I was going to say something similar, but I'd say they've had bags of flour.
This sounds like flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. It's a long ways to go and time to take, but it is substantially closer than anyone has been.
My understanding is that, as with other transplants, you have to be on immunosuppressant anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life.
Not very metal.
chromdom on
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#pipeCocky Stride, Musky odoursPope of Chili TownRegistered Userregular
My understanding is that, as with other transplants, you have to be on immunosuppressant anti-rejection drugs for the rest of your life.
Not very metal.
Pretty sure stem cells are different in this regard as they conform to their surroundings, though I might be wrong.
Lots of stem cell advancement is based around harvesting naturally occurring cells in the patient's own body to basically eliminate the need for immunosuppresing at all. I remember reading about growing new teeth from one's own stem cells to replace implants.
edit: turns out I was wrong.
Allogeneic HSCT involves two people: the (healthy) donor and the (patient) recipient. Allogeneic HSC donors must have a tissue (HLA) type that matches the recipient. Matching is performed on the basis of variability at three or more loci of the HLA gene, and a perfect match at these loci is preferred. Even if there is a good match at these critical alleles, the recipient will require immunosuppressive medications to mitigate graft-versus-host disease.
I think it would work if you were using the patient's stem cells, but unfortunately those cells are already malfuctioning. That's my guess.
I thought they'd figured out how to make stem cells from normal cells a few years back?
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
I want to be Steve Austin, the 6 Million Dollar Man if I ever need organs or limbs. I have ever since I watched that show as a kid. Science needs to hurry up and make it a reality.
But I want to look cooler, like Cyborg.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
I think it would work if you were using the patient's stem cells, but unfortunately those cells are already malfuctioning. That's my guess.
I thought they'd figured out how to make stem cells from normal cells a few years back?
They can convert some lines into limited stem cells that can essentially only make more stem cells or turn back into the specialised form and a few that can turn into closely related tissues but no-one gas managed to take, say, a gut epithelium cell and turn it into a cell capable of becoming something radically different like a neuron.
Certain medical procedures involving blood fractions or that use a patient's own blood during the course of a medical procedure, such as hemodilution or cell salvage, are a matter of personal choice, according to what a person's conscience permits.
So... probably? edit-Actually, probably not.
The following medical procedures are prohibited:
Transfusion of allogeneic whole blood, or of its constituents of red cells, white cells, platelets or plasma.[22]
Transfusions of pre-operative self-donated (autologous) blood.
You can't donate blood to yourself. This probably includes stem cell blood.
So it's relevant to recent discussion of new medicines coming online/going through testing, I recently had one of my ethics courses and we talked about taking a drug from lab to clinic. Due to the high rate of failure at various (all laborious, time consuming, expensive) stages of testing, the "average" price to develop a drug fully is around US $1 billion. Granted, you are technically trying a few drugs for that price, but your odds are not good. The average time is ~5-10 years for an individual drug.
This leads to the current strategy of taking existing drugs and throwing them at different walls to see what sticks. This is how you end up with odd stories like a drug originally for schizophrenia being tested in people with influenza. Because if you can start with a drug that was proven non-toxic, you have already cut out a large number of steps. If I remember correctly, the FDA requires you to prove that your drug is non-toxic (at therapeutic doses) in at least 3 mammal systems before you can even try it in a human. It takes a LOT of animals so that you can track them over a long time, harvest organs at various time points if you need to, and try a variety of doses/dose timings.
I am still a big fan of the FDA overall, but yea, the wheels do move slowly.
DDD-double posting because this is what I originally came in here to talk about:
Frozen poop pills!
So I and my friends in my program have been watching this story develop because it's the right amount of funny/gross and fascinating (to a bunch of immunologists). But basically what was figured out a few years ago, was that people got pathological c. diff (a gut bacteria) infections after they had gone on hardcore antibiotics for a while. C. diff can be a normal part of your lower colon, and is fine so long as it is hanging out there. But if it goes up to where other bacteria used to be, it can start making some toxins, so that along with your horrible diarrhea and probable dehydration, you have to worry about toxic shock syndrome as your immune system freaks out over this toxin. Remember that by cell number you are about 10 time as much bacteria and fungus as you are human. I like the phrase, "we are all just petri dishes with shoes."
Luckily, we also found out that you can cure most people with this problem by giving them a dose of another persons feces to restore their gut bacteria! Literally taking a healthy persons feces, blending it with some water, and shoving it up there with a tube. We decided we liked the name "Transpoosion" for this process.
The problem with this, is that you needed healthy donors standing by for fresh poop. And it is actually kind of difficult to PROVE someone is healthy. You can test them, take some poop, wait a few weeks, and make sure the person is still healthy, but in that time your sick person may have already died.
You also have the general problem of there are two ways in, from above and below, and you are already talking about a sick person whose gut may be pretty torn up, so you'd like to avoid further trauma. Not to mention it just seems like no fun either way.
So, a lab tried a seemingly obvious thing: Screen your donors, freeze the poop in acid resistant pills, and see if those can still re-colonize an infected gut. and it looks like it works!
This could possibly be a way of guiding other, less critical gut disbiosies as well, but for now its easiest to justify your tests on people who are going to die unless you try something.
It really is amazing because it's such a simple solution. Like QuantumTurk said, your gut flora normally holds C. diff in check, and if it's killed off via tons of broad-spectrum antibiotics then C. diffgoes nuts. It's crazy that it's taken this long for someone to go "Why not re-establish gut flora by giving the patient someone else's?"
We really have not appreciated the role of your microbiota for very long yet. But then I'd also argue that we have not even known the structure/mechanism of replication of DNA for very long either. I mean think about it. 1962 was when we got the STRUCTURE, much less figuring out all the existence/mechanisms of the polymerases, repair mechanisms, proof reading proteins etc. etc. Something to keep in mind when these seemingly "duh" things happen. There is also the fact that shoving someone else's poop into a person is going to sound like Dr. House style stuff to the people in a hospital who are in charge of saying no to such things. Maybe it works, maybe the other person gets a brand new infection etc.
Also, if you have a sample of poop+liquids, and you put it in a centrifuge, if you pour off the liquid, you are removing the "poopernatant".
I'll poop into their butt-hole and then they'll poop it back into my butt-hole. And then we'll just keep doing it back and forth with the same poop. Forever.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Oh yeah I have absolutely no idea how the enzymatics/immunology side of things works (hats off to you, it's hard stuff). I'm in school for medical lab science and when you're taught "C. diff takes over the colon when the gut flora is gone" the obvious rejoinder is "why not reintroduce the gut flora".
I'll poop into their butt-hole and then they'll poop it back into my butt-hole. And then we'll just keep doing it back and forth with the same poop. Forever.
))<>(( ∞
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
Like an inverted human centipede
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
Jeez, what a terrible animation. YOu'd think if scientists were trying to pretend that the earth is round they'd hire some better animators. I mean C'MON there aren't even any stars in the background.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
Yeah I gave up on Prototype about a third of the way through for that reason. I loved the branching powers and the free-roaming sandbox stuff, but so many of the abilities were about casually murdering hundreds of innocent people and there's only so many times you can shape shift an old lady and throw a businessman halfway across the city before you get bored with it. (That number is 63).
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This sounds like flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. It's a long ways to go and time to take, but it is substantially closer than anyone has been.
Not very metal.
Pretty sure stem cells are different in this regard as they conform to their surroundings, though I might be wrong.
Lots of stem cell advancement is based around harvesting naturally occurring cells in the patient's own body to basically eliminate the need for immunosuppresing at all. I remember reading about growing new teeth from one's own stem cells to replace implants.
edit: turns out I was wrong.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
I thought they'd figured out how to make stem cells from normal cells a few years back?
But I want to look cooler, like Cyborg.
They can convert some lines into limited stem cells that can essentially only make more stem cells or turn back into the specialised form and a few that can turn into closely related tissues but no-one gas managed to take, say, a gut epithelium cell and turn it into a cell capable of becoming something radically different like a neuron.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
They're SINS AGAINST THE LORD GOS JEHOVAH.
HEATHENS.
(Probably not)
So... probably? edit-Actually, probably not.
You can't donate blood to yourself. This probably includes stem cell blood.
This leads to the current strategy of taking existing drugs and throwing them at different walls to see what sticks. This is how you end up with odd stories like a drug originally for schizophrenia being tested in people with influenza. Because if you can start with a drug that was proven non-toxic, you have already cut out a large number of steps. If I remember correctly, the FDA requires you to prove that your drug is non-toxic (at therapeutic doses) in at least 3 mammal systems before you can even try it in a human. It takes a LOT of animals so that you can track them over a long time, harvest organs at various time points if you need to, and try a variety of doses/dose timings.
I am still a big fan of the FDA overall, but yea, the wheels do move slowly.
Frozen poop pills!
So I and my friends in my program have been watching this story develop because it's the right amount of funny/gross and fascinating (to a bunch of immunologists). But basically what was figured out a few years ago, was that people got pathological c. diff (a gut bacteria) infections after they had gone on hardcore antibiotics for a while. C. diff can be a normal part of your lower colon, and is fine so long as it is hanging out there. But if it goes up to where other bacteria used to be, it can start making some toxins, so that along with your horrible diarrhea and probable dehydration, you have to worry about toxic shock syndrome as your immune system freaks out over this toxin. Remember that by cell number you are about 10 time as much bacteria and fungus as you are human. I like the phrase, "we are all just petri dishes with shoes."
Luckily, we also found out that you can cure most people with this problem by giving them a dose of another persons feces to restore their gut bacteria! Literally taking a healthy persons feces, blending it with some water, and shoving it up there with a tube. We decided we liked the name "Transpoosion" for this process.
The problem with this, is that you needed healthy donors standing by for fresh poop. And it is actually kind of difficult to PROVE someone is healthy. You can test them, take some poop, wait a few weeks, and make sure the person is still healthy, but in that time your sick person may have already died.
You also have the general problem of there are two ways in, from above and below, and you are already talking about a sick person whose gut may be pretty torn up, so you'd like to avoid further trauma. Not to mention it just seems like no fun either way.
So, a lab tried a seemingly obvious thing: Screen your donors, freeze the poop in acid resistant pills, and see if those can still re-colonize an infected gut. and it looks like it works!
This could possibly be a way of guiding other, less critical gut disbiosies as well, but for now its easiest to justify your tests on people who are going to die unless you try something.
NPR version: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/11/355126926/frozen-poop-pills-fight-life-threatening-infections
JAMA article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1916296
It really is amazing because it's such a simple solution. Like QuantumTurk said, your gut flora normally holds C. diff in check, and if it's killed off via tons of broad-spectrum antibiotics then C. diff goes nuts. It's crazy that it's taken this long for someone to go "Why not re-establish gut flora by giving the patient someone else's?"
Also, if you have a sample of poop+liquids, and you put it in a centrifuge, if you pour off the liquid, you are removing the "poopernatant".
My parasitology professor made the same joke! Feces isn't that gross in the lab, though. Sputum samples are worse.
))<>(( ∞
(Three Word Phrase, contains butts and other gross stuff)
The funny thing is that he didn't know that was a legitimate medical treatment when he made that comic
Jeez, what a terrible animation. YOu'd think if scientists were trying to pretend that the earth is round they'd hire some better animators. I mean C'MON there aren't even any stars in the background.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lockheed-claims-breakthrough-on-fusion-energy/
why does it feel like fusion is always "just a decade away"
that said, hope springs eternal
It really does feel like that, but skunk works..those are not people usually doing silly press releases without basis.
No one is immune to hubris. We'll see what happens here.
Someone should plug that hole in the Earth, before we all leak out
http://girlsdohack.adlerplanetarium.org