Universal stem cell....

Stem cells and their applications are making news these days. Cardiac lesions, neurological upsets, spinal injuries, ocular surface problems... everywhere there is a potential scope.

A stem cell typically retains its ability to differentiate along any cell line as happens during normal course of development.

I just wonder if we could generate a designer cell with mostly evolutionarily conserved and housekeeping genes, along with those meant to be active in different cell lines. We could have the same cell applicable to most humans or at best few hundred cell types that would at best have few matching human leucocyte antigens (HLAs). People will receive a designer cell that would match their own HLA make up and thereby evade the immune system to s considerable extent!

These best matched "non autologous" cell lines can be commercially available and ordered ... as per need.

Scientists are any way using cells that are indeed different from host cells yet continue to function for the assigned task. For instance, we have cells that produce insulin in diabetics. These cells are "cushioned" in a suitable biomaterial with "holes" that can allow the exit of the hormone but prevent the entry of cells that carry out immunological functions of recognizing an outsider!

Honey, the kid wants to shrink us!

A child's perspective on life

God may have created us, but it is true that across the civilizations, man recreated god(s). Gods of different colours and hues! ....Gods with form and without form!

The existence of god that man created helped answer many questions about his life and even the "after life"

My little daughter Maitreyi has her own perceptions about life.

We have told her about growing up: importance of proper meals.

She has seen our childhood photographs and at this age she has her own questions about life and their answers.

An obvious one in her mind is, what would happen to her parents, when she will grow up? She seems to have found an answer to that:

"Papa (or Mummy) when I will grow up, you will become smaller..... , .... and I will feed you, give you bath, dress you up and send to school".

I wish, science had a way to help her live her fantasy when she could parent us: although in India and also elsewhere, children are looked upon as investment for future! But that reverse care is different from this true reverse parenting.

And I hope when that happens, they don't have school home work any more!

Right, Maitreyi Mumma?

Can a house lizard inspire you to go to the lab?

Yesterday I had to chase out a large black colored lizard from my kitchen! My wife Seema had given me an ultimatum: either the lizard goes out or I don’t cook today.

I had to come out of my slumber.

The lizard tried to outsmart me: it quickly “jettisoned” a three inches long segment of its tail even as I wanted to catapult it across the door. I felt pity but had to continue. Soon it parted with another 7 mm wide wedge of what had remained of its tail.

The precision with which it had eliminated its tail was remarkable. It looked nearly like a scalpel cut, albeit this was a biological scalpel. But two such cuts! I had not seen before. Although it could be argued that a stroke of the broom I used to chase the creature may have helped it in shedding its tail nevertheless, as would be general experience, the impact of the stroke is relatively gentle and certainly it demonstrates biology's superiority over mechanics.

My younger daughter has a compressed thumb nail for two to three weeks now. The nail is regenerating slowly through the stem cells in the nail bed, but the original nail is still hinged and she asks everyday, when will “God Sir” replace it completely? I have no definite answer.

Plants too use abscisic acid to allow an old leaf to fall, but that takes time as well.

A lizard’s ability to regenerate its tail always fascinated me. I haven’t searched the status of research in this area yet, but it could have applied implications in neuronal regeneration! If only we could isolate the growth factor, most likely a neuropeptide, we could use it in patients with paraplegic, quadriplegia and even central nervous diseases where degeneration sets in. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinsonism, glaucoma etc….

Some of the best innovations come from the imitation of nature!