Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193560543?client_source=feed&format=rss
north korea dexter dexter facebook timeline kim jong il kim jong il vaclav havel
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
China's Wen: government debt risk "controllable" (Reuters)
BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's Premier Wen Jiabao said the nation's government debt is at an "overall safe and controllable" level, that funding for key projects would be ensured and that applying the brakes to the problem would be done in a way to avoid systemic risks.
Investors have been worried by the scale of the debts built up by China's local governments, which some fear could threaten the stability of the banking system.
Wen's comments, reported in the official People's Daily on Monday, were made in a speech dating back to early January at the government's flagship financial work conference.
Wen pledged to contain and defuse local government debt risks and avoid the spread of financial risks.
"Currently, our government debt is overall safe and controllable," he said.
"We are taking the issue of managing local government debt very seriously. Through clean-ups and regulation, the trend of expanding investment vehicles has been effectively contained."
China's state audit office said earlier this month it had uncovered 530 billion yuan ($84 billion) worth of irregularities involving local government debt.
But the figure is a fraction of the 2 trillion-3 trillion yuan of sour loans economists believe are buried in the 10.7 trillion yuan of debt local governments had at the end of 2010.
ACTIVELY, APPROPRIATELY EASE RISKS
Wen said China "must both actively and appropriately ease financial and fiscal risks, and also ensure the funding needs of key construction projects approved by the government."
But he warned against a simplistic approach to local government investment.
"We cannot simplistically hit the brakes and use a one-size-fits-all approach, and must avoid turning localized risks into comprehensive, systemic risks," he said.
Wen also urged greater attention and controls on systemically important financial institutions.
"We must study standards for determination and a framework for assessing our country's systemically important financial institutions, and we must adopt more stringent oversight standards towards these institutions, enhancing external constraints on them," he said.
Wen also vowed to "break monopolies" against private capital participation in the financial sector, promising broad reforms to ownership and capital structures in banking, equities, insurance and other financial institutions that would encourage more private capital to flow into the financial services sector.
"Improving financial services for small businesses requires the reform, innovation and regulated development of financial institutions that come in different types and different sizes," he said, making clear there was a role for private credit in the economy, providing it was properly regulated.
In addition, Wen made the case for more market-based reforms to interest rates and credit pricing to enhance their roles, along with exchange rates, as price levers.
Wen said China should "accelerate nurturing of a market system for benchmark interest rates, guide financial institutions towards enhancing their risk price-setting capacities, and steadily advance marketizing reform of interest rates."
And he repeated the long-standing commitment to "further improve the renminbi exchange rate formation mechanism, strengthen the flexibility of the renminbi exchange rate in both directions, maintaining a basically stable renminbi exchange rate at a reasonable and balanced level."
China would push forward with yuan convertibility in an orderly manner and broaden the use of the currency in cross-boarder trade settlement, he added.
And Wen reiterated that the government would further diversify its huge $3.18 trillion foreign exchange reserves.
"We should explore a multi-layer investment channel for our foreign exchange reserves and further improve the skill of managing the reserve assets by steadily diversifying the investment to maintain safety, liquidity and preserve and increase its value," he said.
SUPPORT FOR ECONOMIC INNOVATION
The Premier said China's financial institutions must step up support for key areas of economic structural adjustment, for projects aimed at saving energy and reducing pollution, and for indigenous innovation.
Beijing has unveiled a slew of tax breaks to help cash-strapped small firms cope with rising costs and has also allowed them to issue more bonds and tap other sources of financing to ease the funding squeeze.
China's big four state-backed lenders are criticized by small and medium-sized business owners for directing the bulk of their lending capacity to major state-owned enterprises.
Bank lending in China is essentially rationed by the government, which sets an annual lending target and decides how much credit can be created in the economy.
China has set a target of 8 trillion yuan ($1.27 trillion) in new local-currency bank loans and 14 percent growth in broad M2 money supply for 2012, three sources familiar with government plans told Reuters earlier this month.
That marks a rise from 7.47 trillion yuan in new bank loans and annual M2 growth of 13.6 percent achieved in 2011, implying a further loosening of policy by the People's Bank of China to support the economy as growth loses steam and inflation cools.
(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Writing by Nick Edwards; Editing by Ed Davies, Ken Wills and Alex Richardson)
trick or treat times madoff bernie madoff anna chapman kim kardashian ghost hunters honda generator
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Prejudices? Quite normal!
Friday, January 27, 2012
Girls are not as good at playing football as boys, and they do not have a clue about cars. Instead they know better how to dance and do not get into mischief as often as boys. Prejudices like these are cultivated from early childhood onwards by everyone. "Approximately at the age of three to four years children start to prefer children of the same sex, and later the same ethnic group or nationality," Prof. Dr. Andreas Beelmann of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) states. This is part of an entirely normal personality development, the director of the Institute for Psychology explains. "It only gets problematic when the more positive evaluation of the own social group, which is adopted automatically in the course of identity formation, at some point reverts into bias and discrimination against others," Beelmann continues.
To prevent this, the Jena psychologist and his team have been working on a prevention programme for children. It is designed to reduce prejudice and to encourage tolerance for others. But when is the right time to start? Jena psychologists Dr. Tobias Raabe and Prof. Dr. Andreas Beelmann systematically summarise scientific studies on that topic and published the results of their research in the science journal Child Development (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01668.x.).
According to this, the development of prejudice increases steadily at pre-school age and reaches its highest level between five and seven years of age. With increasing age this development is reversed and the prejudices decline. "This reflects normal cognitive development of children," Prof. Beelmann explains. "At first they adopt the social categories from their social environment, mainly the parents. Then they start to build up their own social identity according to social groups, before they finally learn to differentiate and individual evaluations of others will prevail over stereotypes." Therefore the psychologists reckon this age is the ideal time to start well-designed prevention programmes against prejudice. "Prevention starting at that age supports the normal course of development," Beelmann says. As the new study and the experience of the Jena psychologists with their prevention programme so far show, the prejudices are strongly diminished at primary school age, when children get in touch with members of so-called social out groups like, for instance children of a different nationality or skin colour. "This also works when they don't even get in touch with real people but learn it instead via books or told stories."
But at the same time the primary school age is a critical time for prejudices to consolidate. "If there is no or only a few contact to members of social out groups, there is no personal experience to be made and generalising negative evaluations stick longer." In this, scientists see an explanation for the particularly strong xenophobia in regions with a very low percentage of foreigners or migrants.
Moreover the Jena psychologists noticed that social ideas and prejudices are formed differently in children of social minorities. They do not have a negative attitude towards the majority to start with, more often it is even a positive one. The reason is the higher social status of the majority, which is being regarded as a role model. Only later, after having experienced discrimination, they develop prejudices, that then sticks with them much more persistently than with other children. "In this case prevention has to start earlier so it doesn't even get that far," Beelmann is convinced.
Generally, the psychologist of the Jena University stresses, the results of the new study don't imply that the children's and youths attitudes towards different social groups can't be changed at a later age. But this would then less depend on the individual development and very much more on the social environment like for instance changing social norms in our society. Tolerance on the other hand could be encouraged at any age. The psychologists' "prescription": As many diverse contacts to individuals belonging to different social groups as possible. "People who can identify with many groups will be less inclined to make sweeping generalisations in the evaluation of individuals belonging to different social groups or even to discriminate against them," Prof. Beelmann says.
###
Raabe T, Beelmann A.: Development of ethnic, racial, and national prejudice in childhood and adolescence: A multinational meta-analysis of age differences. Child Development. 2011; 82(6):1715-37. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01668.x.
Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena: http://www.uni-jena.de
Thanks to Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena 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.
This press release has been viewed 111 time(s).
Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117152/Prejudices__Quite_normal_
ahava ahava kelly cutrone kelly cutrone bill buckner dancing with the stars 2011 christmas island
British police arrest 4 in tabloid bribery probe
LONDON (AP) ? British police searched the offices of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers Saturday after arresting a police officer and three other men as part of an investigation into police bribery by journalists.
London's Metropolitan Police said two men aged 48 and one aged 56 were arrested on suspicion of corruption early in the morning at homes in and around London.
The fourth, a 29-year-old police officer, was arrested at the London station where he works.
The investigation into whether reporters illegally paid police for information is running parallel to a police inquiry into phone hacking by Murdoch's now-defunct News of the World.
Police said Saturday's arrests were made as a result of information provided by the Management and Standards Committee of Murdoch's News Corp.
Officers were searching the homes of the four men and the east London headquarters of the media mogul's British newspapers for evidence.
The company had no immediate comment.
A dozen people have now been arrested in the bribery probe, though none has yet been charged.
They include former Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of Murdoch's News International, ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson ? who is also Prime Minister David Cameron's former communications chief ? and journalists from the News of the World and its sister paper, The Sun.
Two of the London police force's top officers resigned in the wake of the revelation last July that the News of the World had eavesdropped on the cell phone voicemail messages of celebrities, athletes, politicians and even an abducted teenager in its quest for stories.
Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old tabloid, and the scandal has triggered a continuing public inquiry into media ethics and the relationship between the press, police and politicians.
An earlier police investigation failed to find evidence hacking went beyond one reporter and a private investigator, but News Corp. has now acknowledged it was much more widespread.
Last week the company agreed to pay damages to 37 hacking victims, including actor Jude Law, soccer star Ashley Cole and British politician John Prescott.
___
Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless
Associated Presslake powell reno nevada lion king 3d lion king 3d the lion king 3d the lion king 3d missoni
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo eyes-on at Macworld 2012 (video)
Continue reading Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo eyes-on at Macworld 2012 (video)
Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo eyes-on at Macworld 2012 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xjfu0W0J-RQ/
time magazine person of the year time magazine person of the year la clippers verizon galaxy nexus verizon galaxy nexus lawrence lessig lawrence lessig
A confident Dana White defends policy of confidentiality on fighter pay and welcomes government scrutiny
CHICAGO -- Dana White has his mind made up. You're never going to know what UFC fighters truly make and that's just the way it has to be.
"So just because you don't know everything, you don't have to know anything, and to be honest with you? It's none of your [expletive] business how much these guys are making. They're making a lot of money. [...] How much money is none of your business. I'm not asking how much money you're making," said White (3:10 mark).
White believes that the salary information, so readily available in the other pro sports has ruined things for the athletes. He pointed to the recent $214 million megadeal inked by Detroit Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder.
"His whole life is going to change. He thought it was bad before with the (expletive) he had going on in his life? Everybody and their mother is coming after that 214," White said (2:10 mark). "Believe me when I tell you. Mark my words, Prince Fielder talk to me in five years and tell me what it was like when the news put out there that you were making $214 million dollars. I'm not going to do that to my guys."
The UFC often gets a bad rap for fighter pay because the only numbers revealed are those given to state commissions. The promotion beefs up the pay with behind-the-scenes discretionary and pay-per-view bonuses. White is often asked if all the complaints about pay would go away if Zuffa simply revealed all the details.
"Even when we sat down and had that first FOX meeting, the guys at FOX were like, holy [expletive]! They're like, 'Why don't you plaster this everywhere? This is the thing that will put you guys over the top. This is the thing that people love to see and talk about. Look at Mike Tyson.' And I said, 'Yeah, look at Mike Tyson,'" White said. "I've had these conversations with Mike. Mike said that when his money was reported, his [expletive] life was miserable. I'm not doing it."
Some believe the UFC's reluctance to be more transparent prompted the Federal Trade Commission to open an anti-trust violation investigation to look into Zuffa's practices.
"My understanding is that yes [the FTC has] opened a non-public investigation based on the acquisition we made of Strikeforce," said UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta.
CBSSports.com's Gregg Doyel said this is a sign of awful things to come for the UFC.
The FTC vs. the UFC? That's a heavyweight fight. That's Dana White's worst nightmare. The FTC looks for antitrust violations, picking apart monopolies as the unfair bullies they are -- and as far as I'm concerned, the UFC is guilty as charged.
The story set off White.
"There was guy yesterday, he wrote this story and you could tell this thing was like 'I want some attention. I want some attention. Maybe he'll get mad and say some [expletive].' [...] When we get stories written about us like that, I know it seems like I get crazy and come off too personal ... well, [expletive] yeah it's personal! What you're saying is untrue," said White (0:51 mark).
White said everything about the promotion is on the up and up.
"If the government wants to come in and look inside and take a peak and look around, they're more than welcome," White said. "Many of you have heard stories and all kinds of things ... mark my [expletive] words right here, right now, today ... we're not going anywhere. And everything we say is true."
As far as we know the FTC is still looking at Zuffa. White certainly came off sounding very confident nothing will come from the investigation.
White pointed out that there is no sport that has been more heavily scrutinized by governments all levels. The promotion has survived and thrived to become what White called the best sports story of the last 50 years.
mezzanine jules verne jules verne als puppies miss universe 2011 contestants hells angels
Friday, January 27, 2012
American writer still held in Somalia; rescue for him?
facebook.com/
By NBC News and msnbc.com staff
Lost in the coverage of the Navy SEAL rescue mission in Somalia is the fact that another American was kidnapped there?four days ago?and?is being held for ransom.
It?s also not clear?if President Obama?s vow on Tuesday?to protect U.S. citizens would extend to a rescue operation on his behalf.
Michael Scott Moore, an American writer?who started?his career tracking the surfing world and who was in Somalia to report about piracy, was kidnapped on Saturday.
In a statement released by the White House after the overnight rescue of American Jessica Buchanan and?Poul Hagen Thisted of Denmark, Obama on Wednesday vowed:?"The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."
Asked Wednesday about Moore at a press briefing, a State Department spokeswoman said she had??no information but would get back to reporters.
"This is not a new problem, unfortunately, which is why we have to be vigilant and have to be prepared to do the kinds of operations like we saw last night,"?added Victoria Nuland.
????A man described as one of?Moore's captors told somaliareport.com on Sunday that his group was working on how much to demand for his release.
"If they try or there is an attack by any Western people," he said, " the second plan will be to move on board the MV Albedo," a hijacked ship being used to hold other foreign hostages.
Moore had been reporting for the German magazine Der Spiegel when he was abducted on a road as he was heading to an airport. He was kidnapped in the same area as Buchanan but is being held by different captors, somaliareport.com reported.
Moore holds dual U.S. and German citizenship. He?now lives in Berlin but grew up in?Southern California and started his writing career?covering the surfing world.
NBC News associate producer Catherine Chomiak contributed to this report.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
?
forgetting sarah marshall meteor shower tonight annie oakley edc paranormal activity 4 lovelace andrew luck
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Bitter political rivals in Washington find rare, unconventional cause to rally around: Myanmar (Star Tribune)
Review: 'The Grey' stays lost in the woods (AP)
How wonderfully unpredictable the movies can be. Who would have thought that, at nearly 60, Liam Neeson would be one of the top action stars around? It's the same, counterintuitive formula that made Michael Keaton a good Batman and the Rock a believable Tooth Fairy.
But here he is again. After the thrillers "Taken" and "Unknown," Neeson, that burly Irishman of such rock-'em, sock `em films as "Kinsey" and "Schindler's List," is back in his new genre of choice, looking quite at home punching a wolf.
In "The Grey," Neeson plays John Ottway, a grizzled veteran of remote oil refineries, where his specialty is shooting, by sniper rifle, wild animals that attack rig workers. What Neeson has is a resilient weariness with hard Irish eyes that come alive when challenged, and boyishly soften around women.
But Ottway has tired of his rough life, an outcast ? for undetermined reasons ? from the woman he loves (Anne Openshaw), whom he recalls frequently in white visions of pillow-talk purity. The film, directed by Joe Carnahan ("The A-Team," "Narc"), opens with Ottway's lost musings: "I've stopped doing this world any good."
Outside the mean-spirited revelry of his fellow roughneck workers, he prepares to kill himself, only to be called back to the world by the howl of a wolf ? something not unlike Jack London's "call of the wild."
En route to vacation in Anchorage, the workers ? a rough crew of facial hair and flannel ? pile into an airplane that hits a storm, crashes violently and leaves just seven alive in the middle of the snowy Alaskan tundra. Call it "Lost: The Winter Edition."
Ottway, well versed in both survival and death, takes charge. Their predicament, deathly cold and with little hope of rescue, becomes considerably worse when a pack of wolves announce themselves by their eerie, glowing eyes on the dark fringes of their campfire.
From there, "The Grey" (By AP style, it should be called "The Gray" with the more Americanized usage, but what's a vowel when wolves are lurking?) is a survivalist thriller where the ever-dwindling band of survivors claw for safety, away from the relentless pursuit of the wolves.
The group includes the sensitive Henrick (Dallas Roberts) and the conscientious, religious father Talget (a bearded, bespectacled and nearly unrecognizable Dermot Mulroney). But easily the most notable among them is Diaz (Frank Grillo, memorable in a small role in last year's "Warrior"), a former convict who initially opposes Ottway's leadership.
Carnahan lays the alpha dog stuff on heavily, but there's real chemistry in the friction between Ottway and Diaz. In manly, fireside chats, they parse out existential ideas, talking God in a wintery void, faced with the uncompassionate brutality of nature.
But "The Grey" is not "Jaws" and it's certainly not "Moby-Dick." In the script by Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, adapted from Jeffers' short story "Ghost Walker," the philosophical subtext is forced and obvious. At one point, God is shouted out at in the sky.
Visceral action has generally been Carnahan's specialty, ranging from the brainless "Smokin' Aces" to the good, gritty genre film "Narc." That talent is here, too, particularly in his sure handling of the violent plane crash. The wolves, a combination of animatronics, trained animals and CGI, are also impressively real.
With cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, Carnahan drains the color of the raw British Columbia landscapes, standing in ably for Alaskan wilderness. But when the filmmakers try to let the outside world into the film ? in conversation and flashback memories ? all they can manage are clich? images that sap the movie of depth, and keep it lost in the woods.
"The Grey," which ambles toward an unconventional ending, deserves credit for looking for gravity in genre tropes. But, ultimately, the film feels less like a genuine existential thriller than a movie aping the conventions of one.
"The Grey," an Open Road Films release, is rated R for violence, disturbing content including bloody images, and for pervasive language. Running time: 117 minutes. Two stars out of four.
___
Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G ? General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG ? Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 ? Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R ? Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 ? No one under 17 admitted.
badgers badgers mendenhall nbc sports network demarcus cousins savannah brinson mount rainier
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to Blu-ray March 6th, brings an iPad app
Continue reading Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to Blu-ray March 6th, brings an iPad app
Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to Blu-ray March 6th, brings an iPad app originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/pjBYwBRrm6w/
fast times at ridgemont high fast times at ridgemont high andrea bocelli john hughes panasonic lumix dmc lx5 ucla football taylor momsen
Scientists report first step in strategy for cell replacement therapy in Parkinson's disease
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 24-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Daphne Watrin
d.watrin@iospress.nl
31-206-883-355
IOS Press
Research published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease
Amsterdam, NL, January 24 Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models. Reporting in the current issue of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, a group of scientists from Japan evaluated the growth, differentiation, and function of human-derived iPSC-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in a primate model, elucidating their therapeutic potential.
"We developed a series of methods to induce human iPSCs to become NPCs, using a feeder-free culture method, and grafted NPCs at different stages of differentiation into the brain of a monkey PD model," explains lead investigator Jun Takahashi, MD, PhD, of Kyoto University. "We developed a method to evaluate the growth and DA activity of the grafts using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), immunocytochemistry, and behavioral analyses, all of which will be useful in preclinical research."
Investigators grafted human iPSCs into the brains of laboratory mice and a monkey treated with MPTP, a neurotoxin that causes Parkinson's symptoms. They found that iPSCs incubated in feeder-free culture generated functional midbrain DA neurons. "In previous studies, midbrain DA neurons were induced from human iPSCs, but the method required coculture with stromal mouse feeder cells or Matrigel," noted Dr. Takahashi. "Our feeder-free method would be more suitable for clinical use."
Pre-treatment with growth factors was required to promote the maturation of functional DA neurons in vivo. MRI and PET imaging allowed real-time monitoring of in vivo cell proliferation and activity. The study demonstrates that dopamine synthesis, transport, and reuptake reflect DA activity in the grafted NPCs, an approach that can also be used in human patients.
"Our results contribute to the evaluation of the survival, differentiation, and function of human iPSC-derived neuronal cells in a primate PD model. Although we have to perform additional preclinical studies using more primate models before clinical application, we believe our findings contribute as the first step for developing a strategy for cell replacement therapy in Parkinson's disease," Dr. Takahashi concludes.
###
The article is "Transplantation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons into the Brain of a Primate Model in Parkinson's Disease," by T. Kikuchi, A. Morizane, D. Doi, H. Onoe, T. Hayashi, T. Kawasaki, H. Saiki, S. Miyamoto, and J. Takahashi. Journal of Parkinson's Disease. 1(2011) 395-412. DOI: 10.3233/JPD-2011-11070. Published by IOS Press.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 24-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Daphne Watrin
d.watrin@iospress.nl
31-206-883-355
IOS Press
Research published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease
Amsterdam, NL, January 24 Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models. Reporting in the current issue of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, a group of scientists from Japan evaluated the growth, differentiation, and function of human-derived iPSC-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) in a primate model, elucidating their therapeutic potential.
"We developed a series of methods to induce human iPSCs to become NPCs, using a feeder-free culture method, and grafted NPCs at different stages of differentiation into the brain of a monkey PD model," explains lead investigator Jun Takahashi, MD, PhD, of Kyoto University. "We developed a method to evaluate the growth and DA activity of the grafts using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), immunocytochemistry, and behavioral analyses, all of which will be useful in preclinical research."
Investigators grafted human iPSCs into the brains of laboratory mice and a monkey treated with MPTP, a neurotoxin that causes Parkinson's symptoms. They found that iPSCs incubated in feeder-free culture generated functional midbrain DA neurons. "In previous studies, midbrain DA neurons were induced from human iPSCs, but the method required coculture with stromal mouse feeder cells or Matrigel," noted Dr. Takahashi. "Our feeder-free method would be more suitable for clinical use."
Pre-treatment with growth factors was required to promote the maturation of functional DA neurons in vivo. MRI and PET imaging allowed real-time monitoring of in vivo cell proliferation and activity. The study demonstrates that dopamine synthesis, transport, and reuptake reflect DA activity in the grafted NPCs, an approach that can also be used in human patients.
"Our results contribute to the evaluation of the survival, differentiation, and function of human iPSC-derived neuronal cells in a primate PD model. Although we have to perform additional preclinical studies using more primate models before clinical application, we believe our findings contribute as the first step for developing a strategy for cell replacement therapy in Parkinson's disease," Dr. Takahashi concludes.
###
The article is "Transplantation of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons into the Brain of a Primate Model in Parkinson's Disease," by T. Kikuchi, A. Morizane, D. Doi, H. Onoe, T. Hayashi, T. Kawasaki, H. Saiki, S. Miyamoto, and J. Takahashi. Journal of Parkinson's Disease. 1(2011) 395-412. DOI: 10.3233/JPD-2011-11070. Published by IOS Press.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/ip-srf012412.php
alex smith 49ers broncos broncos hgtv dream home miss america 2012 patriots vs broncos tebow
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)