Science Market Update

Our sense of smell is something we often take for granted. Besides allowing us to take in such wonderful aromas as flowers or fresh-baked cookies, our olfactory receptors help us keep a healthy appetite and tell us when to steer clear of hazards like pollution or spoiled food. Therefore, it’s concerning that olfactory dysfunction affects one in every hundred Americans under the age of 65, and over 50% of the population over 65. Fortunately, researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor have made recent breakthroughs in the restoration of smell to those who have lost it over time or were born without it.

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.

A University of Illinois, Chicago discovery may hold the solution to successfully treating recovering stroke victims. After surviving a stroke, these outpatients can go through years of physical therapy in an attempt to regain one of the most important senses we as people have: our sense of balance. Without it, walking and moving become constant challenges, and the fear of falling becomes an everyday struggle. However, Alexander Aruin, a physical therapy professor at UI Chicago, has made a discovery that could change the lives of these stroke survivors for the better.

Duke Medical Plaza in Orange County, North Carolina, recently opened its doors for the first time. The medical center includes 25,000 square feet of office space and contains Duke Primary Care Hillsborough, North Carolina Orthopaedic Clinic, and Duke Physical and Occupational Therapy at its South Churton Street location. The new center held an open house after they opened, and when visitors learned of Duke Primary Care’s previous location on Meadowland Drive, many said they never knew Duke had a clinic in the Orange County seat.

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. 

Wisconsin is universally known for its abundance of milk and cheese products, which establish its reputation as the “Dairy State.” Therefore, it stands to reason that the University of Wisconsin at Madison would have a fantastic Center for Dairy Research (CDR) at the forefront of cheese research. According to the CDR Homepage, this includes studying the functional and physical properties of cheese, create new flavors and varieties of cheeses, and investigate technologies for cheese production, safety, and quality.

(Courtesy of the Center For Nano and Molecular Science, UTA)