foundational textbook on this topic, and in August 2016, he received the Mercola.com Game Changer Award for his work.

Here, we discuss the mechanisms of cancer and the influence of mitochondrial function, which plays a crucial role in the development and treatment of this disease. Hislandmark cancer theory is available as a free PDF.

Many of his views are now encapsulated in his most paper,1Mitochondrial Substrate-Level Phosphorylation as Energy Source for Glioblastoma: Review and Hypothesis, published online December 27, 2018. Hes also published a number of other papers2,3,4on the metabolic underpinnings of cancer.

The paper is a review and hypothesis paper identifying the missing link in Otto Warburgs central theory,Seyfried explains. [Warburg] defined the origin of cancer very accurately back in the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s in his work in Germany. Basically, he argued and provided data showing that all cancer cells, regardless of tissue origin, were fermenters. They fermented lactic acid from glucose as a substrate.

Even in the presence of oxygen, these cells were fermenting. This is clearly a defect in oxidative phosphorylation. The problem is that for decades, people said Warburg was wrong mainly because we see a lot of cancer cells take up oxygen and make adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from within the mitochondria People began to question, If cancer cells have normal respiration, why would they want to use glucose as a fermentable fuel?

The whole concept became distorted The cancer cells simply choose to ferment rather than respire. Now, of course, if you look under the electron microscope at majority of cancers, youll see that the mitochondria are defective in a number of different ways. Their structures are abnormal. The numbers are abnormal. There are many abnormalities of mitochondria seen directly under electron microscopy. Clearly, Warburg was not wrong.

Before we delve into the meat of how cancer actually occurs it would be good to review a diagnostic strategy that nearly all of us are offered when confronted with a cancer diagnosis. It is vital to understand that this may not be your best strategy and that for many it would be wise to avoid the biopsy.

Seyfried warns against doing biopsies, as this procedure may actually cause the cancer to spread. A tumor is basically a group of proliferating cells in a particular part of your body. For purposes of diagnosis, a small biopsy sample will often be taken to ascertain whether the tumor is benign or malignant.

The problem is that when you stab into the cancer microenvironment to remove a part of the tissue, it creates a wound in that microenvironment that in turn elicits the invasion by macrophages and other immune cells.

If you already have an acidic microenvironment, you run the risk of causing a fusion hybridization event in that microenvironment between your macrophages and cancer stem cells (as discussed below). This could turn a potentially benign situation into a malignant one, and if the tumor is malignant, stabbing into it could make a bad situation worse.

The question is, what is the value of doing a biopsy in the first place? We take biopsies of breast tissue to get a genomic readout of the different kinds of mutations that might be in the cells. Now, if cancer is not a genetic disease and the mutations are largely irrelevant, then it makes no sense to do that in the first place. If the tumor is benign, why would you want to stab it? If the tumor is malignant, why would you ever want to stab it?

I came to this view by reading so many articles in the literature based on brain cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer showing how needle biopsies have led to the dissemination of these tumor cells, putting these people at risk for metastatic cancer and death,Seyfried says.

In metabolic therapy you would not touch the tumor; you would not disturb the microenvironment. By leaving it alone, you allow the tumor to shrink and go away.

When you start to look at this as a biological problem, many of the things that we do in cancer make no sense. We have, in brain cancer, people say, You have a very low-grade tumor. Lets go in and get it out. What happens is you go in and get it out, and then the following year it turns into a glioblastoma.

How did that happen? Well, you disturbed the microenvironment. You allowed these cells that are marginally aggressive to become highly aggressive. Then you lead to the demise of the patient,Seyfried says.

That happens significantly because its called secondary glioblastoma arising from therapeutic attempt to manage a low-grade tumor. The same thing can happen with all these different organs. You stab breast tumors, you stab colon tumors, you run the risk of spreading the cells

My argument is the following: If the patient has a lump, whether its in the breast, in the colon, lung or wherever or a lesion of some sort, that should be the cue to do metabolic therapy.

Do metabolic therapy first. In all likelihood, it will shrink down and become less aggressive. Then the option becomes, Should we debulk completely rather than doing some sort of a biopsy? We want to reduce the risk, because if we can catch the whole tumor completely, then we dont run the risk of spreading it

In our procedure, you bring the body back into a very high state of metabolic balance, and then you strategically go and degrade the tumors slowly without harming the rest of the body.

Radiation, chemo and the strategies that were using today dont do this. Theyre based on the gene theory of cancer that genetic mutations are causing the cell cycle to grow out of control. Well, this is not the case. Again, a lot of these toxic procedures need to be rethought, reanalyzed in my mind.

In biology, structure determines function. This is an evolutionarily conserved concept. So, how can mitochondria be structurally abnormal in tissue, yet have normal respiration? As Seyfried notes, this doesnt make sense. Confusion has arisen in part because many study cancer in culture, and make profound statements and comments regarding what happens in culture, Seyfried says.

If you look at cancer cells in culture, many of them do take in oxygen and make ATP, but at the same time, theyre fermenting. This was the conundrum. They called it the Warburg Effect. Theyre fermenting, but many people at the same time thought their respiration was normal.

This was the main problem with Warburgs theory. But Warburg clearly said in his papers [that] its not the fact that they take in oxygen; its how much ATP they can generate from oxidative phosphorylation, which is the normal respiratory capacity of the mitochondria.

As explained by Seyfried, if you measure ATP and look at oxygen consumption in tumor cells, it appears theyre making ATP and taking in oxygen, therefore, their respiration is assumed to be normal. However, when you look at the tissues in cancer patients, the mitochondria are abnormal.

What I and Dr. Christos Chinopoulos from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, who is the world-leading expert on mitochondrial physiology and biochemistry realized [was] that the mitochondria of tumor cells are actually fermenting amino acids, glutamine in particular. Theyre not respiring. Theyre fermenting an alternative fuel, which is glutamine,Seyfried says.

With this understanding, Warburgs theory can be proven correct cancer arises from damage to the mitochondrias ability to produce energy through respiration in their electron transport chain.

The compensatory fermentation involves not only lactic acid fermentation, but also succinic acid fermentation using glutamine as a fermentable fuel. Its been known for decades that glutamine is a main fuel for many different kinds of cancers, but most people thought it was being respired, not fermented.

Seyfried and Chinopoulos discovery confirms that cancer cells in fact have damaged respiration, and to survive, the cancer cells must use fermentation. The two most available fermentable fuels in the cancer microenvironment are glucose and glutamine. Hence, targeting glucose and glutamine is a crucial component of cancer treatment.

Without glucose and glutamine, the cancer cells will starve, as they cannot use ketones. The simplest approach to cancer then is to bring patients into therapeutic ketosis, and then strategically target the availability of glucose and glutamine.

Basically, what were saying [is] that mitochondrial substrate-level phosphorylation is a non-oxidative metabolism mechanism inside the mitochondria that would generate significant amounts of energy without oxidative phosphorylation,Seyfried says.

According to Seyfried, mitochondrial dysfunction is at the heart of nearly every type of cancer. Unfortunately, few oncologists have this understanding and many still believe cancer is the result of genetic defects. However, nuclear transfer experiments clearly show cancer cannot be a genetic disease.

Theres been no rational scientific argument that I have seen, to discredit the multitude of evidence showing that the [genetic] mutations are not the drivers but the effects [of mitochondrial dysfunction],Seyfried says.

As a matter of fact, theres new information now where people are finding so-called genetic drivers of cancer expressed and present in normal cells, normal skin and also esophagus This is another [issue] how you get these so-called driver mutations in normal tissues. Were also finding some cancers that have no mutations, yet, theyre fermenting and growing out of control.

There are a number of new observations coming out that challenge the concept that cancer is a genetic disease. And once you realize that its not a genetic disease, then you have to seriously question the majority of therapies being used to manage the disease. This [helps] explain [why] we have 1,600 people a day dying from cancer in the United States.

Why do we have such an epidemic of suffering and death when we have been studying this disease for decades? Well, if you look at the massive amounts of scientific papers being written on cancer, youll often find that theyre structured around gene defects.

What Im saying is that if cancer is not a genetic disease and the mutations are downstream epiphenomena, why would the field continue to focus on things that are mostly irrelevant to the nature of the disease? What Im saying is very devastating, because Im telling the majority of the people in the field that theyre basically wasting their time

I think we can drop the death rate of this disease by about 50% in 10 years if cancer is treated as a mitochondrial metabolic disease, targeting fermentable fuels rather than using toxic therapies that are focused on downstream effects.

Radiation is designed to stop DNA replication. DNA replication requires energy. If you pull the plug on their fermentable fuels, theyre not going to be able to replicate anyway All of the things that were doing to treat cancer is basically approaching the disease from a misunderstanding of the biology

We know viruses can cause cancer. We know radiation causes cancer. We know carcinogens cause cancer. We know intermittent hypoxia causes cancer. We know systemic inflammation causes cancer. We know just getting older puts you at risk for more cancer.

We know there are inherited mutations in the genome that can cause cancer. But how are all these things linked through a common pathophysiological mechanism? The common pathophysiological mechanism is damaged through the structure and function of the mitochondria.

Every one of the issues including inherited mutations, damage the respiration of a particular population of cells in a tissue. You look at the breast cancer gene (BRCA 1), for example. People will say, Cancer must be a genetic disease because you inherit a mutation that causes the disease.

You only get the disease if that mutation disrupts the function of the mitochondria. Fifty percent of women who carry the mutation never get cancer or breast cancer because the mutation, for some reason, did not damage the mitochondria in that person.

So, to summarize, the true origin of cancer is damage to the respiratory function of the mitochondria, triggering compensatory fermentation, which is run by oncogenes. Oncogenes play a role by facilitating the entry of glucose and glutamine into the cell to replace oxidative phosphorylation.

Seyfried also has a very different view on the biology of metastasis (the spread of cancer). He explains:

Weve looked at cancer stem cells in a number of our preclinical models These guys grow like crazy in place. The tumor just keeps expanding, but it doesnt spread. It doesnt spread into the bloodstream or metastasize to various organs.

We discovered a very unusual cancer 20 years ago. It took us 10 to 15 years to figure out what it was. You can put a few of these cells anywhere in the mouses body and within three to four weeks, this mouse is full of metastatic cancer. It made the cover of the International Journal of Cancer, when we published this back in 2008, but we had worked on the problem for years.

We couldnt figure out what it was that made these cells so incredibly metastatic. We found out that once we identified the biology of the cell, it turned out [it has] many characteristics in common with the macrophage, which is one of the most powerful immune cells in our body.

We said, Wow. Is this unique only to this kind of cell or do metastatic cancers in humans also express characteristics of macrophages? We looked and we found that almost every major cancer that metastasizes has characteristics of macrophages. Then we said, Well, how could this possibly happen? Is it coming from the macrophage?

A number of scientists have all clearly shown that there is some fusion hybridization character going on. In other words, macrophages, our wound-healing cells, they come into a microenvironment where you might find many proliferating neoplastic stem cells, but they dont have the capacity to metastasize.

Its only when the macrophages fuse with these stem cells that you have a dysregulated energy metabolism coming in this hybrid cell. This hybrid cell now has characteristics of both stem cells and macrophages.

The stem cell is not genetically equipped to enter and exit tissue. The macrophage, as a normal cell of your body, is genetically equipped to enter and exit tissue and live in the bloodstream. Theyre very strongly immunosuppressive. These are all characteristics of metastatic cancer.

According to Seyfried, metastatic cancer cells are essentially a hybrid, a mix of an immune system cell and a dysregulated stem cell, the latter of which could originate from a disorganized epithelial cell or something similar. In short, its a hybrid cell with macrophage characteristics.

Macrophages are essential for wound healing and part of our primary defense system against bacterial infections. They live both in the bloodstream and in tissues, and can go anywhere in the body. When an injury or infection occurs, they immediately move in to protect the tissue.

The metastatic cancer cell has many of those same properties,Seyfried explains,But the energy and the function of the cell is completely dysregulated, so it proliferates like crazy but has the capacity to move and spread through the body, so its a corrupted macrophage. We call it a rogue macrophage.

Like macrophages, metastatic cancer cells can also survive in hypoxic environments, which is why most angiogenic therapies are ineffective against metastatic cancer.

So, what do these metastatic hybrid cells need to survive? Both macrophages and immune cells are major glutamine consumers, and according to Seyfried, you can effectively kill metastatic cells by targeting glutamine.

However, it must be done in such a way so as to not harm the normal macrophages and the normal immune cells. In other words, it must be strategic. For this reason, Seyfried developed a press-pulse therapy for cancer, which allows the patient to maintain normal immune system function, while at the same time targeting the corrupted immune cells the macrophage fusion hybrid metastatic cells as well as inflammation.

The therapies we are using to attempt to kill these [metastatic] cells put us at risk for having the cells survive and kill us. You can control these cells for a short period of time, but they can hunker down and enter into some sort of a slightly dormant state, but they reappear.

People say, Oh, these tumor cells are so nifty and smart they can come back at you. The problem is youve never really challenged them on their very existence, which is they depend on fermentation to survive. If you dont target their fermentation, theyre going to continue to survive and come back at you.

Many of the therapies that we use radiation, chemo and some of these other procedures are not really going after the heart of the problem. That oftentimes puts you at risk for the recurrence of the disease. Your body is already seriously weakened by the toxic treatments. And in the battle, you lose. If you are fortunate enough to survive your body is still beat up.

You have now put your [body] at risk for other kinds of maladies Why are we using such toxic therapies to kill a cell when we know what its weaknesses are? These are the paradigm changes that will have to occur as we move into the new era of managing cancer in a logical way.

To properly address cancer, then, you need to clean up the microenvironment, because the microenvironment will strategically kill cells that are dependent on fermentation while enhancing cells that arent. At the same time, the microenvironment will also reduce inflammation.

You also have to be very careful not to kill your normal and healthy immune cells, because they need glutamine too,Seyfried says. What we find is that when we strategically attack the tumor this way, it turns out that our immune cells are paralyzed.

The cancer cells are killed, but the normal immune cells are paralyzed. Theyre not dying, theyre just not doing their job. What we do is we back off the therapy a little; allow the normal immune cells to regain their biological capacity, pick up dead corpses, heal the microenvironment, and then we go after the cancer cells again.

Its a graded response, knowing the biology of the normal cells and the abnormal biology of the tumor cells. This is a beautiful strategy. Once people know how you can play one group of cells off another, and how you can strategically kill one group of cells without harming the other cells, it really becomes a precision mechanism for eliminating tumor cells without harming the rest of the body.

You dont need to be poisoned and irradiated. You just have to know how to use these procedures to strategically kill the cells. Protecting normal macrophages is part of the strategic process. Killing the corrupted ones is part of the strategic process. Again, you have to put all of these together in a very logical path. Otherwise, youre not going to get the level of success that we should be getting.

This strategy is what Seyfried calls press-pulse treatment, and essentially involves restricting the fermentable fuels glucose and glutamine in a cyclical fashion to avoid causing damage to normal cells and tissues. Glucose is effectively restricted through a ketogenic diet. Restricting glutamine is slightly trickier.

The press-pulse strategy was developed from the concept of press-pulse in the field of the paleobiology. A press was some chronic stress on populations, killing off large numbers, but not everything, because some organisms can adapt to stress. The pulse refers to some catastrophic event.

The simultaneous occurrence of these two unlikely events led to the mass extinction of almost all organisms that existed on the planet. This was a cyclic event over many hundreds of millions of years. The geological records show evidence for this press-pulse extinction phenomenon.

What we simply did was take that concept and say, Lets chronically stress the tumor cells. They need glucose. You can probably kill a significant number of tumor cells by just stressing their glucose. Thats the press. The press is different ways to lower blood sugar. You put that chronic stress on top of the population either by restricted ketogenic diets [or] therapeutic fasting. There are a lot of ways that you can do this.

Also, emotional stress reduction. People are freaked out because they have cancer, therefore their corticoid steroids are elevated, which elevates blood sugar. Using various forms of stress management, moderate exercise all of these will lower blood sugar and contribute to a chronic press and stress on the cancer cells.

However, youre not going to kill all cancer cells if you just take away glucose. Because the other fuel thats keeping the beast alive is the glutamine. We have to pulse, because we cant use a press for glutamine targeting, because then youre going to kill your normal immune cells or impair them, and they are needed for the eventual resolution of the disease.

What were going to do is were going to pulse various drugs. We dont have a diet system that will target glutamine. Glutamine is everywhere. Its the most abundant amino acid in your body But you have to use [the drugs] very strategically; otherwise they can harm our normal immune system and then be counterproductive

I think that once we understand how we can target effectively glutamine without harming our normal immune cells this is the strategy that will make most of these other therapies obsolete Its cost-effective and non-toxic and it will work very well.

But were still at the very beginning of this. We need to continue to develop the doses, timing and scheduling of those drugs that are most effective in targeting glutamine that can be done without harming the rest of the cells in our body.

If you would like to support Dr. Seyfrieds research, please consider making a donation to the Foundation For Metabolic Cancer Therapies. The donation tag is on the top row of the of the foundationsite. This Foundation is dedicated to supporting Dr. Seyfrieds studies using metabolic therapy for cancer management with 100% of the donated funds going directly to research on metabolic therapy for cancer.

Originally published July 31, 2022 on Mercola.com

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate. To submit an opinion piece, please follow these guidelines and submit through our form here.

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Why Glucose Restrictions Are Essential in Treating Cancer - The Epoch Times

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LAS VEGAS, NV, Aug. 01, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire Meso Numismatics, Inc. (Meso Numismatics or the Company) (MSSV), a technology company specializing in Biotech and Numismatics, is pleased to announce additional global expansion by opening stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine facilities in Indonesia. The new facilities emphasize Global Stem Cells Group's objective of introducing its therapies and technology to meet market demands in populous parts of the world.

In partnership with the Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics, which currently has 6 branches across Indonesia, this latest GSCG expansion will promote high standards of service in regenerative medicine across the country. As part of this effort, through GSCG the International Society for Stem Cells Applications (ISSCA) has granted Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics membership and use of its brand, products, therapies, and training on how to apply stem cell therapies.

This new partnership seeks to expand the Global Stem Cells Group (GSCG) brand and create centers of excellence in cell therapy to meet the high demand within the vast Asian markets, said David Christensen, CEO of MSSV. GSCG is rapidly expanding its global operations as it seeks to become a significant player in the lucrative regenerative medicine industry. To achieve our expansion plans, our organization is partnering with healthcare providers specializing in regenerative medicine with at least five years of experience in the healthcare sector.

Video: https://youtu.be/T2CFjsps9qk

The vision behind the effort.

The Indonesia addition is the latest part of an expanding medical network of partners, and it will formalize and strengthen ties, establishing a global center of excellence to guarantee that we effectively use the underlying basic stem cell technology for medical conditions, where traditional therapeutic approaches seem to have failed. This is consistent with GSCG's overall strategy for developing regenerative medicine through data-driven studies, disease modeling, and cell-based therapeutics.

The Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinic is a key partnership because it provides the organizational and physical infrastructure needed to disseminate need-based stem cell locally. And Global Stem Cells Group's outstanding cell and stem cell biology and disease pathophysiology give an edge to patients for which they are prescribed.

The opening in Indonesia also presents the perfect opportunity to translate breakthrough therapies from basic discoveries to useful products by drawing upon the skills and local knowledge promoted within Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics.

GSCG group managing director, Benito Novas, provided a clear description of the new strategic direction and objectives. "Our goal is to make regenerative medicine benefits a reality for both doctors and patients all around the world. We recently launched a very similar effort in Pakistan. Additional announcements are planned in the near future as we attempt to expand our presence." Meso Numismatics and Global Stem Cells Group Expand its Global Footprint

The current market outlook.

Stem cell therapy is striving to become an increasingly effective clinical solution to treat conditions that traditional or mainstream medicine offers only within palliative care and pain management. Patients all over the world are searching for a natural regenerative alternative without the potential risks and side effects sometimes associated with mainstream pharmaceuticals. With the opening of each new treatment center in populous regions such as Indonesia, GSCG is working to help stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine to eventually move from alternative and elective procedures to mainstream protocols.

This new clinic effort will play a significant role in the development of regenerative medicine in Indonesia and indeed the rest of the world by adding yet another opportunity for continuous improvement through research and development, Christensen continued. By adding busy clinics in population centers, we plan to consistently generate high volumes of reliable clinical data to assist us with the development and refinement of even more medicines and treatments.

About Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics

Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics is a premier cosmetic and aesthetics clinic based in Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara. Since its inception in 2004 in Surabaya by Dr. Khoe Yanti Khusmiran, the clinic has expanded to over 6 branches throughout Indonesia. Dr. Yanti clinics provide a range of skin and body enhancement treatments through minimally invasive and non-invasive procedures the expertise of which are a natural fit for the addition of a variety of stem cell therapies.

"Indonesians have a growing need for the latest medical technology that is reliable, potent, has reduced side effects, and leverages the bodys own healing biochemistry to resolve injury and aging, said Dr. Yanti. We are honored to be a part of GSCG, which has a proven 10-year track record in the market with a strong and growing international reputation. This new partnership is expected to create a wide variety of custom treatment options we can offer our patients and treat injury and illness in ways we could not before.

The newly formed partnership will deliver revolutionary medicines through Dr. Yanti clinics to assist patients in avoiding permanent harm and live a healthier life, while changing the paradigm from asymptomatic treatments to cures that may improve and restore quality of life.

More about Global Stem Cells Group

GSCG delivers leadership in regenerative medicine research, patient applications, and training through our strategic global networks. We endeavor to enable physicians to treat otherwise incurable diseases using stem cell therapy and to improve the quality of life and care across the world.

For this reason, GSCG works with innovative, next-generation therapy providers like Dr. Yanti Aesthetic Clinics to give access to one-of-a-kind holistic and safe treatment options.

More information regarding this transaction and the Global Stem Cells Group may be found at GSCG.

This press release should be read in conjunction with all other filings on http://www.sec.gov

For more information on Global Stem Cells Group please visit: http://www.stemcellsgroup.com

About Meso Numismatics: Meso Numismatics, Corp is an emerging Biotechnology and numismatic technology company. The Company has quickly become the central hub for rare, exquisite, and valuable inventory for not only the Meso region, but for exceptional items from around the world.

Meso has now added Biotechnology to its portfolio and will continue to grow the company in this new direction. With the Company's breadth of business experience and technology team, the Company will continue to help companies grow.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some information in this document constitutes forward-looking statements or statements which may be deemed or construed to be forward-looking statements, such as the closing of the share exchange agreement. The words plan, "forecast", "anticipates", "estimate", "project", "intend", "expect", "should", "believe", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve, and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Company's actual results, performance (financial or operating) or achievements to differ from the future results, performance (financial or operating) or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks, uncertainties and other factors are more fully discussed in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to Meso Numismatics, Inc., herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by the above-mentioned cautionary statement. Meso Numismatics, Inc. disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this estimate, except as may be required by law.

For further information, please contact:investor.relations@mssvinc.com Telephone: (800) 956-3935

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Global Stem Cells Group Expands Its Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine Centers to Indonesia - GlobeNewswire

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Global Stem Cells Group Expands Its Stem Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine Centers to Indonesia – GlobeNewswire | August 2nd, 2022

Cell Culture Media, Sera, and Reagents Market: Introduction

According to the report, the globalcell culture media, sera, and reagents marketwas valued at US$6.1 Bnin 2020 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of10.3%from 2021 to 2031. Cell culture media, also known as growth media, is an umbrella term that encompasses any gel or liquid created to support cellular growth in an artificial environment. It is a combination of compounds and nutrients designed to support cellular growth.

Cell culture reagents include cell culture media, media supplements, and sterile reagents. Common cell culture reagents are antibiotics and amino acid supplements. Serum is a key component for growing and maintaining cells in culture. It contains a mixture of proteins, hormones, minerals, and other growth factors. It is added to media as a growth supplement, and specialized forms can be used for different experimental conditions.

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Increase in Demand for Cost-effective and Highly Efficient Cell Culture Products to Drive Global Market

Cell culture technology is applied in various domains such as research, academics, bioprocessing & manufacturing, cell therapy, and regenerative medicines. Leading pharmaceutical companies are expanding their capabilities into biopharmaceutical manufacturing in order to leverage high market potential and due to increase in demand for these products.

Rise in demand for cost-effective and highly efficient cell culture products such as bioreactors, media, reagents, and sera for the production of high-yield cell lines has led to an increase in the number of new product launches. This factor is anticipated to provide lucrative opportunities in the global cell culture market during the forecast period.

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Contract Research & Manufacturing and Focus on Stem Cell Research to Propel Market

The cell culture media, sera, and reagents market is witnessing a shift toward contract manufacturing & research, primarily due to significant capital investment and specificity of each biomanufacturing process. For instance, cell cultures could be 2D, 3D, rotating, continuously stirred, batch-fed, and several other types. The expanding scope of cell culture into areas such as stem cell research is boosts the growth of the global market. Rise in importance of stem cell therapy is underlined by the fact that these therapies help treat the cause of the disease, while conventional treatment methods help in managing only the symptoms. This requires advanced capabilities in terms of capital, equipment, and resources; hence, contract manufacturing presents an economically beneficial solution.

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Major Players in Global Cell Culture Media, Sera, and Reagents Market

Key players operating in the global cell culture media, sera, and reagents market include Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Merck KGaA, Cytiva (Danaher Corporation), Becton, Dickinson and Company, Corning Incorporated, HiMedia Laboratories, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Inc., InvivoGen, SeraCare (LGC Clinical Diagnostics, Inc.), and Lonza. Each of these players has been profiled in the cell culture media, sera, and reagents market report based on parameters such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, application portfolio, business segments, and recent developments.

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Transparency Market Research, a global market research company registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, provides custom research and consulting services The firm scrutinizes factors shaping the dynamics of demand in various markets.The insights and perspectives on the markets evaluate opportunities in various segments. The opportunities in the segments based on source, application, demographics, sales channel, and end-use are analysed, which will determine growth in the markets over the next decade.

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The Role of Cell Culture Media, Sera, and Reagents Market Industry Growth, Competitors Analysis, New Technology, Trends and Forecast 2021 2031 -...

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on The Role of Cell Culture Media, Sera, and Reagents Market Industry Growth, Competitors Analysis, New Technology, Trends and Forecast 2021 2031 -… | August 2nd, 2022

WORCESTER, Mass., July 27, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mustang Bio, Inc.(Mustang) (NASDAQ: MBIO), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on translating todays medical breakthroughs in cell and gene therapies into potential cures for hematologic cancers, solid tumors and rare genetic diseases, today announced that the first patient successfully received LV-RAG1 ex vivo lentiviral gene therapy to treat recombinase-activating gene-1 (RAG1) severe combined immunodeficiency (RAG1-SCID), in an ongoing Phase 1/2 multicenter clinical trial taking place in Europe. LV-RAG1 is exclusively licensed by Mustang for the development of MB-110, a first-in-class ex vivo lentiviral gene therapy for the treatment of RAG1-SCID.

Patients with SCID have mutations in blood stem cell genes that are responsible for the development and function of infection-fighting immune cells. As a result, they are unable to mount a normal defense response against infections. The administration of LV-RAG1 includes reduced intensity conditioning prior to reinfusion of the patients own gene-modified blood stem cells.

The patient was administered LV-RAG1 without any complications. LV-RAG1 allowed the patients body to create a functioning immune system, which is responding well to the standard vaccinations for newborns, said Arjan Lankester, Principal Investigator and Professor of Pediatrics and Stem Cell Transplantation at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC).

Manuel Litchman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Mustang said, This first successful administration to a RAG1-SCID patient of a stem-cell based gene therapy represents a significant positive step forward for our MB-110 development program. This treatment, along with our X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (XSCID) programs, which includes MB-107 and MB-207, has established Mustang as a leader in developing treatments for SCID patients, who are in great need of these life-saving therapies. XSCID and RAG1-SCID make up almost 60% of all SCID cases combined.1 We look forward to continuing to advance these clinical candidates, including plans to initiate a multicenter pivotal Phase 2 trial for MB-107 under Mustangs IND in the second half of this year.

LV-RAG1 has been granted Orphan Drug Designation by the European Medicines Agency. Additional clinical trial sites are expected to be added in the near future.

Signed in 2021, Mustangs exclusive, worldwide license agreement for LV-RAG1 established an ongoing partnership with LUMC and LUMCs Frank J. Staal, Ph.D., molecular immunologist and professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology. The license agreement grants Mustang rights to certain additional lentiviral gene therapies being developed in Dr. Staals lab.

About RAG1-SCIDSevere combined immunodeficiency (SCID) due to complete RAG1 deficiency is a rare, genetic severe combined immunodeficiency disorder caused by null mutations in the RAG1 gene resulting in less than 1% of wild type V(D)J recombination activity. Patients present with neonatal onset of life-threatening, severe, recurrent infections by opportunistic fungal, viral and bacterial micro-organisms, as well as skin rashes, chronic diarrhea, failure to thrive and fever. Immunologic observations include profound T- and B-cell lymphopenia, low or absent serum immunoglobulins, and normal natural killer cell counts. As is the case with other types of SCID, RAG1-SCID is fatal in infancy unless immune reconstitution is achieved with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), or autologous stem cells corrected by gene therapy.

About MB-110 (Ex Vivo Lentiviral Gene Therapy)MB-110 is a first-in-class ex vivo lentiviral gene therapy under development to treat RAG1-SCID, utilizing the LV-RAG1 vector developed in the laboratory of Frank J. Staal, Ph.D., molecular immunologist and professor of Molecular Stem Cell Biology at LUMC. Exclusively licensed to Mustang in 2021, LV-RAG1 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 multicenter, academic clinical trial (RECOMB) in Europe. Additional information on the trial can be found at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov using the identifier NCT04797260.

The same lentiviral vector drug substance produced by LUMC will be used to transduce patients cells to create the MB-110 drug product produced at Mustang Bios Worcester, MA, cell processing facility for further clinical development and to facilitate eventual commercial launch of the product.

About Mustang BioMustang Bio, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on translating todays medical breakthroughs in cell and gene therapies into potential cures for hematologic cancers, solid tumors and rare genetic diseases. Mustang aims to acquire rights to these technologies by licensing or otherwise acquiring an ownership interest, to fund research and development, and to outlicense or bring the technologies to market. Mustang has partnered with top medical institutions to advance the development of CAR T therapies across multiple cancers, as well as lentiviral gene therapies for severe combined immunodeficiency. Mustang is registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and files periodic reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Mustang was founded by Fortress Biotech, Inc. (NASDAQ: FBIO). For more information, visit http://www.mustangbio.com.

ForwardLooking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended. Such statements, which are often indicated by terms such as anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, goal, intend, look forward to, may, plan, potential, predict, project, should, will, would and similar expressions, include, but are not limited to, any statements relating to our growth strategy and product development programs, including the timing of and our ability to make regulatory filings such as INDs and other applications and to obtain regulatory approvals for our product candidates, statements concerning the potential of therapies and product candidates, and any other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could negatively affect our business, operating results, financial condition and stock value. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated include: risks relating to our growth strategy; our ability to obtain, perform under, and maintain financing and strategic agreements and relationships; risks relating to the results of research and development activities; risks relating to the timing of starting and completing clinical trials; uncertainties relating to preclinical and clinical testing; our dependence on third-party suppliers; our ability to attract, integrate and retain key personnel; the early stage of products under development; our need for substantial additional funds; government regulation; patent and intellectual property matters; competition; as well as other risks described in Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors, in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 23, 2022, subsequent Reports on Form 10-Q, and our other filings we make with the SEC. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in our expectations or any changes in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law, and we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Company Contacts:Jaclyn Jaffe and Bill BegienMustang Bio, Inc.(781) 652-4500ir@mustangbio.com

Investor Relations Contact:Daniel FerryLifeSci Advisors, LLC(617) 430-7576daniel@lifesciadvisors.com

Media Relations Contact:Tony Plohoros6 Degrees(908) 591-2839tplohoros@6degreespr.com

1 Fischer A, et al. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2015; article number 15061; doi: 10.1038/nrdp.2015.61

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Mustang Bio Announces First Patient Successfully Treated by Ex Vivo Lentiviral Gene Therapy to Treat RAG1 Severe Combined Immunodeficiency - BioSpace

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Mustang Bio Announces First Patient Successfully Treated by Ex Vivo Lentiviral Gene Therapy to Treat RAG1 Severe Combined Immunodeficiency – BioSpace | August 2nd, 2022

Preferred RegionHow does this work?

By Nathan Sager

Published July 14, 2022 at 5:16 pm

A renowned burns specialist and his entire lab are continuing their work to develop 3-D printed skin at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Earlier this month, Dr. Marc Jeschke began a dual role at McMaster and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS). Jeschke, who previously worked at the University of Toronto and Sunnybrook hospital, is now a professor of surgery at Mac and vice-president, research at HHS as well as medical director of its burns unit.

As part of the move, Jeschke is bringing his nearly 20-scientist burn research lab to Hamilton. The lab is supported by a gift from Charles and Margaret Juravinski through the Juravinski Research Institute. In a release from the university, Jeschke said McMaster is uniquely positioned for work across verious medical disciplines, since there are many partnerships with HHS and St. Josephs Healthcare Hmailton.

(McMaster) offers a more intimate environment than other institutions of its calibre and the quality of collaboration here is outstanding, said Jeschke.

People who suffer extensive and serious burns often end up with scarring for life. The Jeschke-headed lab has been developing a skin derivative that uses a patients own stem cells. It might one day greatly reduce scarring for people with extensive burns.

In 2020, researchers and developers from U of T and Sunnybrook became the first Canadian team to be honoured with a top prize from the 3D Pioneers Challenge for building and refining of the ReverTome handheld 3D skin printer. The printer can make new skin grown from stem cells in order to improve healing. Jeschke and his team contributed stem cell research to help inform development of the device.

The 3D Pioneers Challenge honours innovations in digital printing. The U of T-Sunnybrook team won from among a field of 52 finalists from 28 nations.

Jeschke said in the release that the therapy his lab is testing proved effective in porcine models. The clinical trial stage would be next.

The human body is so complex, but this stem-cell based therapy, if successful, will certainly change the way we care for burns and other injuries, he said.

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McMaster in Hamilton founds burn injury research program that is working on 3-D skin | inTheHammer - insauga.com

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on McMaster in Hamilton founds burn injury research program that is working on 3-D skin | inTheHammer – insauga.com | July 16th, 2022

In molecular biologist David Sinclair's lab at Harvard Medical School, old mice are growing young again.

Using proteins that can turn an adult cell into a stem cell, Sinclair and his team have reset aging cells in mice to earlier versions of themselves. In his team's first breakthrough, published in late 2020, old mice with poor eyesight and damaged retinas could suddenly see again, with vision that at times rivaled their offspring's.

"It's a permanent reset, as far as we can tell, and we think it may be a universal process that could be applied across the body to reset our age," said Sinclair, who has spent the last 20 years studying ways to reverse the ravages of time.

"If we reverse aging, these diseases should not happen. We have the technology today to be able to go into your hundreds without worrying about getting cancer in your 70s, heart disease in your 80s and Alzheimer's in your 90s." Sinclair told an audience at Life Itself, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN.

"This is the world that is coming. It's literally a question of when and for most of us, it's going to happen in our lifetimes," Sinclair told the audience.

"His research shows you can change aging to make lives younger for longer. Now he wants to change the world and make aging a disease," said Whitney Casey, an investor who is partnering with Sinclair to create a do-it-yourself biological age test.

While modern medicine addresses sickness, it doesn't address the underlying cause, "which for most diseases, is aging itself," Sinclair said. "We know that when we reverse the age of an organ like the brain in a mouse, the diseases of aging then go away. Memory comes back; there is no more dementia.

"I believe that in the future, delaying and reversing aging will be the best way to treat the diseases that plague most of us."

A reset button

In Sinclair's lab, two mice sit side by side. One is the picture of youth, the other gray and feeble. Yet they are brother and sister, born from the same litter -- only one has been genetically altered to age faster.

If that could be done, Sinclair asked his team, could the reverse be accomplished as well? Japanese biomedical researcher Dr. Shinya Yamanaka had already reprogrammed human adult skin cells to behave like embryonic or pluripotent stem cells, capable of developing into any cell in the body. The 2007 discovery won the scientist a Nobel Prize, and his "induced pluripotent stem cells," soon became known as "Yamanaka factors."

However, adult cells fully switched back to stem cells via Yamanaka factors lose their identity. They forget they are blood, heart and skin cells, making them perfect for rebirth as "cell du jour," but lousy at rejuvenation. You don't want Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" to become a baby all at once; you want him to age backward while still remembering who he is.

Labs around the world jumped on the problem. A study published in 2016 by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, showed signs of aging could be expunged in genetically aged mice, exposed for a short time to four main Yamanaka factors, without erasing the cells' identity.

But there was a downside in all this research: In certain situations, the altered mice developed cancerous tumors.

Looking for a safer alternative, Sinclair lab geneticist Yuancheng Lu chose three of the four factors and genetically added them to a harmless virus. The virus was designed to deliver the rejuvenating Yamanaka factors to damaged retinal ganglion cells at the back of an aged mouse's eye. After injecting the virus into the eye, the pluripotent genes were then switched on by feeding the mouse an antibiotic.

"The antibiotic is just a tool. It could be any chemical really, just a way to be sure the three genes are switched on," Sinclair said. "Normally they are only on in very young developing embryos and then turn off as we age."

Amazingly, damaged neurons in the eyes of mice injected with the three cells rejuvenated, even growing new axons, or projections from the eye into the brain. Since that original study, Sinclair said his lab has reversed aging in the muscles and brains of mice and is now working on rejuvenating a mouse's entire body.

"Somehow the cells know the body can reset itself, and they still know which genes should be on when they were young," Sinclair said. "We think we're tapping into an ancient regeneration system that some animals use -- when you cut the limb off a salamander, it regrows the limb. The tail of a fish will grow back; a finger of a mouse will grow back."

That discovery indicates there is a "backup copy" of youthfulness information stored in the body, he added.

"I call it the information theory of aging," he said. "It's a loss of information that drives aging cells to forget how to function, to forget what type of cell they are. And now we can tap into a reset switch that restores the cell's ability to read the genome correctly again, as if it was young."

While the changes have lasted for months in mice, renewed cells don't freeze in time and never age (like, say, vampires or superheroes), Sinclair said. "It's as permanent as aging is. It's a reset, and then we see the mice age out again, so then we just repeat the process.

"We believe we have found the master control switch, a way to rewind the clock," he added. "The body will then wake up, remember how to behave, remember how to regenerate and will be young again, even if you're already old and have an illness."

Science already knows how to slow human aging

Studies on whether the genetic intervention that revitalized mice will do the same for people are in early stages, Sinclair said. It will be years before human trials are finished, analyzed and, if safe and successful, scaled to the mass needed for a federal stamp of approval.

While we wait for science to determine if we too can reset our genes, there are many other ways to slow the aging process and reset our biological clocks, Sinclair said.

"The top tips are simply: Focus on plants for food, eat less often, get sufficient sleep, lose your breath for 10 minutes three times a week by exercising to maintain your muscle mass, don't sweat the small stuff and have a good social group," Sinclair said.

What controls the epigenome? Human behavior and one's environment play a key role. Let's say you were born with a genetic predisposition for heart disease and diabetes. But because you exercised, ate a plant-focused diet, slept well and managed your stress during most of your life, it's possible those genes would never be activated. That, experts say, is how we can take some of our genetic fate into our own hands.

Cutting back on food -- without inducing malnutrition -- has been a scientifically known way to lengthen life for nearly a century. Studies on worms, crabs, snails, fruit flies and rodents have found restricting calories "delay the onset of age-related disorders" such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, according to the National Institute on Aging. Some studies have also found extensions in life span: In a 1986 study, mice fed only a third of a typical day's calories lived to 53 months -- a mouse kept as a pet may live to about 24 months.

Studies in people, however, have been less enlightening, partly because many have focused on weight loss instead of longevity. For Sinclair, however, cutting back on meals was a significant factor in resetting his personal clock: Recent tests show he has a biological age of 42 in a body born 53 years ago.

"I've been doing a biological test for 10 years now, and I've been getting steadily younger for the last decade," Sinclair said. "The biggest change in my biological clock occurred when I ate less often -- I only eat one meal a day now. That made the biggest difference to my biochemistry."

Additional ways to turn back the clock

Sinclair incorporates other tools into his life, based on research from his lab and others. In his book "Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don't Have To," he writes that little of what he does has undergone the sort of "rigorous long-term clinical testing" needed to have a "complete understanding of the wide range of potential outcomes." In fact, he added, "I have no idea if this is even the right thing for me to be doing."

With that caveat, Sinclair is willing to share his tips: He keeps his starches and sugars to a minimum and gave up desserts at age 40 (although he does admit to stealing a taste on occasion). He eats a good amount of plants, avoids eating other mammals and keeps his body weight at the low end of optimal.

He exercises by taking a lot of steps each day, walks upstairs instead of taking an elevator and visits the gym with his son to lift weights and jog before taking a sauna and a dip in an ice-cold pool. "I've got my 20-year-old body back," he said with a smile.

Speaking of cold, science has long thought lower temperatures increased longevity in many species, but whether it is true or not may come down to one's genome, according to a 2018 study. Regardless, it appears cold can increase brown fat in humans, which is the type of fat bears use to stay warm during hibernation. Brown fat has been shown to improve metabolism and combat obesity.

Sinclair takes vitamins D and K2 and baby aspirin daily, along with supplements that have shown promise in extending longevity in yeast, mice and human cells in test tubes.

One supplement he takes after discovering its benefits is 1 gram of resveratrol, the antioxidant-like substance found in the skin of grapes, blueberries, raspberries, mulberries and peanuts.

He also takes 1 gram of metformin, a staple in the arsenal of drugs used to lower blood sugars in people with diabetes. He added it after studies showed it might reduce inflammation, oxidative damage and cellular senescence, in which cells are damaged but refuse to die, remaining in the body as a type of malfunctioning "zombie cell."

However, some scientists quibble about the use of metformin, pointing to rare cases of lactic acid buildup and a lack of knowledge on how it functions in the body.

Sinclair also takes 1 gram of NMN, or nicotinamide mononucleotide, which in the body turns into NAD+, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. A coenzyme that exists in all living cells, NAD+ plays a central role in the body's biological processes, such as regulating cellular energy, increasing insulin sensitivity and reversing mitochondrial dysfunction.

When the body ages, NAD+ levels significantly decrease, dropping by middle age to about half the levels of youth, contributing to age-related metabolic diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. Numerous studies have shown restoring NAD+ levels safely improves overall health and increases life span in yeast, mice and dogs. Clinical trials testing the molecule in humans have been underway for three years, Sinclair said.

"These supplements, and the lifestyle that I am doing, is designed to turn on our defenses against aging," he said. "Now, if you do that, you don't necessarily turn back the clock. These are just things that slow down epigenetic damage and these other horrible hallmarks of aging.

"But the real advance, in my view, was the ability to just tell the body, 'Forget all that. Just be young again,' by just flipping a switch. Now I'm not saying that we're going to all be 20 years old again," Sinclair said.

"But I'm optimistic that we can duplicate this very fundamental process that exists in everything from a bat to a sheep to a whale to a human. We've done it in a mouse. There's no reason I can think of why it shouldn't work in a person, too."

& 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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The 'Benjamin Button' effect: Scientists can reverse aging in mice. The goal is to do the same for humans - KITV Honolulu

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on The ‘Benjamin Button’ effect: Scientists can reverse aging in mice. The goal is to do the same for humans – KITV Honolulu | July 16th, 2022

ICYMI: Amazon Prime Day is coming to an end tonight and truth be told, the sales appear to be gifts that keep on giving. One of our favorite skin-care tools is having a major discount across all of its devices and treatments. Yep, you guessed it, it's NuFace.

If you're unfamiliar with the brand and the magic it can do, let us school you quickly. NuFace devices use microcurrent technology that the brand calls "fitness for your face." In the same way that consistently hitting weights and cardio whips our body's muscles into shape, the metal nodes on the head of the tools send electrical currents through the various layers of facial skin, down to the muscles, to basically give them a workout.

Into it? Well, lucky for you NuFace products will be available at a discount throughout this two-day epic sale. Starting right now through July 13, you can snag devices, boosters, and activators for up to 36 percent off. The sale includes top-selling products like the Trinity, NuBody, Fix, and more.

So what are you waiting for? This luxury tool rarely goes on sale so get to shopping because these discounts end later on when Prime Day closes its virtual doors.

NuFace Trinity Starter Kit

NuFace Trinity Complete Kit

Both the Trinity Starter Kit and Complete Kit are essentially the same thing, but the complete kit comes with some additional attachments. Both kits feature a NuFace device and a gel primer to apply prior in order to activate the current. However, the Complete Kit holds a dual wand that targets specific areas like around the lips and eyes and a LED light attachment that helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

If you're not into breaking the $200 mark, consider the Mini Starter Kit it holds the same device and gel primer, just in a smaller (more portable!) version that achieves the same results.

The NuBody features those same nodes on the head as the Trinity but in a handheld body version that utilizes four nodes. With four electrical currents, this device sends waves through the skin down to the muscles to help sculpt and tone the body. Plus, you get a 10-ounce gel primer to ensure the device glides smoothly and evenly.

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NuFace Is Having a Major Sale During Amazon Prime Day 2022 See Deals on Trinity, NuBody, and More - Allure

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on NuFace Is Having a Major Sale During Amazon Prime Day 2022 See Deals on Trinity, NuBody, and More – Allure | July 16th, 2022

Endometriosis is a condition that can occur when tissue that is normally found lining the uterus, known as the endometrium, begins to grow outside of that organ. With this disorder, the tissue can be found growing around other nearby organs the ovaries, intestines, and even tissue that lines your pelvis.

Because endometrial tissue is affected by hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle, its not uncommon for people with endometriosis to experience pain and discomfort just like they would with endometrial tissue in the uterus. And just like that tissue, this tissue breaks down too but isnt expelled.

As a result, endometriosis can lead to the growth of scar tissue, irritation, and even infertility. But while much is known about endometriosis in adult women, the condition isnt as well-researched in children or adolescents.

Officially, there is no known cause of endometriosis regardless of the age at which its discovered. And almost all researchers agree that limited studies in younger age groups, as well as healthcare professionals delaying diagnosis by several years, can contribute to its progression that often leads to infertility and other negative outcomes.

There are a few theories that highlight potential reasons, but no theory has proven to be conclusive yet. Well take a closer look at the best supported theories to-date:

Retrograde menstruation is a condition in which blood that is expelled from the uterus flows back toward the fallopian tubes rather than out of the body through the vagina. This scenario is more common than you may expect, with roughly 90% of women experiencing it at some point during their menstruating lives.

But for some, this backflow can lead to endometrial cells adhering to organs or cavity tissues, or whats known as endometrial lesions. This is why it is currently considered a key factor in developing endometriosis.

A 2013 study conducted in Japan found a link between the incidence of menstrual pain and the need for medical interventions. While the study found that roughly a third of all menstruating Japanese women experienced pain significant enough to require medication, of that group, 6% did not experience any improvement after taking medication.

More importantly, this study found that roughly 25 to 38% of adolescents that complained of chronic pelvic pain were later diagnosed with endometriosis. Meanwhile, the most common solution offered to adolescents is pain medications, which will not treat the cause of the pain.

That same 2013 Japanese study noted that some respondents were diagnosed with endometriosis while having never menstruated (premenarchal). This discovery has encouraged researchers to consider that other underlying mechanisms might contribute to endometriosis rather than retrograde menstruation.

Some researchers further hypothesized that endometriosis diagnoses in premenarchal participants could be caused by stem cells that later develop into endometrial tissue and are later activated when menstruation begins.

While we often think of endometriosis as a condition exclusively impacting women, the reality is that it can also develop in nonbinary or transmasculine (people assigned female at birth that later transition to boys) adolescents as well.

A 2020 study reviewed previous research that focused on 35 trans participants ages 26 and younger that were diagnosed with dysmenorrhea (or menstruation-related pain) and treated for that condition. Of the 35, seven of the patients were evaluated and found to have endometriosis some of which were diagnosed after transitioning and included one participant that had already begun testosterone treatment.

Of the seven patients, treatment varied from oral contraceptives, testosterone treatment, and other drugs such as danazol and progestins. The study found that results were mixed. While some respondents found success with testosterone therapy for resolving symptoms, this wasnt the case for everyone.

Ultimately, the study recommended that trans masculine people experiencing dysmenorrhea symptoms should be screened for endometriosis, and that testosterone therapy alone isnt necessarily a complete solution.

Although less is known about endometriosis in adolescent or teenage populations, symptoms tend to be consistent with those found in adult women. These include:

If you or your child is experiencing symptoms of endometriosis, keep reading to learn about getting diagnosed.

Consistently, the research and medical communities agree that early detection of endometriosis is the best way to prevent acute spread which can lead to infertility. Checking for endometriosis on your own is not possible. But letting your doctor know that youre experiencing chronic pelvic pain, heavy or long periods, or any of the other common symptoms associated with endometriosis is important.

Your physician might start the diagnostic process by performing a pelvic ultrasound to ensure that any other underlying conditions or infections arent causing your symptoms. Usually, endometriosis is diagnosed with laparoscopy. This is a minimally invasive procedure where your physician inserts a thin tube with a light and lens through a small incision into the lower abdomen. With this procedure, they can look for endometrial lesions to determine if endometriosis is present.

Unfortunately, its common for period pain to be dismissed as a regular part of life, and for many people it can take more than a decade to receive a proper diagnosis. If this is the case for you, dont hesitate to advocate for yourself and seek a second opinion if youre unable to find a treatment plan that works for you.

Currently, there is no cure for endometriosis. However, just as in adults, the goal of treating adolescent endometriosis is to control and prevent disease progression, provide symptom relief, and preserve fertility.

Several treatment methods may be recommended depending on the amount of endometrial tissue that is present (disease progression).

Treatment options can center on hormonal therapy to control estrogen levels a key factor that influences endometrial growth. For some patients, this might include taking oral contraception, or a progestin-only agent to prevent or minimize the onset of periods, as well as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for pain management.

Be aware that you might need to try several different types of hormonal therapies before you find the right option that controls your condition.

Some patients might also be prescribed Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist therapy. But this is usually reserved for adults, because research suggests that this treatment can impact bone mineralization in adolescents.

Surgery is often used for both diagnosis and treatment. While some surgeries can remove endometrial lesions, this is not a permanent solution for everyone.

Research has proven that even with surgery, endometrial lesions can return.

Most endometriosis conversations center around female patients. But its important to remember that trans men as well as those born male are also at risk of developing this disease.

Once thought to only be an issue for menstruating females, research suggests that endometriosis can also be detected in premenarchal youth.

Theres no cure for endometriosis. But experts, advocates, and the medical community agree that early interventions for the condition are critical for limiting its spread, controlling symptoms that can impact everyday life, and preserving fertility especially in adolescents.

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Endometriosis in Teens: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment - Healthline

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Chemotherapy has transformed cancer care, but its benefits come with side effects. Chemo brain is the name some people give to the brain fog and fuzziness that can result from these lifesaving treatments.

Chemotherapy works by destroying fast-reproducing cancer cells. But it can kill other healthy cells along the way, including certain brain cells. The destruction of brain cells can impact your emotional state and ability to think, leading to memory and concentration problems, among other concerns.

This article will explore what types of cognitive and emotional changes you might expect from chemotherapy, what factors increase your risk for these symptoms, and what you can do to treat them.

Various emotional and cognitive symptoms can occur during chemotherapy, and they should be categorized separately. Even though they both apply to your brain and can be considered mental side effects, emotion and cognition are different.

Cognition refers broadly to the intellectual processes of absorbing, analyzing, and using information. Emotions are our feelings and responses to experiences, environments, and relationships. For example, trouble focusing is a cognitive side effect, whereas irritability is an emotional one.

Lets go over some of the most common chemotherapy side effects in both categories.

Cognitive changes are usually the most noticeable impacting daily functioning, work or school performance, and personal relationships.

Confusion or delirium is the most common of these symptoms, affecting roughly 57 to 85 percent of people undergoing chemotherapy, compared to 15 to 30 percent of people hospitalized for other medical reasons.

Cognitive changes can look different depending on the individual but commonly include:

In addition to chemo, other factors can contribute to emotional stress as part of a cancer diagnosis. The emotional impacts of chemo can look like shifts in mood, depression or anxiety. Personality changes are common, too.

These can be linked to chemotherapy treatments, the disease process, and coping with a cancer diagnosis.

Learn more about the emotional impacts of a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment.

There are several reasons why chemotherapy can impact your mental and emotional health.

One reason is that chemo medications cross the blood-brain barrier, causing inflammation. Brain shrinkage, or a loss of neurons, has been observed as a result of both cancer and chemotherapy.

Cognitive changes can also be heightened by complications of cancer treatment or other medical conditions. Chronic pain and lack of sleep or appetite from chemotherapy treatments can have profound negative life impacts.

This can affect your energy and strength levels, making it hard to focus or regulate your emotions.

Cancers spread to the brain can also directly affect cognitive and emotional functioning. This can be separate from, or in addition to, chemo.

While chemotherapy aims to slow or stop the spread of cancer, increased changes in mental status and cognition can also be signs of metastasis, or that the cancer is spreading.

Your doctor may also want to rule out intolerances or reactions to your chemotherapy treatment.

Treating cancer requires an individualized and multidisciplinary approach. Often, a rehabilitation plan is involved in helping you cope with or heal from the effects of chemotherapy and other intensive treatments, including any surgeries.

Your doctor may want to adjust your chemotherapy regimen depending on your side effects.

Cognitive rehabilitation is sometimes included in a chemotherapy plan and offers activities or exercises to help keep your mind sharp and focused during treatment.

The American Cancer Society suggests that exercise and meditation can go a long way in reducing the mental toll of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments.

Also, talk therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), may help you process the complex emotions arising from a cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Talk therapies can help you develop coping techniques that may help you manage fatigue, confusion, and any depression or anxiety you are experiencing due to chemotherapy.

There are particular cancer and chemotherapy medications that can increase the chances of confusion, delirium, and other cognitive changes in some people. Your doctor should review any risks of a potential treatment option with you when designing your chemo regimen.

Consider coming to your appointment prepared with questions about what risk of physical and mental impacts chemo may cause. Ensure your doctor knows all medications you are currently taking to avoid adverse reactions.

If you choose to move forward with treatment, your doctor may be able to help you find ways to preserve your thinking abilities should chemo affect them, or at the very least learn to cope with the changes.

There are certain risk factors that may increase your chance of experiencing mental side effects during chemotherapy.

Besides taking specific medications or having brain cancer, this can include having:

Chemotherapy can effectively manage cancer and bring about remission. But the medications for chemotherapy are strong and highly toxic to other cells and systems in your body. This treatment can cause unpleasant physical, mental, and emotional symptoms.

The physical effects of chemotherapy like nausea and hair loss are well-known, but substantial mental and cognitive changes can also happen with this therapy. Chemo brain refers to the fatigue, confusion, and overall brain fog some people experience.

Talk with your doctor about the specific risks versus benefits for your type of cancer, stage, and prescribed chemotherapy regimen. Your medical team should be able to help you with therapies and strategies that can help you cope with the emotional and cognitive toll of cancer and chemotherapy.

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Does Chemotherapy Have Cognitive and Emotional Side Effects? - Healthline

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Does Chemotherapy Have Cognitive and Emotional Side Effects? – Healthline | July 8th, 2022

Cells in the body have specific purposes, but stem cells are cells that do not yet have a specific role and can become almost any cell that is required.

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that can turn into specific cells, as the body needs them.

Scientists and doctors are interested in stem cells as they help to explain how some functions of the body work, and how they sometimes go wrong.

Stem cells also show promise for treating some diseases that currently have no cure.

Stem cells originate from two main sources: adult body tissues and embryos. Scientists are also working on ways to develop stem cells from other cells, using genetic reprogramming techniques.

A persons body contains stem cells throughout their life. The body can use these stem cells whenever it needs them.

Also called tissue-specific or somatic stem cells, adult stem cells exist throughout the body from the time an embryo develops.

The cells are in a non-specific state, but they are more specialized than embryonic stem cells. They remain in this state until the body needs them for a specific purpose, say, as skin or muscle cells.

Day-to-day living means the body is constantly renewing its tissues. In some parts of the body, such as the gut and bone marrow, stem cells regularly divide to produce new body tissues for maintenance and repair.

Stem cells are present inside different types of tissue. Scientists have found stem cells in tissues, including:

However, stem cells can be difficult to find. They can stay non-dividing and non-specific for years until the body summons them to repair or grow new tissue.

Adult stem cells can divide or self-renew indefinitely. This means they can generate various cell types from the originating organ or even regenerate the original organ, entirely.

This division and regeneration are how a skin wound heals, or how an organ such as the liver, for example, can repair itself after damage.

In the past, scientists believed adult stem cells could only differentiate based on their tissue of origin. However, some evidence now suggests that they can differentiate to become other cell types, as well.

From the very earliest stage of pregnancy, after the sperm fertilizes the egg, an embryo forms.

Around 35 days after a sperm fertilizes an egg, the embryo takes the form of a blastocyst or ball of cells.

The blastocyst contains stem cells and will later implant in the womb. Embryonic stem cells come from a blastocyst that is 45 days old.

When scientists take stem cells from embryos, these are usually extra embryos that result from in vitro fertilization (IVF).

In IVF clinics, the doctors fertilize several eggs in a test tube, to ensure that at least one survives. They will then implant a limited number of eggs to start a pregnancy.

When a sperm fertilizes an egg, these cells combine to form a single cell called a zygote.

This single-celled zygote then starts to divide, forming 2, 4, 8, 16 cells, and so on. Now it is an embryo.

Soon, and before the embryo implants in the uterus, this mass of around 150200 cells is the blastocyst. The blastocyst consists of two parts:

The inner cell mass is where embryonic stem cells are found. Scientists call these totipotent cells. The term totipotent refer to the fact that they have total potential to develop into any cell in the body.

With the right stimulation, the cells can become blood cells, skin cells, and all the other cell types that a body needs.

In early pregnancy, the blastocyst stage continues for about 5 days before the embryo implants in the uterus, or womb. At this stage, stem cells begin to differentiate.

Embryonic stem cells can differentiate into more cell types than adult stem cells.

MSCs come from the connective tissue or stroma that surrounds the bodys organs and other tissues.

Scientists have used MSCs to create new body tissues, such as bone, cartilage, and fat cells. They may one day play a role in solving a wide range of health problems.

Scientists create these in a lab, using skin cells and other tissue-specific cells. These cells behave in a similar way to embryonic stem cells, so they could be useful for developing a range of therapies.

However, more research and development is necessary.

To grow stem cells, scientists first extract samples from adult tissue or an embryo. They then place these cells in a controlled culture where they will divide and reproduce but not specialize further.

Stem cells that are dividing and reproducing in a controlled culture are called a stem-cell line.

Researchers manage and share stem-cell lines for different purposes. They can stimulate the stem cells to specialize in a particular way. This process is known as directed differentiation.

Until now, it has been easier to grow large numbers of embryonic stem cells than adult stem cells. However, scientists are making progress with both cell types.

Researchers categorize stem cells, according to their potential to differentiate into other types of cells.

Embryonic stem cells are the most potent, as their job is to become every type of cell in the body.

The full classification includes:

Totipotent: These stem cells can differentiate into all possible cell types. The first few cells that appear as the zygote starts to divide are totipotent.

Pluripotent: These cells can turn into almost any cell. Cells from the early embryo are pluripotent.

Multipotent: These cells can differentiate into a closely related family of cells. Adult hematopoietic stem cells, for example, can become red and white blood cells or platelets.

Oligopotent: These can differentiate into a few different cell types. Adult lymphoid or myeloid stem cells can do this.

Unipotent: These can only produce cells of one kind, which is their own type. However, they are still stem cells because they can renew themselves. Examples include adult muscle stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are considered pluripotent instead of totipotent because they cannot become part of the extra-embryonic membranes or the placenta.

Stem cells themselves do not serve any single purpose but are important for several reasons.

First, with the right stimulation, many stem cells can take on the role of any type of cell, and they can regenerate damaged tissue, under the right conditions.

This potential could save lives or repair wounds and tissue damage in people after an illness or injury. Scientists see many possible uses for stem cells.

Tissue regeneration is probably the most important use of stem cells.

Until now, a person who needed a new kidney, for example, had to wait for a donor and then undergo a transplant.

There is a shortage of donor organs but, by instructing stem cells to differentiate in a certain way, scientists could use them to grow a specific tissue type or organ.

As an example, doctors have already used stem cells from just beneath the skins surface to make new skin tissue. They can then repair a severe burn or another injury by grafting this tissue onto the damaged skin, and new skin will grow back.

In 2013, a team of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital reported in PNAS Early Edition that they had created blood vessels in laboratory mice, using human stem cells.

Within 2 weeks of implanting the stem cells, networks of blood-perfused vessels had formed. The quality of these new blood vessels was as good as the nearby natural ones.

The authors hoped that this type of technique could eventually help to treat people with cardiovascular and vascular diseases.

Doctors may one day be able to use replacement cells and tissues to treat brain diseases, such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers.

In Parkinsons, for example, damage to brain cells leads to uncontrolled muscle movements. Scientists could use stem cells to replenish the damaged brain tissue. This could bring back the specialized brain cells that stop the uncontrolled muscle movements.

Researchers have already tried differentiating embryonic stem cells into these types of cells, so treatments are promising.

Scientists hope one day to be able to develop healthy heart cells in a laboratory that they can transplant into people with heart disease.

These new cells could repair heart damage by repopulating the heart with healthy tissue.

Similarly, people with type I diabetes could receive pancreatic cells to replace the insulin-producing cells that their own immune systems have lost or destroyed.

The only current therapy is a pancreatic transplant, and very few pancreases are available for transplant.

Doctors now routinely use adult hematopoietic stem cells to treat diseases, such as leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and other immunodeficiency problems.

Hematopoietic stem cells occur in blood and bone marrow and can produce all blood cell types, including red blood cells that carry oxygen and white blood cells that fight disease.

People can donate stem cells to help a loved one, or possibly for their own use in the future.

Donations can come from the following sources:

Bone marrow: These cells are taken under a general anesthetic, usually from the hip or pelvic bone. Technicians then isolate the stem cells from the bone marrow for storage or donation.

Peripheral stem cells: A person receives several injections that cause their bone marrow to release stem cells into the blood. Next, blood is removed from the body, a machine separates out the stem cells, and doctors return the blood to the body.

Umbilical cord blood: Stem cells can be harvested from the umbilical cord after delivery, with no harm to the baby. Some people donate the cord blood, and others store it.

This harvesting of stem cells can be expensive, but the advantages for future needs include:

Stem cells are useful not only as potential therapies but also for research purposes.

For example, scientists have found that switching a particular gene on or off can cause it to differentiate. Knowing this is helping them to investigate which genes and mutations cause which effects.

Armed with this knowledge, they may be able to discover what causes a wide range of illnesses and conditions, some of which do not yet have a cure.

Abnormal cell division and differentiation are responsible for conditions that include cancer and congenital disabilities that stem from birth. Knowing what causes the cells to divide in the wrong way could lead to a cure.

Stem cells can also help in the development of new drugs. Instead of testing drugs on human volunteers, scientists can assess how a drug affects normal, healthy tissue by testing it on tissue grown from stem cells.

Watch the video to find out more about stem cells.

There has been some controversy about stem cell research. This mainly relates to work on embryonic stem cells.

The argument against using embryonic stem cells is that it destroys a human blastocyst, and the fertilized egg cannot develop into a person.

Nowadays, researchers are looking for ways to create or use stem cells that do not involve embryos.

Stem cell research often involves inserting human cells into animals, such as mice or rats. Some people argue that this could create an organism that is part human.

In some countries, it is illegal to produce embryonic stem cell lines. In the United States, scientists can create or work with embryonic stem cell lines, but it is illegal to use federal funds to research stem cell lines that were created after August 2001.

Some people are already offering stem-cells therapies for a range of purposes, such as anti-aging treatments.

However, most of these uses do not have approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Some of them may be illegal, and some can be dangerous.

Anyone who is considering stem-cell treatment should check with the provider or with the FDA that the product has approval, and that it was made in a way that meets with FDA standards for safety and effectiveness.

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Stem cells: Sources, types, and uses - Medical News Today

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Stem cells: Sources, types, and uses – Medical News Today | June 30th, 2022

Hematopoietic Stem Cells: In living organisms, a specialized system that consist of blood and its progenitors are referred to as the hematopoietic system.

In particular, this system is made up of cells with specialized functions such as the red blood cells (for carrying oxygen to tissues), white blood cells (for immune defense against pathogens, and foreign agents), platelets (for blood clotting), macrophages and lymphocytes (also for immune defense).

However, many of the said blood cells are temporary and need to be replaced with new ones continuously. But fret not because a single cell can solve the problem!

Every day, almost billions of new blood cells are synthesized within the body with each coming from a specific progenitor cell called the hematopoietic stem cell.

How to pronounce Hematopoietic Stem Cells?

What is Hematopoiesis?

The formation of all kinds of blood cells including creation, development, and differentiation of blood cells is commonly known as Hematopoiesis or Haemopoiesis.

All types of blood cells are generated from primitive cells (stem cells) that are pluripotent (they have the potential to develop into all types of blood cells).

Also referred to as hemocytoblasts, hematopoietic cells are the stem cells that give rise to blood cells in hematopoiesis.

Where Does Hematopoiesis Occur?

In a healthy adult, hematopoiesis occurs in the bone marrow and lymphatic tissues, where 1000+ new blood cells (all types) are generated from the hematopoietic stem cells to main the steady-state levels.

Where Are Hematopoietic Stem Cells Found?

They can also be found in the umbilical cord and in the blood from the placenta.

Who Discovered Hematopoietic Stem Cells?

It was long believed that the majority of hematopoiesis occurs during ontogeny (origination and development of organism) and that the mammalian hematopoietic system originated from the yolk sac per se.

Functions of Hematopoietic Cells

As alluded to earlier, blood cells and blood cell components are formed in a process called hematopoiesis.

Coming from the Greek words hemato and poiesis which mean blood and to make respectively, hematopoiesis occurs in the bone marrow and is responsible not only for the synthesis but also the multiplication, and differentiation of blood cells.

Shown below is a diagrammatic illustration of the different blood cell types that hematopoietic cells can give rise to:

Clinical uses of Hematopoietic Stem Cells

The mammalian blood system showcases the equilibrium between the functions of hematopoietic stem cells. Intensive studies have already shown the structures and molecules that control these stem cells, but the exact picture of the underlying molecular mechanisms is still unclear.

Above everything else, it is important to note that such issues are not just of academic interest but can also be relevant in devising future novel methods of diagnosing and treating various diseases associated with cells.

Key References

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Hematopoietic Stem Cells | Hematopoiesis | Properties & Functions

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Hematopoietic Stem Cells | Hematopoiesis | Properties & Functions | June 30th, 2022

Alopecia is an autoimmune disorder where immune cells attack and destroy hair follicles, causing hair loss. Uncovering a molecular target of a common treatment for alopecia in a new study, scientists at the Salk Institute claim regulatory T cells (Tregs) and glucocorticoids do not just suppress the immune system, they also make hair grow.

Originally discovered as a specialized subset of T lymphocytes that suppress excessive immune response and maintain balance in immune functions, recent studies have shown Tregs also play a role in tissue repair and regeneration.

First author of the study, Zhi Liu PhD, a research associate at Salk Institute said, We were fascinated by Tregs non-traditional function in tissue repair and the way they communicate with tissue stem cells to facilitate tissue regeneration.

Balance in tissue niches depends on communications between stem cells and supporting cells. That Tregs communicate with stem cells and play a critical role in balancing self-renewal and differentiation in stem cell niches has been reported in earlier studies. Yet, how Tregs sense signals in tissue microenvironments and communicate with stem cells has been unclear until now.

Liu said, Our study identified the glucocorticoid hormone as the upstream signal that alerts Tregs, and the growth factor TGF-beta3 as the downstream signal that promotes stem cell activation and hair regeneration. These signals could be potentially conserved in other tissue injury and repair processes.

The study, led by Ye Zheng, PhD, an associate professor at Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, was published on June 23, 2022, in an article in the journal Nature Immunology titled Glucocorticoid signaling and regulatory T cells cooperate to maintain the hair-follicle stem-cell niche. The findings explain how Tregs interact with stem cells in the skin using the steroid hormone glucocorticoid as a messenger to generate new hair follicles and promote hair growth. This regenerative role of Treg cells is independent of its immunosuppressive functions.

Zhengs team was initially interested in uncovering the role of Tregs and glucocorticoids in autoimmune dysfunctions such as multiple sclerosis, Crohns disease, and asthma. However, they detected no functional significance of glucocorticoids or Tregs in these diseases. They then focused on the skin because here Tregs express high levels of glucocorticoid receptors.

The researchers shaved hair off the back of adult mice that lacked the gene encoding the glucocorticoid receptor in their Tregs or had a normal set of genes. After two weeks, the normal mice grew back their hair, but the mice without glucocorticoid receptors barely could, said Liu. It was very striking, and it showed us the right direction for moving forward.

The findings indicated a glucocorticoid-mediated communication between Tregs and stem cells in hair follicles that need to be activated for hair regeneration. Moreover, the authors showed lack of the glucocorticoid receptor in Tregs blocked hair regeneration without affecting immune balance.

After hair loss, skin cells stained blue, from a normal mouse can activate hair follicle stem cells, stained red [left], whereas skin cells in mice without glucocorticoid receptors in their regulatory T cells cannot activate hair follicle stem cells [right] (Salk Institute).The authors found glucocorticoids instruct Tregs to activate hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs), which leads to hair growth. This crosstalk between the T cells and the stem cells depends on a mechanism whereby glucocorticoid receptors cooperate with a regulatory protein in Tregs called Foxp3, to induce a growth factor called transforming growth factor beta3 (TGF-beta3), which then activates the signaling molecules Smad2/3 in HFSCs to stimulate stem cell proliferation and differentiation into new hair follicles, promoting hair growth. The authors uncovered Tregs dont usually produce TGF-beta3, as they do in the skin. Databases analysis revealed this phenomenon occurs in injured muscle and heart tissue, similar to how hair removal simulated a skin tissue injury in this study.

In acute cases of alopecia, immune cells attack the skin tissue, causing hair loss. The usual remedy is to use glucocorticoids to inhibit the immune reaction in the skin, so they dont keep attacking the hair follicles, said Zheng. Applying glucocorticoids has the double benefit of triggering the regulatory T cells in the skin to produce TGF-beta3, stimulating the activation of the hair follicle stem cells.

In future studies, Zheng and his team would like to explore whether compromised glucocorticoid signaling in Tregs of the skin can cause alopecia. Zheng said, It will be interesting to see if skin Treg cells can be targeted for the treatment of alopecia patients.

Beyond the regeneration of hair follicles, Zheng would like to build upon studies that have shown Tregs help repair and regenerate multiple tissue types. They will study other injury models and isolate Tregs from injured tissues to monitor increased levels of TGF-beta3 and other growth factors.Wed like to explore whether glucocorticoids function as a universal signal to trigger Tregs non-traditional function to promote tissue regeneration.

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Hair Regeneration Requires Regulatory T Cells Signal Skin Stem Cells - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Hair Regeneration Requires Regulatory T Cells Signal Skin Stem Cells – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | June 30th, 2022

Research into the retina and optic nerve using stem-cell models has unveiled specific genetic markers of glaucomathe worlds leading cause of permanent blindness possibly opening up new treatments for the condition.

Glaucoma is a blanket term describing a group of eye conditions that do damage to the retinal ganglion cellsneurons near the inner eye that make up the optic nerve. The optic nerve is the part of the eye that receives light and transmits it to the brain; thus, the damage that glaucoma does leads to permanent blindness. Thecondition is predicted to affect around 80 million people by 2040, yet treatments are extremely limited.

This study linked 97 genetic clusters to the damage done by the most common form of glaucoma, primary open-angle glaucoma or POAG, revealing important genetic components that control the way the condition attacks. POAG is a genetically complicated condition that is likely hereditary and, at the moment, cannot be stopped or reversed. The only treatment of POAG available involves releasing pressure on the eye, and this will only slow down the condition.

The research project was led jointly by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the University of Melbourne, and the Centre for Eye Research Glaucoma.

We saw how the genetic causes of glaucoma act in single cells, and how they vary in different people, said joint lead author of the study and Melbourne University academic, Prof. Joseph Powell, in a Garvan Institutemedia release.

Current treatments can only slow the loss of vision, but this understanding is the first step towards drugs that target individual cell types, Powell said.

The research behind the discoverywas published in the journalCell Genomicsand wasthe result of a lengthy collaboration between Australian medical research centres involving the investigation of complicated diseases and their underlying genetic causes, using stem-cell modelling; which the researchers said demonstrated the success of this study and the power of this approach.

Previously, glaucoma research was limited because samples of the optic nerve could not be obtained from participants in a non-invasive fashion. However, stem-cell modelling addressed this issue as it allowed researchers to develop optic nerve samples from skin, a much easier part of the body to extract.

The team administered skin biopsies on183 participants, 91 of whom had advanced primary open-angle glaucoma, to gather skin cells that they could reprogram to revert into stem cells and then guide into becoming retinal cells. Of the 183 samples collected, 110 samples, 54 from participants with POAG, were successfully converted from skin cells into retinal, and over 200,000 of these converted cells were sequenced to generate molecular signatures.

The researchers of this study employedsingle-cell RNA genetic sequencing in order to study individual cells. This form of sequencing creates an incredibly detailed genetic map, which looks for genetic variations that affect the expressionthe process of turning instructions from DNA into functional products like proteins of one or more genes. Through identifying these key genes, further deductions on the influence that genetic variations have on glaucoma can be made.

The signatures of those with and without glaucoma were compared to establish key genetic components that control the way that glaucoma attacks the retina.

The researchers first identified, using the signatures of both those with and without glaucoma,312 genetic variants associated with the ganglion cells that eventually degenerate in a person living with POAG. Further analysis of the genes associated with POAG linked the 97 clusters mentioned above to the damage done by glaucoma.

Another joint-lead author of the paper and Melbourne University professor, Alice Pebay, said that by studying glaucoma in retinal cells, a context-specific profile of the disease was created.

We wanted to see how glaucoma acts in retinal cells specificallyrather than in a blood sample, for instanceso we can identify the key genetic mechanisms to target, Pebay said.

Equally, we need to know which genetic variations are healthy and normal, so we can exclude them from a treatment.

To improve the understanding of complex conditions such as glaucoma, researchers noted it was important to establish a profile of the disease which promotesthe understanding of causes, risks and fundamental mechanisms of diseases. Furthermore, genetic investigations are critical to drug development and pre-clinical trials because they assist in constructing complete human models of diseases.

University of Tasmania professor and a third joint-lead author of the paper,Alex Hewitt said that the findings of this study set up future research into novel glaucoma treatments.

Not only can scientists develop more tailored drugs, but we could potentially use the stem-cell models to test hundreds of drugs in pre-clinical assays, said Hewitt.

This method could also be used to assess drug efficacy in a personalised manner to assess whether a glaucoma treatment would be effective for a specific patient.

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Secrets of Permanent Blindness Revealed by Stem-cell Research - The Epoch Times

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Secrets of Permanent Blindness Revealed by Stem-cell Research – The Epoch Times | June 30th, 2022

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Vitiligo, a skin de-pigmentation disorder which affects 0.1 to 8% of population, is a cause of worry especially for women as it mainly affects face, neck and hands. It relapses in 40% of patients, within a year after stopping treatment. But Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapy can be a hope, experts say.

On World Vitiligo Day on Saturday, dermatologist, Aster R V Hospital, Dr Sunil Prabhu said the disorder is affecting at least 2.16% of children/adolescents. Vitiligo is a long-term condition, where pale white patches develop on the skin due to lack of melanin pigment. According to Dr Praveen Bharadwaj, dermatology consultant, Manipal Hospital, Whitefield, vitiligo is a condition in which the patients immune system weakens which affects the normal functioning of melanin producing cells.

Dr Bharadwaj explained, Mesenchymal stem cells, which are multi-potent adult stem cells, are found in bone marrow, fat tissues, umbilical cord and human foreskin. They are promising agents for therapy for the re-pigmentation of skin in vitiligo. This therapy reduces the main trigger of vitiligo that is immune-mediated melanocyte degeneration (stopping the immune destruction of melanocytes which produces melanin), promotes melanocytes and prevents relapse of the condition, he said.

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Experts offer hope to vitiligo patients - The New Indian Express

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Experts offer hope to vitiligo patients – The New Indian Express | June 30th, 2022

This is the season to soak up the warm, wonderful sun and show off our glowing skin in shorts, tanks and bathing suits.

But this time of year can be most treacherous for skin we can get blasted by everything from poison ivy and mosquitoes to sunburns if were not careful. And even just a little bit of extra sun means we should be doubling down on our hydration and moisturizing, and pulling out the big-gun products to help keep our skin safe.

One of my new favorite products is Lancme Rnergie H.C.F. Triple Serum ($135 on Lancome-usa.com) Its a triple-dose serum that targets volume loss, wrinkles and dark spots, and helps prevent damage with hyaluronic acid, vitamin C+, niacinamide and ferulic acid. That means its a gel, a cream and an emulsion a combo that results in both hydration and moisturizing (the first adds water; the second softens dry skin, so theyre not the same things, and we do indeed need both).

And if the aforementioned glowing is on your summer skin to-do list, then reach for Pat McGrath Labs Divine Skin: Rose 001 The Essence ($86 on Patmcgrath.com). It boosts moisture big-time, illuminates, softens and smooths with natural floral ingredients. Apply it to your face in between cleansing and moisturizing every morning to nourish and replenish the skin barrier, There are zero silicone, parabens, sulfates, gluten, mineral oil and phthalates.

Onto sunscreens. For starters, make SPF a year-round thing, if you havent already. Its your safeguard against hyperpigmentation, inflammation, fine lines and, yes, skin cancer. Use it on your face all year, and then on your body too, especially this time of year. Get one with broad-spectrum coverage (to shield you from both UVB rays that cause burning and UVA rays that cause lasting damage) and with an SPF of 30 or higher. And choose one that smells good, if you have the option. On that front, Chanels UV Essentiel ($55 on chanel.com) is as light in texture as it is in its fragrance a delicate floral that smells fresh as can be.

For anyone with acne-prone skin, non-oily formulas are imperative. Look for liquid sunscreens instead of thick creams that clog pores. A great choice is TIZO 2 Non-Tinted Facial Mineral Sunscreen SPF 40 ($43 on amazon.com).

And if youre in the opposite situation and concerned about dry skin instead go in big for moisturizing and hydration, with EleVen by Venus Williams: Natural Unrivaled Sun Serum ($50 on elevenbyvenuswilliams.com). Its a lightweight mineral protection, SPF 35 and is safe for reefs (so wear it on any beach you like before swimming), cruelty-free, and vegan. It also blends in incredibly well, has a velvety finish, and contains prickly pear extract, to hydrate and soothe inflamed skin in case youve gotten a sunburn.

For sunburns, an RX treatment may be in order. At my day spa, GSpa at Foxwoods, we offer a Soothing Facial ($175 for 50 minutes at foxwoods.com) that uses antioxidants, peptides and botanical stem cells. Each of those ingredients protects the skin from free radical damage and restores hydration soothing and refreshing dry and sensitive skin.

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Youve got skin in the game protect it from summer sun damage - Boston Herald

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on Youve got skin in the game protect it from summer sun damage – Boston Herald | June 30th, 2022

Collagenits the fountain-of-youth protein that makes skin smooth and plump by stimulating tissue growth. But as the body ages and slows down its own collagen production, many turn to supplements for a fix. The downside? Theyre usually made using animal bones, skin, and cartilage. Gross. Thankfully, vegan alternatives that boost our bodys natural collagen production or actually replicate the amino acids in animal-derived collagen are totally in fashion.

Collagen is a protein the body makes naturally that can be found in hair, skin, nails, and bones. The protein is vital for keeping bones strong and skin looking wrinkle-free, and as you age, your body naturally slows down the production of collagen. The much-buzzed-about beauty trend usually refers to the intake of animal-sourced collagen that typically comes animal bones, skin, and cartilage.

There are many ways to boost your bodys collagen by eating foods high in vitamin C, zinc, and copper. These nutrients can be found in foods such as beans, oranges, broccoli, and tomatoes. As demand for plant-based collagen grows, brands are stepping up to create completely vegan collagen using genetically modified yeast and bacteria. Other innovative brands like Geltor are also utilizing high-tech methods to create vegan collagen that will be more widely available in the future. Geltors Type 21 collagen begins with a set of microbes that naturally produce proteins, which are programmed to make collagen without sourcing it cruelly from animals. Its first protein product, Collume, launched in 2018 for use in skincare formulations.

In the meantime, weve rounded up six products thatll give you the best beauty bang for your buck.

Andalou Naturals

Using a first-of-its-kind, bio-designed vegan collagen from tech company Geltor, this nourishing eye cream boasts unparalleled improvement in skin moisture. Apply day and night to let the collagen, hyaluronic acid, and fruit stem cells work their magic to revitalize tired under-eyes.Learn more here

Pacifica Beauty

A mascara that keeps lashes looking thicker and healthier after taking it off may seem too good to be true, but not when vegan beauty brand Pacifica is on the case. Formulated with vegan collagen and plant-based fibers, this glossy, black formula is a must-have for your beauty bag.Learn more here

Moon Juice

For those looking to preserve their natural collagen, why not drink it with your morning cup o joe? With this three-ingredient coffee creamer, supple skin and minimized fine lines are just a sip away thanks to a powerful combination of rice bran, silver ear mushroom, and salt of hyaluronic acid.Learn more here

Follain

A concentrated blend of niacinamide, bakuchiol (a plant-derived retinol alternative), and a peptide complex work together to bring out smoother, firmer skin and tackle signs of aging in this velvety-soft serum. Layer under moisturizer every morning and night to reap the benefits.Learn more here

Carrot & Stick

With a powerful formulation of plant proteins, vitamins, amino-collagen, and alpine rose stem cell extract, this lightweight antioxidant moisturizer nourishes skin to help smooth lines and wrinkles without any unwanted sulfates, parabens, or phthalates.Learn more here

Sourse

Chocolate and beautycould there be a better combo? An infusion of skin-boosting collagen powder and detoxifying spirulina in this low-sugar, functional dark chocolate means were just two heavenly bites away from improved skin texture and elasticity.Learn more here

For more on vegan beauty, read:The VegNews Vegan Beauty AwardsThe 8 Best Vegan Hydrating Skincare ProductsThe 10 Colorful, Vegan Makeup Products for Summer

Aruka Sanchir(@ruukes) is the Beauty & Style Editor at VegNews who is always looking for exciting new vegan products to test out.

JUST LAUNCHED! Get our 10 Easy Vegan Summer Meals recipe book as a FREE instant download.

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JUST LAUNCHED! Get our 10 Easy Vegan Summer Meals recipe book as a FREE instant download.

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What Is Vegan Collagen? And the 6 Best Products to Try - VegNews

Skin Stem Cells Comments Off on What Is Vegan Collagen? And the 6 Best Products to Try – VegNews | June 30th, 2022