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They Are Young And Need The Job: A Second Chance For Dangerous T-cells
The immune system"s T-cells react to foreign protein fragments and therefore are crucial to combating viruses and bacteria. Errant cells that attack the body"s own material are in most cases driven to cell death. Some of these autoreactive T-cells, however, undergo a kind of reeducation to become "regulatory T-cells" that keep other autoreactive T-cells under control. A group led by immunologist Professor Ludger Klein of LMU Munich has now shown that the developmental stage of an autoreactive T-cell is decisive to its ultimate destiny. Young autoreactive T cells are very readily reeducated into regulatory T-cells. Under identical conditions, however, older T cells become fully activated and can cause damage they are in a way resistant to reeducation. "We now intend to study at the molecular level what makes a T-cell accessible for reeducation," said Klein, "because then it may be possible to convert even normal adult T-cells, which can be obtained easily and in great numbers from blood. Possibly, they could then be used as regulatory T-cells in therapies for autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes or multiple sclerosis: these are diseases that are triggered by uncontrolled autoreactive T-cells." (PNAS, 10 June 2009)
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Viruses Are Sneakier Than We Thought
Viruses are molecular marauders, plundering cells for the res they
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Virus Filters For Medical Diagnosis
Providing reliable evidence of viruses in human blood presently requires time- and labor-intensive molecular-biological procedures. Established methods are particularly hard pushed to produce evidence when the viral burden is very low, for example during a phase of therapy. This could soon change. While developing new types of micro-pumps without movable parts, scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT came across an unexpected phenomenon: stable turbulence structures formed in the microscale pump channels. The nano- and microparticles actually intended to verify the pump effect accumulated in large quantities in the channels. The vortex patterns completely filled the whole microchannel, creating a virtually 100% trap for the particles that followed the generated flow profile, although there is a very large cross-section to flow through. "The development of flow vortices is nothing unusual on the macroscopic scale. However, in microchannels the flow lines almost run in parallel," explains Richard Stein from the IBMT. "The question, therefore, was, how is it possible for vortices to be formed from this which were sufficiently stable and effective for the concentration of nanoparticles?"
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Is Organic Food Really No Better Than Other Foods?

The Food Standards Agency (FSA), UK, issued a report last week claiming that there is no evidence of any significant benefits to human health from consuming organic foods. It is surprising that such a claim could be made from a public health agency after what could best be described as rather limited research - according to much of the British press. Some facts about the study: *It did not include papers that were not written in English - estimated to be about half of all good quality studies. *It did not include research from the European Union published in April, 2009. *It ignored a study by scientists at Rhode Island Hospital which found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food, with increased deaths from diseases, including Alzheimer"s, diabetes mellitus and Parkinson"s. The study was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Alzheimer"s Disease (Volume 17:3 July 2009). Fair enough, this was published after the FSA had concluded their research. However, everyone knew this study was ongoing. Why not wait a little bit longer until it was completed? *It did not use the top British centers of excellence in this field to carry out the study. Scientists at the Nafferton Ecological Farming Group at Newcastle University, in one of many studies, found that grazing cows on organic farms in the UK produce milk which contains significantly higher beneficial fatty acids, antioxidants and vitamins than their conventional "high input" counterparts. A nationwide British daily newspaper, The Daily Mail, could not understand why the FSA used the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to carry out the study - a center of excellence, but not renowned as a leading center in this field - instead of, for example Newcastle University. Why do people choose organic? Putting the health issue to one side, there are many other reasons people wish to buy organic - two of them are listed below: *The environment *The effect on life forms within the soil - if you look at video footage of tractors ploughing fields forty years ago you will notice there used to be a sizeable number of birds gobbling up worms and bugs. Today there are very few of them, and sometimes none at all. *There are significantly more birds, butterflies, beetles, bats and wild flowers on organic farms than conventional farms. *Protection of endangered species - intensive farming is known to have a negative impact on the future of many endangered species. "A staggering 5 million skylarks are estimated to have vanished in the past 30 years as a result of agricultural intensification," (Speech given by Sir John Krebs, Chair of the Food Standards Agency at Queen"s University, Belfast, on 5 November 2003). *Coastal waters - there is much less run-off of nutrients from organic farms, compared to other farms, which cause algae blooms in coastal waters. *Organic farming encourages practices which are more in line with measures to combat climate change. An example is the use of solar powered fertility through crops like red clover that fix nitrogen into the soil for subsequent crops. *Animal welfare (farm animals) As organically farmed animals are encouraged to pursue natural behavior, which usually includes plenty of space, more natural feeding habits, as well as receiving fewer drugs and antibiotics, their quality of life is generally better compared to animals in other farms. In the vast majority of cases, organic farms with livestock have free-range animals. In every organic poultry farm in the UK, birds are kept in smaller flocks and spend much more of their time roaming outside on fresh grass - they also have considerably more indoor space, compared to non-organic poultry farms. What about unknown long-term complications? Can we really say organic is not better for health if we do not have enough long term evidence? Scientists at Emory University, the University of Washington, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that by substituting elementary school-age children"s foods with just organic products, the concentration of the organophosphorus pesticides found in their bodies decreased substantially to non-detectable levels until the conventional diets were re-introduced. The researchers were specifically measuring the exposure of two organophosphorus pesticides - malathion and chlorpyrifos. Research team leader, Dr. Lu said "During the days when children consumed organic diets, most of their urine samples contained zero concentration for the malathion metabolite. However, once the children returned to their conventional diets, the average malathion metabolite concentration increased to 1.6 parts per billion with a concentration range from 5 to 263 parts per billion." An elementary school child will most likely live another 70, 80 or even 90 years. We cannot and should not ignore potential long-term complications. Written by Christian Nordqvist Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today


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