Mice stem cells capable of regenerating bone, cartilage

January 16, 2015

This is a schematic of the head of a femur (the thigh bone), showing OCR stem cells in red and the growth of bone (green), cartilage and stromal cells. (Credit: Mike Barnett/Columbia University Medical Center)

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have announced the discovery of a new stem cell in mice that is capable of regenerating both bone and cartilage, according to a new report in the journal Cell.

The study team found the new cells by following the activity of a protein called Gremlin1. When they transplanted the cells, called osteochondroreticular (OCR) stem cells, to a fracture site they saw that the cells aided in bone repair.

We are now trying to figure out whether we can persuade these cells to specifically regenerate after injury, said Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, assistant professor of medicine at CUMC and co-author of the new study. If you make a fracture in the mouse, these cells will come alive again, generate both bone and cartilage in the mouseand repair the fracture. The question is, could this happen in humans?

The researchers predicted that OCR stem cells will eventually be found in humans because we have a biological makeup similar to that of mice. The CUMC team said they were optimistic that their work could eventually lead to treatments for bone-degenerative diseases like osteoporosis and osteoarthritis in addition to therapy for bone fractures.

Our findings raise the possibility that drugs or other therapies can be developed to stimulate the production of OCR stem cells and improve the bodys ability to repair bone injurya process that declines significantly in old age, said Dr. Timothy C. Wang, another co-author and professor of Medicine at CUMC.

These cells are particularly active during development, but they also increase in number in adulthood after bone injury, added co-author Dr. Gerard Karsenty, a professor of genetics and development at CUMC.

The Columbia researchers were also able to show that the adult OCRs are unlike mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which lead to bone growth during adolescence and in adulthood. Scientists presumed that MSCs were the source of all skeletal system cells, but the latest research has revealed that these cells do not produce fresh bone and cartilage. The Columbia study implies that OCR stem cells serve this function and that both OCR stems cells and MSCs bring about bone repair in adults.

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Childrens aboriginal teacher advocates for spirituality and personal development in new book, "Gift from the Heart"

BROOME, Aus.

(PRWEB) January 17, 2015 -- Children are our future. They represent hope, love, innovation and happiness.

With more than 30 years of teaching experience, Christine Sell believes there is a fundamental gap in our educational foundation. She stresses that children must be taught about spirituality and personal development at a young age.

Much is written for adults in the area of spirituality, self-love & personal development but childrens literature is surprisingly lacking, Sell said. I want to educate children through story form from a young age, teaching them the skills and strategies that will enable them to grow into the leaders of the future.

Sells new childrens book, Gift from the Heart follows an angel who travels to Earth to be born into a loving family. The book uses angels exploring topics such as spirituality, self-esteem and personal development.

Gift from the Heart provides life lessons that support children as they move from childhood, to their teenage years through to adulthood.

For more information, please visit http://bookstore.balboapress.com/Products/SKU-000612536/Gift-From-The-Heart.aspx

Gift from the Heart By Christine Sell Price: $13.99 ISBN: 978-1-4525-2166-4 Available at: Amazon, Balboa and Barnes and Noble online bookstores

About the Author Christine grew up in a loving family with six siblings. She learnt about the love and protection of angels during her formative years at school. Christine currently teaches young Aboriginal children in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. Gift from the Heart is her first childrens book.

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Childrens aboriginal teacher advocates for spirituality and personal development in new book, "Gift from the Heart"

Get this Free Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening and Healing mini-course! – Video


Get this Free Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening and Healing mini-course!
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America’s Forum | Robert Walker discusses the rumor that Senator Ted Cruz will be chairman of the Se – Video


America #39;s Forum | Robert Walker discusses the rumor that Senator Ted Cruz will be chairman of the Se
Robert Walker: Former Congressman and chair of the Committee on Science and Technology talks about the earlier mishap with the Space Station, the rumor that Senator Ted Cruz will be chairman...

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CU Students Work Directly With Astronauts On International Space Station – Video


CU Students Work Directly With Astronauts On International Space Station
More than a dozen CU students are actively working with crew members aboard the space station on an ongoing experiment. Official Site: http://denver.cbslocal.com/ YouTube: ...

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CU Students Work Directly With Astronauts On International Space Station - Video

ISS: A step closer to deep space – How Boeing is helping NASA prepare for a #JourneyToMars – Video


ISS: A step closer to deep space - How Boeing is helping NASA prepare for a #JourneyToMars
The International Space Station is a lab like no other. There NASA researches new technologies and methods of maintaining life in space so that astronauts can safely explore Mars and beyond....

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Astronauts briefly relocate after false alarm – CNN.com

Story highlights The scare was a false alarm, NASA says The U.S. astronauts are safe, NASA says

A possible ammonia leak in the cooling system had the crew from the American segment of the station move temporarily to the Russian segment.

It was a false alarm, NASA said.

Tests indicated that the off-scale measurements were the result of a computer failure, and not an ammonia leak.

International Space Station program manager Mike Suffredini said the relocation was done as a precaution because of four measurements that were off scale. These measures could have indicated an ammonia leak.

The astronauts, as trained, put on masks, moved to the Russian segment, and closed the hatch to the American segment, he said.

Two U.S. astronauts are aboard the International Space Station: commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts.

Once it was determined that the emergency was a false alarm, the astronauts still had to wait while equipment on the U.S. segment was powered back up, Suffredini said.

NASA tweeted that at 3:05 p.m. ET, the hatch was reopened and the astronauts returned. There was no ammonia in the area, NASA said.

The crew was unable to carry out experiments that were planned, but no research was lost, Suffredini said.

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Aging space station?

FILE- In this April 20, 2014, image made from a frame grabbed from NASA-TV, the SpaceX Dragon resupply capsule begins the process of being berthed on to the ISS.(AP Photo/NASA-TV, File)

Even though the ammonia leak that forced a partial evacuation of the International Space Stations U.S. section on Wednesday proved to be a false alarm, the news did raise questions on the stations durability.

Since the stations inception in 1998, the habitable satellite has endured a multitude of maintenance issues, from pump failures to damaged panels. Weve had other, what have turned out to be more serious, problems on the space station, NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz told FoxNews.com. For example, there was an actual ammonia pump failure [in 2010], and so it had to be replaced and required space walks. The actions we took [Wednesday] were for a worst-case scenario like that.

The now 17 year-old International Space Station (ISS) has been occupied for 5,187 days and circled the Earth 92,357 times, so a little wear-and-tear would seem unavoidable. While the station has been in orbit since 1998, it actually wasnt completed until recently.

The first piece of the space station was put in orbit [in 1998], but the assembly actually took quite a bit of time, and wasnt completed until 2011, Schierholz said. We were using the space shuttle to complete the building of the ISS, because we would bring pieces of the station up in the space shuttle, so every time we brought up a new piece itd change the configuration. So the building of the space station took quite a bit of time.

The road to the stations assembly saw more than its fair share of bumps along the way. Following the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, there was a two-and-a-half year suspension of the U.S. shuttle program, leading to a large waste accumulation aboard the ISS that held up operations in 2004. A computer failure in 2007 left the station temporarily without thrusters and oxygen generation, followed by a torn solar panel that same year which required astronaut Scott Parazynski to make a daring impromptu spacewalk on the end of the space shuttles OBSS inspection arm. In 2010 there was the aforementioned ammonia pump failure, which, according to Schierholz, would be the top [maintenance issue that has come up] from an unexpected work/volume of work-required [standpoint]. The interesting thing about all these [problems] is that theyre anticipated failures -- we train the astronauts for them. We do plan space walks to replace parts that we expect or are at the end of their life cycle. This failed sooner than we expected it to.

The following year saw the station almost collide with what is becoming a rapidly rising threat: orbital debris. With more and more dead satellites in orbit, the possibility of one of them hitting the ISS is a growing one. These satellites sometimes slam into one another, the ensuing blast creating thousands of pieces of orbital debris.

They are an issue, Schierholz said, because if something were to hit the space station - the ISS is traveling at 17,500 mph, a piece of debris could be travelling at the same speed, and theres going to be some damage thats caused as a result of that. The U.S. Air Force tracks any piece of debris thats bigger than a golf ball, and theres a certain amount of protection from micrometeroid debris, which is natural stuff in the universe that is too small to cause any real problems. But any debris that was put there as a result of an accident is a concern to us, especially because we have people on board. To avoid disaster, thrusters are fired to adjust the stations orbit out of harms way.

So after 17 years of dodging space junk and enduring technical problems, the question remains: how much longer can the ISS stay operational? According to NASA, for as long as the U.S. and its international partners pay to maintain it.

The space station is certified for a particular lifetime, Schierholz said. So thats how we assess the future lifespan of the space station."

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Aging space station?

1-Year Space Station Mission May Pave NASA's Way to Mars

The first crew to embark on a yearlong International Space Station mission could help NASA get to Mars.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will launch to the space station in March with cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. Kornienko and Kelly will remain on the orbiting outpost performing research until March 2016. This mission will mark the first time a crew has spent a continuous year on the space station, and researchers are planning to take advantage of it. Scientists and doctors on the ground will monitor the way Kelly and Kornienko's bodies change throughout the year in order to understand the potential effects of long-term spaceflight (like a mission to Mars) more fully.

"As a test pilot and as an engineer, what fascinates me is the space station as a whole experiment," Kelly said during a news conference yesterday (Jan. 15). "Traveling around Earth at 17,500 mph in a vacuum, extremes of temperature and pressure, building this facility that allows us to understand how to operate for long periods of time in space to allow us someday to go to Mars." [Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records]

Astronauts will likely need to spend more than a year in weightlessness if flying to Mars. The kind of research that Kornienko and Kelly are expected to perform in orbit could be a first step toward understanding how to mitigate any harmful changes the body might go through during a long trip in space.

NASA officials have a good sense of how the body behaves when exposed to the rigors of spaceflight for up to six months, but after that, the data is a little hazy.

Kelly will be the first American to spend a full year in space, however, Kornienko will not be the first cosmonaut to do so. A number of Russians spent a continuous year on the Mir space station in the 1980s and 1990s.

"We know a lot about six months, but we know almost nothing about what happens between six and 12 months in space," Julie Robinson, a space station program scientist, said during the news conference yesterday. Kelly and Kornienko's one-year mission is designed to help fill in the gaps between what the body experiences after six months versus what it experiences after one year.

Kornienko and Kelly's eyes will be monitored for any changes to their eyesight or ocular health during the mission, NASA officials said. Astronauts have noticed changes in intracranial pressure due to fluid shifts that can result in possibly negative changes to the eyes, scientists have said.

Scientists are also interested in monitoring the microbial environment (microbiome) inside the crewmembers, keeping tabs on their physical performance, fine motor skills, metabolism and other health factors throughout the mission.

Cosmic Quiz: Do You Know the International Space St...

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1-Year Space Station Mission May Pave NASA's Way to Mars

Red alert as 3,000 in Turkey linked to Islamic State

ISTANBUL: Around 3,000 people in Turkey are believed to be linked to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, a Turkish intelligence report said on Saturday, warning of possible attacks by extremists. The report called for enhanced surveillance of the 3,000 people, including identifying their rank within the extremist group or whether they were active within it, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on Saturday. A red alert had also been sent to security units warning of possible attacks on the embassies of Western countries by IS jihadists following last weeks deadly Islamist attacks in France, the report said. Security at the diplomatic missions had been increased to the maximum level, the report said, adding that NATO facilities and Western nationals were also potential targets. And it warned of possible bomb attacks anywhere and anytime in Turkey by sleeping cells. Most of the vehicles stolen in Turkey ended up in the hands of IS jihadists, it said, warning that they could be used in car bomb attacks in the country. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday said up to 700 Turkish nationals had joined the IS. He added that Turkey had barred entry to around 7,250 people from abroad who were planning to join IS and said 1,160 would-be jihadists were also deported. Turkey has long been accused of not doing enough to stem the flow of jihadists seeking to join the IS group which has captured large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. The Turkish government said on Monday that Hayat Boumeddiene, the wanted partner of one of the gunmen involved in last weeks Paris attacks, crossed into Syria via Turkey days before the assaults, amid reports that she may have joined IS. A female suicide bomber killed herself and a policeman last week in Istanbuls Sultanahmet district, home to the citys greatest concentration of historical monuments. Turkish authorities have so far refrained from naming the suicide bomber but reports in Turkey and Russia on Friday identified her as Diana Ramazanova, 18, from the northern Caucasus region of Dagestan. She was said to have been the widow of a Norwegian jihadist who died fighting for IS in Syria.

Russian jihadists In Moscow, a senior Russian diplomat has said far more than 800 Russians are fighting alongside the Islamic State group. Ilya Rogachev, who heads the Foreign Ministrys department for modern challenges and threats, told Ekho Moskvy radio Friday that those who have joined the group include people from the Russian province of Chechnya and some other regions in the volatile North Caucasus. He said precise numbers of Russians among the Islamic State fighters are hard to measure, as they include some Chechen refugees who had moved to Europe, as well as some ethnic Chechens from Russias ex-Soviet neighbor, Georgia. Chechnya, which has seen two devastating separatist wars, has become more stable under the steely grip of a Moscow-backed strongman, but the Islamist insurgency has engulfed other North Caucasus provinces.

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Red alert as 3,000 in Turkey linked to Islamic State