Future Medical Technology

[xoxoxoBruce]

There's a lot of new things in the pipeline. Like always, it's a matter of when.

Brain Cells From Urine
In a sentence we won’t get to use often, researchers have turned pee into human brain cells. At the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health in China, biologists have taken waste cells from urine and modified them with the use of retroviruses to create progenitor cells, which the body uses as the building blocks for brain cells. The most valuable benefit to this method is that the new neurons created haven’t caused tumors in any of the mice used for testing.

Maybe this is the answer, for parents who feel their children are pissing away their education.

[sexobon]

Pee brains.

[footfootfoot]

Retroviruses? That's so 70s.

[ZenGum]

Neural cells are what we would need to cure spinal injuries. This is damn cool.

We've also recently made mouse kidneys from mouse skin cells.

[footfootfoot]

Well, that great news for mice, does their insurance cover that, though?

[glatt]

Republicans would mock research with mouse pee. So China is doing it, and getting terrific results. It won't be long before we're pirating China's innovations.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Well, that great news for mice, does their insurance cover that, though?

Yeah, what if they're piss poor?

[footfootfoot]

You gotta be kidneying me.

[infinite monkey]

Nah, I'm a liver, not a fighter.

[jimhelm]

Originally Posted by glatt

Republicans would mock research with mouse pee. So China is doing it, and getting terrific results. It won't be long before we're pirating China's innovations.

it's a hoax. remember, they warned us in grade school.



Me Chinee, Me play joke. Me put Pee pee in your.....brain.

[footfootfoot]

Chinese
Japanese
Dirty knees
look at these

[xoxoxoBruce]

Worm therapy... shudder

A month later, Turk saw an ad on the news seeking multiple sclerosis patients to try out an unusual new treatment at the University of Wisconsin, in his hometown of Madison. Patients were being asked to infect themselves with live pig whipworm eggs to see if the parasites alleviated any of their symptoms or slowed the spread of telltale brain and spine lesions.

Six years later, the group published the result of two preliminary trials in humans. In one, involving 54 ulcerative colitis patients, 43% of those given pig whipworm eggs improved, compared with only 17% who received placebos.
In a second trial 29 patients with Crohn’s disease took whipworm eggs every three weeks. By the end of 24 weeks, 79% had reduced disease activity and 72% had gone into remission.

Patients must re-infect themselves every few weeks but do not risk a chronic infection potentially spiralling out of control, or of accidentally infecting family members. “Pig whipworm is very kosher,” Weinstock says.

Gastroenterologist John Croese, at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, is inoculating 12 coeliac disease patients, who suffer from gluten intolerance, with hookworms. Gluten is slowly introduced into their diets to see if the hookworms will suppress the disease’s inflammatory response.

The theory is, as we've cleaned up our act, you know, sterilized our environment, over the past few hundred years. We've mostly eliminated these parasites, and that changed the zoo in our guts, which led to other problems.

[orthodoc]

Whipworms! Hookworms! Agghh .... *shudder*

I'll pass, thanks. I just can't see that we need parasites to balance our intestinal flora. Bleargh.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I agree, yuukkk.
But the MS reduction of brain and spine lesions intrigued me.

[glatt]

The 72% remission in Crohn's is an amazing number. That can't all be attributed to the worm, right? Does Crohn's go into remission on its own all the time? How did the control do?

Edit: Here's an article talking about a pig whipworm Crohn's study that appears to be happening now.