Category: Science & Research

Stuff that it would be cool to learn more about!

Unique Gene Therapy Prevents, Reverses Multiple Sclerosis in Animal Model

Unique Gene Therapy Prevents, Reverses Multiple Sclerosis in Animal Model

Multiple sclerosis can be inhibited or reversed using a novel gene therapy technique that stops the disease’s immune response in mouse models, University of Florida Health researchers have found.

This news is truly comforting!

By combining a brain-protein gene and an existing medication, the researchers were able to prevent the mouse version of multiple sclerosis. Likewise, the treatments produced near-complete remission in the animal models. The findings, which researchers said have significant potential for treating multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders, were published Sept. 21 in the journal Molecular Therapy.

“Using a clinically tested gene therapy platform, we are able to induce very specific regulatory cells that target the self-reactive cells that are responsible for causing multiple sclerosis,” said Brad E. Hoffman, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the departments of pediatrics and neuroscience at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

Before the therapy can be tested in humans during a clinical trial, further research involving other preclinical models will be needed, Hoffman said. Researchers also need to target the full suite of proteins that are implicated in multiple sclerosis, he added.

Still, Hoffman said he is extremely optimistic that the gene therapy can be effective in humans.

“If we can provide long-term remission for people and a long-term quality of life, that is a very promising outcome,” he said.

► Learn more at UF NEWS>> http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2017/09/unique-gene-therapy-prevents-reverses-multiple-sclerosis-in-animal-model.php

► Read the science paper “Gene Therapy-Induced Antigen-Specific Tregs Inhibit Neuro-inflammation and Reverse Disease in a Mouse Model of Multiple Sclerosis”, published in Molecular Therapy >>
http://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/molecular-therapy/fulltext/S1525-0016(17)30413-6

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“Rudimentary life may have existed on Earth 3.95 billion years ago, a time when our infant planet was being…

“Rudimentary life may have existed on Earth 3.95 billion years ago, a time when our infant planet was being bombarded by comets and had hardly any oxygen, researchers said Wednesday.

A team presented what they say is the oldest-known fossil evidence for life on the Blue Planet—grains of graphite, a form of carbon, wedged into ancient sedimentary rocks in Labrador, Canada.

The previous most ancient life traces were reported in March, from a site in Quebec estimated at between 3.8 billion and 4.3 billion years old, though an author of the new study called that dating process “highly controversial.”

“This is the oldest evidence,” Tsuyoshi Komiya of The University of Tokyo insisted in an email exchange with AFP.”

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-life-earth-date-bn-years.html

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-life-earth-date-bn-years.html

Some blasts from the past, now that SpaceX has made it all look so easy. “elonmusk

Some blasts from the past, now that SpaceX has made it all look so easy. “elonmusk

The sordid history of how the @SpaceX Falcon 9, the first fully reusable, orbit-class booster rocket, eventually managed to land in one piece and stay that way … maybe Falcon realized it still loved us or finally read the instructions…”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZA0s7EAmF1/