I send my greetings from the top of Whistler Mountain! In between sessions of the stem cell conference today, I made my way up to the 6,000 ft. level on a cable car. The photo above was taken this afternoon as I enjoyed the clean, mountain air. The scenery is spectacular!
And how about those stem cells? As the hour is late here, I will list a few bits of trivia that I learned in the stem cell sessions today--
1. Even under normal conditions, we all have insulin-producing cells that naturally occur outside of the pancreas. This interesting when you think that cells of other organs, such as the liver, could be re-programmed to produce insulin as a potential treatment for diabetes.
2. Some labs are now able to take a single cell and analyze all of the genes expressed in that one cell. You can imagine the precautions that they need to take to ensure that another contaminating cell does not enter into the experiment!
3. Even plants have stem cells! (Pun intended, but also true).
All-in-all, the conference is going quite well. Tomorrow, there will be a session on cancer stem cells-- my specialty! Be sure to check back again tomorrow for more highlights.
8 comments:
You can imagine the precautions that they need to take to ensure that another contaminating cell does not enter into the experiment!
Must always be in the company of a chaperclone?
3. Even plants have stem cells!
Is that really a surprising revelation?
"....a surprising revelation?"
you tell us, dipshit, as they're your words. 'doc said "a few bits of trivia".
KEvron
RELAX, kevronius! That was a sincere question. I want to know if that line was merely punny blog filler, or if stem cell scientists (or most everyday folks) are at all surprised that "even plants have stem cells!" If it's the latter, why didn't they assume, as I did, that all complex organisms must have them?
Actually, it was both pun and trivia, all at the same time.
I found the lecture on plant stem cells interesting. It makes sense that plant stem cells would exist, but to actually hear more about them was fascinating. Stem cells in plants seem to be located in the vicinity of the root tip, but not at the absolute leading edge.
Thanks for that answer, eyedoc. Again, is/was the very existence of plant stems cells news to you? In other words, was my instinctive assumption just a lucky guess? Does their existence make sense to you and your colleagues only in hindsight? If so, why isn't/wasn't the general scientific assumption that plant development/evolution follows the same general behavior/course/mechanisms as animal biology?
How big of a theoretical leap is it to imagine that scientists might one day be able to produce animal tissue from plant stem cells and whatever target-animal DNA/RNA/magic is required to do such a thing?
How confused am I?
It makes sense, Anon, that there would be plant stem cells. To actually see them lit up on the big screen only makes it more exciting.
As for producing animal tissue from plant stem cells-- now there's an idea! It's only a matter of time, I think. I do see some technical challenges, but for some proteins, it may be possible.
"RELAX, kevronius!"
i will, just as soon as you pound a surprising revelation up your ass.
KEvron
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