stem

'Biowire' could be major step toward viable cardiac patches

Be still my beating heart. Or, rather, be very, very fast, so that it can be used by science.

This is the battle cry out of the University of Toronto, where researchers are unveiling a biowire that could lead to the production of mature cardiac patches that are derived from real human cardiomyocytes (heart cells). Reporting this week in the scientific journal Nature Methods, cardiac researchers say the tech could lead to the development of mature cardiac patches in a range of sizes.

Let's back up, because when it comes to matters of the heart, things get complicated fast.… Read more

$325,000 stem cell hamburger to be eaten soon

The race for a lab-grown meat alternative has been on for years. Modern Meadow, for example, has gone after a type of 3D-printed meat using bioprinting techniques. Dutch tissue engineer Mark Post is using stem cells to make a lab-grown hamburger, one that may be actually going down someone's gullet very soon.

Post's Cultured Beef Project has been in development at Maastricht University in the Netherlands for some time thanks to $325,000 in funding from an anonymous donor. Cow muscle stem cells are grown into miniscule strips of tissue. Each strip can take several weeks to grow. It takes 20,000 of these to make a single hamburger. It's a time-consuming and expensive product at this stage of the project.… Read more

Techno-circus brings robots, lasers to the big tent

Step right up, kiddies, the carnival is coming to town! And this time, it's bringing robots and lasers.

Well, it will be if the STEAM Carnival successfully reaches its Kickstarter goal and hits the highway with all manner of amusing geeky hijinks under its big tent. Think Maker Faire meets Burning Man, with a decidedly less naked, more kid-friendly slant. The goal is to not only get youngsters pumped about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), but to warm them up to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math).

"Our culture isn't doing enough to get kids interested in STEAM," say the creatives behind Two Bit Circus, a collective of builders, inventors, developers, and makers behind STEAM Circus. (They also helped create the wacky Rube Goldberg machine in OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" video.) The carnival's advisory board also brings some serious geek cred to the proceedings in the form of MythBuster Grant Imahara; Brian Fargo, creator of the video game Bard's Tale; and Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and father of Brent Bushnell, one of STEAM Carnival's masterminds.

… Read more

Rep. Eshoo on House's student app competition (podcast)

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a resolution to create an academic competition that would encourage students to build mobile and computer apps. The Academic Competition Resolution of 2013 is a bi-partisan effort led by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who represents much of Silicon Valley.

The competition, according to the resolution, "will evolve over time and will challenge students in specialized areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to ensure maximum participation." The resolution states: "Because of the importance of computer science it would be appropriate to initially challenge students … Read more

3D printing with stem cells could lead to printable organs

Some day in the future, when you need a kidney transplant, you may get a 3D-printed organ created just for you. If scientists are able to achieve that milestone, they may look back fondly at a breakthrough printing process pioneered by researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland in collaboration with Roslin Cellab, a stem cell technology company.

The printer creates 3D spheroids using delicate embryonic cell cultures floating in a "bio ink" medium. They end up looking like little bubbles. Each droplet can contain as few as five stem cells. Basically, this comes down to the printer "ink" being stem cells rather than plastic or another material. … Read more

Obama opposes Silicon Valley firms on immigration reform

President Obama opposes an immigration reform bill backed by companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe that would let U.S.-educated computer programmers and engineers remain in the country, the White House said today.

The surprise announcement comes in advance of a House of Representatives vote scheduled for Friday on the Republican-backed STEM Jobs Act of 2012, which would make up to 55,000 visas available to foreigners who earned a master's or doctoral degree in certain science or technology area from a U.S. university. Those visas would only be available if immigration authorities certify that no American … Read more

Silicon Alley needs workers, Schumer says

New York City and Silicon Alley are becoming bigger players in the tech world, but that could change if they can't get the employees they need -- at least according to Sen. Chuck Schumer.

The legislator, a Democrat from New York, hopes to increase the number of qualified tech workers by reforming U.S. immigration policy, something many have attempted in the past.

Schumer plans to introduce a bill Wednesday called the Benefits to Research and American Innovation through Nationality Statutes Act -- the BRAINS Act, for short. It will start a two-year, nationwide pilot program to designate 55,… Read more

Hot nanotubes blast chemo-resistant cancer cells into oblivion

When it comes to cancer cells, a particularly confounding breed called cancer stem cells have proven difficult to kill. Because they divide so slowly, chemo drugs do them little harm, and they appear resistant to heat therapies that are generally good at killing most cells. Some cancer drugs even appear to promote the growth of cancer stem cells.

Now, three years after they found that the heat from 30-second laser blasts can kill kidney cancer stem cells, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center say the same treatment works to kill breast cancer stem cells as well.

Torti's team … Read more

Nifty stem-cell engineering sheds light on Parkinson's disease

Researchers at the University at Buffalo may have taken a significant step toward unraveling the way Parkinson's disease assails the human nervous system--thanks in part to a nifty bit of stem-cell engineering.

Scientists led by physiologist Jian Feng took skin cells from healthy control subjects and people with a particular type of Parkinson's disease and transformed them into a type of primordial cell--technically, an "induced pluripotent stem cell." Such iPS cells, as they're known, can be coaxed into developing as almost any type of cell in the body.

Here, they turned into brain cells. … Read more