[rael-science] 'Firefly' Stem Cells May Help Repair Damaged Hearts

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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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'Firefly' Stem Cells May Help Repair Damaged Hearts
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928111122.htm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — Stem cells that glow like fireflies
could someday help doctors heal damaged hearts without cutting into
patients' chests.

In his University of Central Florida lab, Steven Ebert engineered stem
cells with the same enzyme that makes fireflies glow. The "firefly"
stem cells glow brighter and brighter as they develop into healthy
heart muscle, allowing doctors to track whether and where the stem
cells are working.

Researchers are keenly interested in stem cells because they typically
morph into the organs where they are transplanted. But why and how
fast they do it is still a mystery. Now Ebert's cells give researchers
the ability to see the cells in action with the use of a special
camera lens that picks up the glow under a microscope.

"The question that we answered was, 'How do you follow these cells in
the lab and find out where they're going?'" said Ebert, an associate
professor in UCF's College of Medicine.

If doctors can figure out exactly how the cells repair and regenerate
cardiac tissue, stem cell therapies could offer hope to more than 17.6
million Americans who suffer from coronary disease. The glow of the
enzyme also means therapies would no longer require cutting into
patients' chest cavities to monitor the healing.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the
American Heart Association, is a featured cover story in this month's
highly ranked Stem Cell and Development Journal.

Now that scientists can track the stem cells, Ebert said he hopes to
use them in disease models to determine how they heal a damaged heart
and what conditions are most suitable for the stems cells to thrive.

Ebert's team includes Ramana K. Kammili, David G. Taylor, Jixiang Xia,
Kingsley Osuala and Kellie Thompson of UCF and Donald R. Menick of the
Gazes Cardiac Research Institute at the Medical University of South
Carolina in Charleston.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by
ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Central
Florida, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.


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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.

There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.

On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.

Rael
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