HARUKO OBOKATAResearchers from Japan presented a new approach for transforming differentiated cells into a pluripotent state, based on exposure to environmental stimuli as opposed to genetic manipulation, in two papers published in Nature this week (January 29).
“It’s pretty unexpected,” Rudolph Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist. “There’s no genetic manipulation, just some culture conditions, stress, to induce these changes. I think that’s quite remarkable.”
WIKIPEDIA, RAGESOSSIn a mouse model of lung cancer, scientists have shown how two antioxidants, vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine, can fuel tumor growth, helping to explain the results of an array of human clinical trials. The work was published in Science Translational Medicine this week (January 29). “If we give extra antioxidants in the diet, we’re helping the tumor to reduce radicals that would otherwise block its growth,” explained Martin Bergo from the University of Gothenburg, who led the research.
PNAS, DOI/10.1073/PNAS.1305609111While male mice lacking seminal vesicles have reduced fertility, they can still father offspring, although their sons exhibit signs of insulin resistance and other symptoms of metabolic syndrome. That’s the conclusion of a January 27 PNAS study led by investigators from the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Cornell University’s Susan Suarez, who was not involved in the work, noted that these results in mice could have implications for human in vitro fertilization (IVF). Since the first IVF procedure was performed, she said, ...
