Cardiopoietic 'smart' stem cells show promise in heart failure patients

Apr. 10, 2013 ? Translating a Mayo Clinic stem-cell discovery, an international team has demonstrated that therapy with cardiopoietic (cardiogenically-instructed) or "smart" stem cells can improve heart health for people suffering from heart failure. This is the first application in patients of lineage-guided stem cells for targeted regeneration of a failing organ, paving the way to development of next generation regenerative medicine solutions. Results of the clinical trial appear online of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The multi-center, randomized Cardiopoietic stem cell therapy in heart failure (C-CURE) trial involved heart failure patients from Belgium, Switzerland and Serbia. Patients in the control group received standard care for heart failure in accordance with established guidelines. Patients in the cell therapy arm received, in addition to standard care, cardiopoietic stem cells -- a first-in-class biotherapeutic. In this process, bone marrow was harvested from the top of the patient's hip, and isolated stem cells were treated with a protein cocktail to replicate natural cues of heart development. Derived cardiopoietic stem cells were then injected into the patient's heart.

"The cells underwent an innovative treatment to optimize their repair capacity," says Andre Terzic, M.D., Ph.D., study senior author and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. "This study helps us move beyond the science fiction notion of stem cell research, providing clinical evidence for a new approach in cardiovascular regenerative medicine."

Every patient in the stem cell treatment group improved. Heart pumping function improved in each patient within six months following cardiopoietic stem cell treatment. In addition, patients experienced improved fitness and were able to walk longer distances than before stem cell therapy. "The benefit to patients who received cardiopoietic stem cell therapy was significant," Dr. Terzic says.

In an accompanying editorial, Charles Murry, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Washington, Seattle, say, "Six months after treatment, the cell therapy group had a 7 percent absolute improvement in EF (ejection fraction) over baseline, versus a non-significant change in the control group. This improvement in EF is dramatic, particularly given the duration between the ischemic injury and cell therapy. It compares favorably with our most potent therapies in heart failure."

The science supporting this trial is a product of a decade-long journey in decoding principles of stem cell-based heart repair. "Discovery of rare stem cells that could inherently promote heart regeneration provided a critical clue. In following this natural blueprint, we further developed the know-how needed to convert patient-derived stem cells into cells that can reliably repair a failing heart," says Dr. Terzic, underscoring the team effort in this endeavor.

Initial discovery led to the identification of hundreds of proteins involved in cardiogenesis, or the heart development process. The research team then identified which proteins are necessary in helping a stem cell become a reparative cell type, leading to development of a protein cocktail-based procedure that orients stem cells for heart repair. Such upgraded stem cells are called cardiopoietic or heart creative.

Mayo Clinic partnered with Cardio3 Biosciences, a bioscience company in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium, for advanced product development, manufacturing scale-up, and clinical trial execution.

Mayo Clinic and Dr. Terzic have a financial interest related to technology in this research program.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/mn3_XAF0Kl4/130410103349.htm

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IDC: PC shipments in Q1 faced their steepest known drop to date

If Windows 8 is the ticket to a bounce-back in PC sales, it's going to be a long, slow recovery. At least, as long as you ask IDC. It estimates that worldwide computer shipments in the first quarter of 2013 fell 13.9 percent to 76.3 million, which is the steepest quarterly drop the research firm has recorded since it started tracking PCs back in 1994. While the exact factors at work aren't clear, IDC blames it on a mix of customers spooked by Windows 8's unfamiliar interface, the continued rise of mobile devices, and the decline of the netbook. This isn't helped by the higher typical prices of touchscreen PCs, or by restructuring efforts at computing giants like Dell and HP.

Who's reigning in this apparently declining PC empire, then? Worldwide, it's a different picture than it was a few months ago: HP is back on top at 15.7 percent, followed by Lenovo, Dell, Acer and ASUS. The American climate is somewhat more familiar, with HP in front at 25.1 percent while being chased by Dell, Apple, Toshiba and Lenovo. With the exception of Lenovo, however, virtually all of the manufacturers involved saw at least some decline in their PC shipments. To IDC, that's a sign that vendors and Microsoft need to find an antidote to the crazes for smartphones and tablets -- and find it quickly.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Apple, ASUS, HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo

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Source: IDC

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/hpHzSQlPLBc/

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Voters to choose Jackson Jr.'s House successor

CHICAGO (AP) ? While Democrat Robin Kelly is widely expected to capture Tuesday's special election for former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s seat over Republican Paul McKinley, any winner will face big challenges.

Illinois' newest member of Congress will have big shoes to fill: Jackson was a 17-year incumbent who served on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and brought home nearly $1 billion to the district. He also had strong relationships with mayors, activists and voters across the district that includes city neighborhoods, suburbs and some rural areas.

Jackson resigned in November. He pleaded guilty in February in federal court to lavishly misspending $750,000 in campaign funds.

Political experts, voters and mayors agree that Kelly, 56, has the edge. She's a former state representative, has received big name endorsements including from President Barack Obama and received a huge boost from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's super PAC, which supported her gun control stance. Also, the district is solidly Democratic and has been for about six decades. McKinley is an ex-con-turned-community activist who barely won his primary.

While early estimates showed low voter turnout districtwide, the special election coincided with municipal elections in communities outside Chicago.

Voters trickled into New Life Celebration Church of God in Dolton throughout the day and campaign workers handed out glossy candidate cards.

Carl Rochelle, 51, voted for Kelly. He liked her attention to anti-violence efforts and guns. He was also happy to see a new candidate after ethical and legal troubles surrounded the district's previous three congressmen.

"I like to see a fresh face," he said. "Hopefully something is different. I hope it doesn't happen to her."

Kelly, from Matteson, said whoever wins will face challenges, like being the last to get committee assignments and having to play catch up. But she believes she can be a voice on the national stage for gun control. Her primary victory speech, in which she issued a direct challenge to the National Rifle Association, earned praise from Bloomberg and Vice President Joe Biden. And Obama nodded to her anti-gun advocacy in his endorsement.

"I will have a voice in Congress as the debate is going on and as issues come to the floor," Kelly said. "I will attend everything I can attend."

But McKinley isn't so sure it's in the bag for Kelly. The Chicago man ? who doesn't advocate for gun control ? has focused his campaign on how his integration back into society after serving nearly 20 years in prison for robbery and other charges has made him ready to help others.

"I have a 50-50 chance like my opponent has," he said. "There is nothing written in stone that she's supposed to win."

Independent candidates Curtiss Llong Bey, Marcus Lewis and Elizabeth Pahlke are also running, as is Green Party candidate LeAllen M. Jones.

Whoever wins will face extra scrutiny on ethics.

The three previous congressmen in the Chicago-area district left office under an ethical cloud.

Until his resignation, Jackson remained under a House Ethics Committee investigation over ties to ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. His predecessor, Mel Reynolds, left office in 1995 and was convicted of fraud and having sex with a minor. Before that, Gus Savage faced allegations of sexual misconduct with a Peace Corps worker while on a congressional visit overseas.

"There's a lot of hope (among voters) because she's had a pretty clean record so far," said Don Rose, a longtime political consultant in Chicago. "It'll be a while before she can become a leader but it's a matter of what she does."

Others are just skeptical of any new congressman's ability in Washington.

Ford Heights Mayor Charles Griffin, who also backed Jackson, said he's become frustrated with partisan politics and with the monthslong absence of a congressman in the Chicago-area district that has large pockets of unemployment and poverty.

"He had some influence," Griffin said. "When a freshman person goes in dealing with guys who are well-grounded and unwilling to negotiate, nothing's going to transfer. The fact is that she is almost facing an insurmountable task."

The district's last special election was 1995 when Jackson won office.

___

Contact Sophia Tareen at https://www.twitter.com/sophiatareen .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/voters-choose-jackson-jr-house-successor-070501206--election.html

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News Corp COO Threatens To Pull Fox Broadcast Signal If Aereo Prevails In Legal Battle

Could Fox remove its broadcast signals and become available only as part of a cable subscription? That's one possibility that News Corp. COO Chase Carey offered up as a business solution if it and other broadcasters lose their ongoing legal battle against streaming video provider Aereo.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/PCIbipVKtIU/

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Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer dies at 81

MIAMI (AP) ? Lilly Pulitzer hosted parties in her bare feet and wasn't afraid to get a little messy ? just as long as she looked good and had fun, too.

In the late 1950s, the Palm Beach socialite had time to spare and a wealthy husband who owned citrus groves, so she opened an orange juice stand just off the island's main shopping street. Pulitzer needed to hide all the juice stains on her clothes, though. Instead of just putting on an apron, she asked her seamstress to make some sleeveless dresses in colorful fruit prints, and a fashion staple was born.

Pulitzer died at her home Sunday, according to Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services. She was 81.

Pulitzer's tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s when then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread.

The colorful revolution came as fashion shed its reliance on neutrals, and Pulitzer's stuff was almost the housewife version of the more youthful mod look that was migrating from London.

To this day, the Lilly Pulitzer dress remains a popular, if not a necessary, addition to any woman's closet.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, told The Associated Press in March 2009.

Pulitzer's dresses hung behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. A boutique featuring the company's dresses ? developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor ? soon replaced the juice stand.

"Today we celebrate all that Lilly meant to us and come together as Lilly lovers to honor a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world," James B. Bradbeer Jr. and Scott A. Beaumont, who bought the Lilly Pulitzer brand in 1992, said in a statement.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange ? the colors of a Florida vacation.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004.

"We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style," she said.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

But changing taste brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc.; Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business but continued reviewing new prints from Florida.

"When Lilly started the business back in the '60s, she targeted a young customer because she was young," Bradbeer told the AP in 2003. "What we have done is target the daughter and granddaughter of that original customer."

Pulitzer herself retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although she remained a consultant and a muse for the brand.

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010. Sales of the Lilly Pulitzer brand were strong in the earnings period that ended Feb. 2. The brand's revenue increased 26 percent to $29.1 million, according to Oxford Industries' earnings report. The company said last week it planned to add four to six new stores each year for its Lilly Pulitzer brand.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize.

Pulitzer had three children in quick succession. After the third was born, she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital that catered to upscale clientele in New York. A doctor there told her that she needed to find a job.

"The doctor there said, 'You're not happy because you're not doing anything,' and I said, 'I don't know how to do anything.' I'd always had everything done for me, always had my nanny and my mummy making up my mind. The doctor said, 'You've got to go out and find something to do,'" Pulitzer told The New Yorker in 2000.

Pulitzer gave the same prescription to her friends. If one of them needed something to do, Pulitzer would open a store in her town.

The Pulitzers divorced in 1969. Pulitzer's second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

"I don't know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day," she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. "I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There's no explaining the fun I had."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fashion-designer-lilly-pulitzer-dies-81-170631324.html

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Lift weights to lower blood sugar? White muscle helps keep blood glucose levels under control

Lift weights to lower blood sugar? White muscle helps keep blood glucose levels under control

Monday, April 8, 2013

Researchers in the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan have challenged a long-held belief that whitening of skeletal muscle in diabetes is harmful.

In fact, the white muscle that increases with resistance training, age and diabetes helps keep blood sugar in check, the researchers showed.

In addition, the insights from the molecular pathways involved in this phenomenon and identified in the study may point the way to potential drug targets for obesity and metabolic disease.

"We wanted to figure out the relationship between muscle types and body metabolism, how the muscles were made, and also what kind of influence they have on diseases like type 2 diabetes," said Jiandie Lin, Life Sciences Institute faculty member and associate professor at the U-M Medical School.

Lin's findings are scheduled to be published online April 7 in Nature Medicine.

Much like poultry has light and dark meat, mammals have a range of muscles: red, white and those in between. Red muscle, which gets its color in part from mitochondria, prevails in people who engage in endurance training, such as marathon runners. White muscle dominates in the bodies of weightlifters and sprinters?people who require short, intense bursts of energy.

"Most people are in the middle and have a mix of red and white," Lin said.

When you exercise, nerves signal your muscles to contract, and the muscle needs energy. In response to a signal to lift a heavy weight, white muscles use glycogen to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP)?energy the cells can use to complete the task. While this process, called glycolysis, can produce a lot of power for a short time, the glycogen fuel soon depletes.

However, if the brain tells the muscle to run a slow and steady long-distance race, the mitochondria in red muscles primarily use fat oxidation instead of glycogen breakdown to generate ATP. The supply of energy lasts much longer but doesn't provide the burst of strength that comes from glycolysis.

People with diabetes see whitening of the mix of muscle.

"For a long time, the red-to-white shift was thought to make muscle less responsive to insulin, a hormone that lowers blood sugar," Lin said. "But this idea is far from proven. You lose red muscle when you age or develop diabetes, but is that really the culprit?"

To find out, the team set out to find a protein that drives the formation of white muscle. They sifted through microarray data sets from public databases and identified a list of candidate proteins that were prevalent in white muscle but not in red.

Further studies led the team to focus on a protein called BAF60c, a sort of "zip code" mechanism that tells the cells when and how to express certain genes. The Lin team made a transgenic mouse model to increase BAF60c only in the skeletal muscle. One of the first things they noticed was that mice with more BAF60c had muscles that looked paler.

"That was a good hint that we were going in the white-muscle direction," said lead author Zhuo-xian Meng, a research fellow in Lin's lab.

They used electron microscopy to see the abundance of mitochondria within the muscle, and confirmed that muscle from BAF60c transgenic mice had less mitochondria than the normal controls.

"We saw predicted changes in molecular markers, but the ultimate test would be seeing how the mouse could run," Lin said.

If the BAF60c mice could run powerfully for short distances but tired quickly, the scientists would be able to confirm that the BAF60c pathway was a key part of the creation of white muscle.

Using mouse treadmills, they compared the endurance of BAF60c mice to a control group of normal mice, and found that the BAF60c transgenic mice could only run about 60 percent of the time that the control group could before tiring.

"White muscle uses glycogen, and the transgenic mice depleted their muscles' supplies of glycogen very quickly," Lin said.

After some follow-up experiments to figure out exactly which molecules were controlled by BAF60c, Lin and his team were confident that they had identified major players responsible for promoting white muscle formation. Now that they knew how to make more white muscle in animals, they wanted to determine whether white muscle was a deleterious or an adaptive characteristic of diabetes.

The team induced obesity in mice by feeding them the "Super Size Me" diet, Lin said. On a high-fat diet, a mouse will double its body weight in two to three months. They found that obese mice with BAF60c transgene were much better at controlling blood glucose.

"The results are a bit of a surprise to many people," Lin said. "It really points to the complexity in thinking about muscle metabolism and diabetes."

In humans, resistance training promotes the growth of white muscle and helps in lowering blood glucose. If future studies in humans determine that the BAF60c pathway is indeed the way in which cells form white muscle and in turn optimize metabolic function, the finding could lead to researching the pathway as a drug target.

"We know that this molecular pathway also works in human cells. The real challenge is to find a way to target these factors," Lin said.

###

University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu/

Thanks to University of Michigan for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127624/Lift_weights_to_lower_blood_sugar__White_muscle_helps_keep_blood_glucose_levels_under_control

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The East Austin Urban Farm Tour | LiveMom.com - Dedicated to ...

Posted by Lauren on Apr 8, 2013 in Austin, Events | 0 comments

Get ready for a rollicking party in East Austin?s urban farmlands next weekend. The 4th Annual East Austin Urban Farm Tour will be held on Sunday, April 14 from 1 to 5 pm, and, aside from the regular family-friendly fun times you?d expect at these farms, there will be a plethora of food and drink on offer from an all-star cast of local chefs, restaurants and producers.

?Although we like to think the highlight is the farms, we know people come for the food,? says Paula Foore, co-owner of Springdale Farm, which is participating in the tour. ?The food is amazing.?

Local stars, including Wink, Dai Due, Hillside Farmacy and Olivia (among many others), will be offering chef tastes, and drink purveyors like East End Wines and Live Oak Brewery will have samples of wine, beer and spirits on offer, too. There will be four or five food and beverage options at each farm, and the farms? produce is the highlight of the menus.

Of course, while the food and drink may be the main draw for the grown-ups, there is plenty on offer for kids, too.

?I?m a mom, and visiting farms for kids is just such a great experience,? says Kim Beal of Rain Lily Farm, which is also participating in the tour. ?Kids don?t have as much an opportunity, especially in the city, to see things growing, to see animals. That?s the part the kids usually love ? the animals.?

And plenty of animals there are. Between the donkeys, rabbits, goats, chickens and ducks, the little ones are likely to be in hog heaven (pardon the pun).

The East Austin Urban Farm Tour came about as a partnership between four urban farms in East Austin ? Boggy Creek Farm, Haus Bar Farms, Springdale Farm and Rain Lily Farm ? to raise awareness of their presence and invite the community to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

?We?re all really good friends, and we?ve all gotten really close being here and supporting each other,? says Beal. ?Even though we?re so close [physically], we tend to be kind of isolated.?

The tour is an opportunity for the farms to come together and spend an afternoon with the community.

?It?s a chance to see everybody?s farm in the spring when things are pretty,? says Carol Ann Sayle of Boggy Creek Farm. ?It?s a big social thing and the community comes, and it?s just fun.?

Each of the farmers also sees the tour as an opportunity to raise awareness of what they?re doing and engage with the community.

?Anybody coming to the farms has a chance, if they want to, to come and see some of the nuts and bolts of how a farm operates,? says Dorsey Barger, co-owner of HausBar Farms. ?We?re introducing people, not only kids, to how food gets made. A farm is a living organism, and to see how all the living elements work together on a farm is amazing.?

The cost for a ticket is $45 ($55 for day-of sales, if available), but kids under 12 are free. All proceeds go to support the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, a lobbying organization for small farms and ranches. Advance tickets may be purchased here, and planners say the event is likely to sell out.

This year they?ve limited it to 400 tickets, with a quarter of the participants assigned to start at each of the four farms. They?re hoping to avoid lines for the food and spread out the crowds. Although good weather is predicted, the event is rain or shine.

?Farming is rain or shine, and if it rains, we?re giddy with excitement,? says Sayle. ?Most of the people who are interested in this sort of thing know we need rain, so they understand. Just bring your umbrella!?

The farms are all in the same approximate neighborhood, so participants are encouraged to walk or ride bikes.

?All of the farms are within a half-mile of each other, so biking is perfect,? says Foore, adding that participants can drive or walk, too.

Beal, who has a 16-month-old daughter, has some sage advice for parents: ?Make sure you?ve got everything you need for the kids. It?s a short walk between each farm, but it can seem like a long distance for little kids.? Strollers and bike trailers are encouraged.

As an added bonus, you have the collective expertise of Austin?s most experienced farmers at your fingertips. ?Bring your questions, so we can help with your gardening issues,? says Foore.

Lauren Walz is a freelance writer and editor and mama to a two-year-old girl. While she?s quick to brag about being a fifth-generation Texan, Lauren moved to Northern California in 2004 after graduating from UT Law and lived in the Silicon Valley area until last spring, when she and her family were drawn back to Austin. Lauren is busy getting re-acquainted with her old stomping grounds and is astonished by how the food and wine scene has changed in Austin in the past 8 years. Lauren also blogs about cooking and parenthood on gourmetveggiemama.com.

Source: http://www.livemom.com/2013/04/08/the-east-austin-urban-farm-tour/

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