Mind Soup

Ever wonder what happens to all the fat sucked out during liposuction? If you feared it was going to waste, worry no more. According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the gelatinous material can be converted into embryonic stem cells . “We’ve identified a great natural resource,” said Stanford surgery professor and co-author of the research, Michael Longaker. The physician also called lipo leftovers “liquid gold.” Changing regular adult stem cells to embryonic stem cells poses a number of problems. Four genes, known as Yamanaka factors, need to be expressed to change adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), which mostly resemble embryonic stem cells. Doctors often experiment with skin cells for this procedure. But like some adults, mature cells are resistant to change. It takes skin cells about three weeks in the lab to convert to iPS cells. The Stanford researchers looked at adipose, or immature fat cells, which lie within a labyri...

"CBS-Cutting Edge" explores the possibilities of stem-cell therapy to grow new organs, etc. Very interesting.

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases. The four dogs, all named "Ruppy" — a combination of the words "ruby" and "puppy" — look like typical beagles by daylight. But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs' nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye. Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-chun, head of the research team, called them the world's first transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes, an achievement that goes beyond just the glowing novelty. "What's significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them," Lee told The Associated Press on Tuesday. His team identified the dogs as clones of a cell donor through DNA tests and earlier this month introduced the achievement in a paper on the Web site of the jo...