A completely locked-in patient is able to type out words and short sentences to his family, including what he would like to eat, after being implanted with a device that enables him to control a keyboard with his mind.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, overturn previous assumptions about the communicative abilities of people who have lost all voluntary muscle control, including movement of the eyes or mouth, as well as giving a unique insight into what it’s like to be in a “locked in” state.

Locked-in syndrome – also known as pseudocoma - is a rare condition, where people are conscious and can see, hear, and smell, but are unable to move or speak due to complete paralysis of their voluntary muscles, eg as a result of the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Molar Pregnancy (Hydatidiform Mole)

Molar pregnancy is an abnormal form of pregnancy in which a non-viable fertilized egg implants in the uterus and will fail to come to term (will not develop into a child). Instead, the cells divide and replicate into a growing mass (mole) of non-foetal tissue.

Molar pregnancy is a gestational trophoblastic disease in which a non-viable egg grows into a mass (tumour) in the uterus that has swollen chorionic villi.

Complete hydatidiform moles have a 2–4% risk of developing into choriocarcinoma in Western countries and 10–15% in Eastern countries, and have a 15% risk of becoming an invasive mole.

Molar pregnancies make up 1 in 1,000 pregnancies in the US and up to 1 in 100 pregnancies in parts of Asia.

Symptoms

Partial mole

Partial moles do not generate the same clinical features as a complete mole. Patients instead present with signs and symptoms consistent with an incomplete or missed abortion, including vaginal bleeding and absence of foetal heartbeat.

Stem cells for therapy - types

Bone Marrow Cells (BMCs)

Whole bone marrow cells (BMCs) and bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs) are the most accessible and studied source of stem cells.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs)

MSCs can be isolated from a variety of tissues such as bone marrow, adipose, and umbilical cord; although it is not clear whether their properties are uniform (Selem, Hatzistergos and Hare, 2011). 

MSCs are of particular note due to their immunopriveleged nature – a reduced expression of MHC class-I molecule, and lack of MHC class-II and co-stimulatory molecules, means they could potentially be used for allogeneic grafts (Zimmet et al., 2005). This means that they don’t produce an immune response and could be used in transplants - the body won’t reject them.

Foetal and Umbilical Cord Cells

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs), the prototypical stem cell, can develop into all cell types in the body. However, the practical application of human ESCs remains limited due to ethical problems, teratoma formation (cancer), and immune rejection. With rapidly expanding knowledge of molecular and genetic pathways for ESC differentiation, it may become possible to avoid contamination with undifferentiated ESCs, thereby inhibiting teratogenesis when transplanted into the body (Kucia et al., 2006). 

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)

Induced pluripotent stem cells are a more attractive alternative to ESCs, as they are autologous. This means cells can be taken from an individual, ‘reset’ back to their stem cell stage, and then administered to that same individual to avoid rejection. Pluripotency transcription factors are introduced to adult terminally differentiated somatic cells, such as dermal fibroblasts, in a novel strategy which ‘reprograms’ the cells back to an embryonic stem cell-like stage (Yu et al., 2007).

Despite slight epigenetic differences associated with reprogramming, iPSCs fully resemble ESCs in terms of differentiation capacity, morphology and gene expression profile; and have the ability to differentiate into other cells.  Ethical and immune response dilemmas are bypassed by the autologous nature of iPSCs, however clinical application is not yet on the horizon due to their teratogenic potential and the oncogenes and virus vectors required for the current method of pluripotent induction (Yamanaka and Takahashi, 2006).

 Skeletal myoblasts (SM)

Skeletal myoblasts (satellite cells) are derived from skeletal muscle and have the capacity to differentiate into muscle fibre, which makes them obvious candidates for treating conditions such as heart damage following infarction. However, clinical trials have been halted as SM have been observed to couple with resident cardiomyocytes, resulting in dysfunctional electrocardiology and arrhythmias, and have struggled to transdifferentiate into cardiomyocytes in vivo (Reinecke, Poppa and Murry, 2002).

Stem cells

Stem cells are cells in the body that don’t yet have any role (undifferentiated or partially differentiated), and can change to become almost any cell type.

In embryonic development (a baby forming in the womb), pluripotent stem cells develop at the blastocyst stage (3-4 days) and differentiate into all the cells of the human body as the foetus develops.

Stem cells do exist in the adult body, however they are not pluripotent - they are unipotent or multipotent - this means they can only differentiate into one or a few cell types respectively.

Adult stem cells 

Adult stem cells are found in a few select locations in the body, known as niches, such as:

They exist to replenish rapidly lost cell types and include hematopoietic stem cells, which replenish blood and immune cells, basal cells, which maintain the skin epithelium, and mesenchymal stem cells, which maintain bone, cartilage, muscle and fat cells. Adult stem cells are a small minority of cells.

IBS - Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome include stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation. These may come and go over time.

IBS is characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habit in the absence of a specific and unique organic pathology. This means that there are symptoms of colon irritation/damage, but no specific disease can be identified and there is vast variation between patients.

Pathology

Causes for IBS have not yet been identified, but current research suggests:

Altered GI motility

Visceral hyperalgesia

Psychopathology

Microscopic inflammation

Alterations in the intestinal biome

Ovarian Cancer

Malignant lesions of the ovaries include primary lesions arising from normal structures within the ovary and secondary lesions from cancers arising elsewhere in the body. 

Signs and symptoms

Diagnosis

Physical findings are uncommon in early stages. Advanced disease may present with ovarian or pelvic mass, ascites, pleural effusion, or abdominal mass or bowel obstruction.

Pathophysiology

Epithelial tumours make up 90% of ovarian tumours. Other histologies include:

Epithelial ovarian cancer

Four main histologic subtypes:

Tumours of low malignant potential

Tumours of low malignant potential (LMP) are a variety of much less aggressive epithelial ovarian cancer, with good prognosis. 

LMP tumors can cause a range of symptoms similar to epithelial ovarian cancer, including increasing abdominal girth, an abdominal mass, abdominal pain, abnormal uterine bleeding, urinary symptoms, and gastrointestinal symptoms. They may be asymptomatic and found on routine physical examination or ultrasound scan.

Something a bit different! I’ve just taken up embroidery as a lockdown hobby and also because I haven’t had any income in three months and am getting desperate (ha ha) and this is one of the first things I made. I’m a complete beginner but I’d love to do more scientific things so if anyone has any ideas or wants to commission something than please do hit me up! I have an instagram and an etsy where i’ve also started making masks.

much love and appreciation <3

Taste

The tongue is covered with many little bumps called papillae. Taste buds are found in the walls of papillae and the grooves surrounding them. Each taste bud contains anywhere from 50 to 150 taste receptor cells. 

Sweetness

Saltiness

Sourness

Bitterness

Savouriness

New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the respiratory virus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, causes severe damage to blood vessels, leading to widespread thrombosis, a press release by the Angiogenesis Foundation reports.

The study was conducted by an international team of medical scientists who compared the lungs of patients who died from COVID-19 with lungs of patients who died from influenza as well as with healthy lungs donated for transplantation.

The researchers discovered an unexpected disease pattern in COVID-19 lungs: the virus invaded the endothelial cells, and this was accompanied by blood clots. Compared to the flu, COVID-19 lungs had 9-fold more blood clots and the blood vessels were injured by the virus causing an unusual reaction of blood vessel growth.

Separately, a 6 May report published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology described how using blood thinners in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 appeared to be protective and associated with better outcomes.

Obsessed with this youtube channel rn!

As key players in the body’s immune defense, T cells have the ability to track down and attack cancer cells, but can have trouble seeking out those that are not already inflamed. A new immunotherapy deliver system could make these natural killer cells far more effective by strategically inflaming so-called cold tumors so T cells can detect and destroy them with much greater efficiency.

The new technique was developed by scientists at the University of Chicago and falls under an arm of cancer treatment known as immunotherapy. This involves supercharging the body’s immune system in different ways so that it can better fight off cancer, and one of the ways it can do this is through what are known as checkpoint inhibitors.

Thymus

The thymus is a specialised primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. 

The thymus is composed of two identical lobes and is located in the anterior superior mediastinum, in front of the heart and behind the sternum. Each lobe of the thymus can be divided into a central medulla and a peripheral cortex which is surrounded by an outer capsule.

Function

Facilitates the maturation of T cells - which provide cell-mediated immunity.

Positive selection

T cells have distinct T cell receptors. These  are formed by process recombination gene rearrangement which is error-prone, and some thymocytes fail to make functional T-cell receptors, whereas other thymocytes make T-cell receptors that are autoreactive. The survival and nature of the T cell then depends on its interaction with surrounding thymic epithelial cells. 

Negative selection

T cells that attack the body's own proteins are eliminated in the thymus. Epithelial cells in the medulla and dendritic cells in the thymus express major proteins from elsewhere in the body. Some CD4 positive T cells exposed to self antigens persist as T regulatory cells.

Pathology

Immunodeficiency - As the thymus is the organ of T-cell development, any congenital defect in thymic genesis or a defect in thymocyte development can lead to a profound T cell deficiency in primary immunodeficiency disease.

Autoimmune disease - Genetic disorders, such as Myasthenia gravis: caused by antibodies that block acetylcholine receptors.

Thymomas - Originate in thymic epithelial cells most often in adults older than 40. Generally detected when they cause symptoms, such as a neck mass or affecting nearby structures such as the superior vena cava. Can be benign; benign but by virtue of expansion, invading beyond the capsule of the thymus ("invasive thyoma"), or malignant (a carcinoma).

Lymphomas - Tumours originating from T cells of the thymus form a subset of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL)

Thymic cysts - The thymus may contain cysts, usually less than 4 cm in diameter. Thymic cysts are usually detected incidentally and do not generally cause symptoms.