Science Market Update

No one escapes being affected by cancer. We all know someone, perhaps even a family member who has been diagnosed with cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2012. In fact, it is estimated that each person has a 41% chance of developing cancer during his or her lifetime. But new discoveries by researchers have started to change the outcome of a cancer diagnosis. In a recently published article in Nature, two researchers at CU boulder have found a possible solution hiding at the ends of our DNA. According to Professor Cech, "This is an exciting scientific discovery that gives us a new way of looking at the problem of cancer.” The researchers, Tom Cech and Leslie Leinwand, found the solution by studying how telomerase functions in our cells. In normal people, telomerase helps us keep our cells healthy and young. 

At the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, in the Longwood medical neighborhood in Boston, researchers have reached a biotech milestone with tremendous potential for future drug testing and development. Instead of resorting to animals for testing, they may soon be using a simulated organ that lives on a chip. It has mechanical and biological (cellular) parts, and yes, it breathes, thanks to a vacuum system that pumps air through. The bio-inspired micro-device has gone through several tests recently to assess its accuracy in mimicking the human lung when bacteria or potentially toxic drugs are introduced. Results: Positive. The lung-on-a-chip replicates responses found in animal models and observations of human lung function. Indeed, because the device uses human lung and blood vessel cells, it acts may act more like a lung in a human body than lab animals.

Often growing up as a child you hear, “eat your veggies if you want to grow up to be big and strong.” With new research on triple negative breast cancer, that old saying might have to change to "eat your veggies if you want to keep cancer away". Recently, at the 2012 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting, Mandip Sachdeva announced: "We are confident that the compounds we are currently working with are an effective treatment for triple-negative breast cancer. These compounds are safer for the patient than current treatments available".

UCSF, Mission Bay biomedical research programs are developing and expanding at a rapid rate. Currently, the university has more ongoing biomedical construction projects than anywhere else in the world. Many new research centers and institutes are appearing in spaces that also contain areas for clinical trials and patient care.

The Zebrafish may have found their very own fountain of youth, or at least part of their brain has. Neurobiology and Anatomy research professor Richard Dorsky, at the University of Utah, is studying how the Wnt pathway in Zebrafish can grow new nerve cells in the hypothalamus. Researchers have found that Zebrafish can keep on growing new nerve cells even into adulthood.  Dorsky's work understanding this mechanism of regeneration in the adult brain could ultimately offer insight into our own neuro-cognitive decline as a result of aging.

In the United States there are approximately 76 million baby boomers, and each year more and more are turning 65 years old. This means that maintaining a healthy functioning brain is becoming a higher and higher priority to a large portion of the population. At this time it seems inevitable that as we age, the normal brain will change physically and cognitively. This year it is estimated it will cost the U.S. $200 billion dollars to care for our 5.4 million Alzheimer’s patients, and the figure is expected to climb higher. In fact, by the year 2050 it is estimated that the cost of Alzheimer’s and other dementias will reach $1.1 trillion dollars. Add the devastating emotional impact on families faced with an elderly parent suffering from the disease, and it's clear why research into neuro-cognitive decline is so important.

It seems that the Dorksy lab is bringing us one step closer to being able to turn back the clock on the human brain. According to Dorsky, "Our research represents a significant contribution to the field because it ... can be used to shed light on the plasticity of the adult brain." Unlike humans, adult Zebrafish have a built in repair system for hypothalamus tissue damage in their brains. The fish’s neural stem cells lie in wait ready to respond to chemical signals of cell damage or death. Part of what makes the Wnt pathway so interesting is that it changes from its embryonic to adulthood. At the embryo stage, Wnt signaling is essentially an on switch that tells the neural stem cells to rapidly grow. This causes the rapid increase of progenitor cells. The progenitor cells arise from neural stem cells. With more development the progenitor cells differentiate into the brain's structures. But this changes in adult Zebrafish when the Wnt pathway becomes radically different.

(courtesy of Dorsky lab)

(Courtesy of Dorsky lab)

In a recent article by Dorsky, Wnt signaling regulates postembryonic hypothalamic progenitor differentiation, he describes how his lab research determined how the Wnt pathway in adult zebrafish signals cell regeneration. In adults, the Wnt has to have perfect timing in order for the progenitor cells to grow and differentiate. The Wnt pathway has to first turn on to start the growth and differentiation, then later turn off again to grow properly. It can’t just stay on.

Moreover, the lab studied mice in order to see how the Wnt pathway translates in other animal models. The researcher found that the wnt pathway in mice acts to stop the differentiation of glial cells. Moreover according to Dorsky: "In adult mice, hypothalamic neurogenesis seems to be significant in the regulation of feeding behaviors due to environmental changes."

So, the sooner we can find a cure for Neuro cognitve decline and turn back the time on our aging brain the better we will all be. So, with the help of a little fish, in the future we might be able to grow new neuro tissue in the hypothalamus. Who knew that the Zebrafish light lead us to our own neuro fountain of youth.

Members of the Dorsky lab include:

(Courtesy of Dorsky lab)

-Lisa Benko- Graduate Student-Characterization of Multipotent Spinal Cord Progenitors

-Rob Duncan- graduate student- Identification of Neural Stem Cells in the Zebrafish Hypothalamus

-Hyung-Seok Kim-Postdoctoral-Fellow-Tcf3 Targets in Spinal Cord Development

-Adam McPherson-Graduate-Student-Functional Analysis of Post-Embryonic Hypothalamic Neurogenesis

-Xu Wang-graduate student-lab manager- Wnt Signaling and Post-Embryonic Hypothalamic Neurogenesis

The Dorsky lab is part of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy which is located in the Wintrobe building adjacent to the school of medicine. The department occupies 17,000 square feet and has 13 department faculty researching: developmental biology, neuroscience, stem cells and regeneration, and neural disease and repair. The department currently uses several different animal models in its research: mouse, chicken, zebrafish, xenopus, and planaria.

Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. will be holding its 13th Annual Salt Lake BioResearch Product Faire Front Line  event next on August 15, 2013. This professional show is an excellent opportunity for life scientists and lab equipment specialists to come together and discuss lab technologies to make every lab run at maximum efficiency. If you are unable to make it to our Utah show, these are other shows you might me interested in attending.

• 02/01/2013 13th Annual Houston BioResearch Product Faire™, located in Houston and situated at the Texas Medical Center.

• 02/06/2013- 8th Annual Mission Bay Biotechnology Vendor Showcase™ located in San Francisco and situated on the UC San Francisco Campus

• 06/20/2013 - 4th Annual Denver BioResearch Product Faire™ at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus.

The University of Alabama is an unexpected standout in the science research marketplace.  This campus ranks among the top in the nation, flanking closely with the top NIH funded universities, and yet there is surprisingly little sales rep traffic on campus.

Watch out corn, you might just have some competition from the tequila plant in the modern day quest for biofuels. The DOE is funding a new $14.3M multi-lab project to study the CAM pathway in drought tolerant plants like agave, a hearty desert succulent. Dr. John Cushman in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Reno is receiving a new $7.6M grant, with a portion going to the University Liverpool in England as collaborators. The rest of the grant, $6.3M, is being divided between the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Newcastle University, and UT Knoxville. The name of this substantial new grant is: Engineering CAM Photosynthetic Machinery into Bioenergy Crops for Biofuels Production in Marginal Environments. Reno's high desert climate is an ideal center for this innovative biofuel research at a time when rainfall is becoming scarce and new solutions are going to have to be found if we plan to adapt to climate change.