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Beth Williams
University of Wisconsin-Madison-Madison researchers have grown human motor neurons in the lab for the first time using embryonic stem cells.
The breakthrough could let researchers more easily and quickly test drugs to treat neurological diseases. And researchers hope that in the future, these cells might replace dead motor neurons - which carry messages from the brain directing the body to move - in patients with spinal cord injuries or neurological diseases.
"I don't think it's possible to overstate how important it is," said Michael Buckley, executive director of the Wisconsin chapter of the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association. ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a fatal degenerative neurological illness.
"It holds so much promise to answer these questions of how to counteract the death of motor neurons," Buckley said
Su-Chun Zhang, the study leader, said motor neurons are created early in the development of an embryo.
It's hoped that studying the development of these cells will allow researchers to see what goes wrong in diseases that affect motor neurons "so we can find some targets" to treat them, said Zhang, an assistant professor of anatomy and neurology in the Stem Cell Research Program at UW- Madison's Waisman Center.
"The most important thing is to keep the motor neurons surviving," Zhang said.
The breakthrough is significant, researchers say, because it lets scientists experiment with human motor neurons in the lab instead of having to rely on the motor neurons of mice.
"Clearly if we want to do studies most relevant to humans, we need human cells," said Lucie Bruijn, science director of the national Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association.
Mouse motor neurons have been available for study for several years and it was hoped that through learning to culture those cells, scientists would unravel the secrets of human motor neurons.
"It turns out to be not that simple," Zhang said.
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A French goat has tested positive for mad cow disease - the first animal in the world other than a cow to have bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
The European Commission says further testing will be done to see if the incidence is an isolated one.
The animal, which was slaughtered in 2002, was initially thought to have scrapie, a similar brain-wasting condition sometimes seen in goats.
But British scientists have now confirmed the disease was in fact BSE.
More than 100 people in the UK have died from vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease), the human form of BSE, after eating tainted beef.
But the EC stressed on Friday that precautionary measures put in place in recent years to protect the human food chain from contaminated meats meant there was no need for alarm over the latest finding.
Markos Kyprianou, EU Commissioner responsible for Health and Consumer Protection, said: "I want to reassure consumers that existing safety measures in the EU offer a very high level of protection.
"This case was discovered thanks to the EU testing system in place in France.
"The testing programme has shown us that there is a very low incidence rate of TSEs (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies) in goats and allowed us to detect suspect animals so that they can be taken out of the food chain, as was done with this goat and its entire herd."
BSE had not previously been found under natural circumstances in ruminants other than cattle - although its presence in goats or other ruminants had been viewed as theoretically possible.
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By Ben Hirschler
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - The world needs an effort similar to that behind the creation of the atomic bomb to tackle the multi-faceted threat of biowarfare, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday.
"We need to do something that even dwarfs the Manhattan project," Frist told the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States's World War II effort to devise an atomic weapon.
"The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological. Why? Because unlike any other threat it has the power of panic and paralysis to be global."
He predicted that the world would experience another bioweapon attack within the next decade, following the limited casualties seen when anthrax was sent through the U.S. mail system in 2001.
Next time, the death rate could be a much, much higher, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor John Deutch.
An attack using the smallpox virus is overwhelmingly the largest risk, he believes.
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The seed company's efforts to protect its technology often turn farmer against farmer.
By PAUL ELIAS
Monsanto Co.'s "seed police" caught Bill Quick in 1998, forcing the Redding, Ia., farmer to settle out of court for a five-figure sum. Quick's mistake: He saved Roundup Ready soybeans from one year to plant the next year's crop.
The agribusiness company has won millions in judgments and settlements from farmers it has accused of technology piracy.
"They're trying to make an example out of people," said Quick, who raises row crops and cattle in Ringgold County. "It hurt quite a bit, but it didn't put us out of business."
Saving Monsanto's seeds, genetically engineered to resist bugs and weed-killing sprays, violates provisions of the company's contracts with farmers.
In a case a year ago, Tennessee farmer Kem Ralph was sued by Monsanto and sentenced to eight months in prison after he was caught lying about a truckload of cotton seed he had hidden for a friend.
Ralph's prison term is believed to be the first criminal prosecution linked to Monsanto's crackdown. Ralph has also been ordered to pay Monsanto about $1.7 million.
Since 1997, Monsanto has filed similar lawsuits 90 times against 147 farmers and 39 agricultural companies from 25 states, according to a report issued recently by the Center for Food Safety, a Washington, D.C., organization that has been critical of biotechnology. Many of the lawsuits have been settled out of court. The amounts that farmers agreed to pay Monsanto generally have not been disclosed, although a North Carolina farmer settled for $1.5 million, the report said.
So far, Monsanto has won more than $15 million in judgments, ranging from $5,595 to more than $3 million.
Nineteen cases are ongoing, including one filed by Monsanto last summer in response to a class-action lawsuit brought earlier against the St. Louis agribusiness by 27 farmers and companies in 13 states, including Iowa.
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Tanzania is drafting laws to pave way for the introduction of genetically-modified foods, which anti-GMO campaigners and some African nations fear may harm people or damage local crops.
The East African country of 35 million is frequently beset by foodshortages due to recurrent drought and crop failure.
"It is one of the breeding methods that we have to eventually adopt. We are working on rules and regulations which will govern the introduction of genetically modified technology into the country," agriculture minister Charles Keenja said.
Most Europeans tend to be wary of GMO crops and foods, but growers and consumers in the US are more accepting.
In Africa, where food shortages are frequent, some countries have banned genetically- modified food imports, while others have turned to them because of the potential for hardier crops.
The issue is further complicated because some food aid given in Africa can contain GMO products.
The minister said the legislative process could take until the end of the year, at which time Tanzania would decide what types of food it would import.
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In the long and continuing struggle between superstition and science, the latter has been winning significant victories as signs grow that biotechnology is finally overcoming the “frankenfood” label used against it by Chicken Littles in the environmental anxiety industry.
During the November elections, for instance, three of the four California counties in which a ban on growing genetically altered crops was on the ballot, the bans were decisively voted down. Farmers convinced voters that biotechnology, when used properly, is key to producing bigger and better yields, with less need for fertilizers, pesticides and precious water. Farmers also realize that genetically altered crops are not exactly new, and that a ban would put them at a competitive disadvantage with farmers elsewhere.
But that’s only one of numerous signs that science is finally overcoming sensationalism. The European Commission last year voted to approve the use of 17 different strains of genetically modified corn in the European Union. This ended a nearly six-year ban on the use of genetically modified agricultural products and seems to suggest a more enlightened and realistic view of such technologies is taking hold where hostility once prevailed.
In another recent reversal, the EU approved the sale in stores of its first genetically modified product in six years, a brand of canned sweet corn developed by a Swiss company. EU regulations will mandate the new product carry a label reading, “This produce contains a genetically modified organism.” There is nothing wrong with providing people with information and allowing them to choose for themselves.
These changes followed a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Commission that identified the use of genetically modified crops as one key to alleviating the developing world’s hunger problems in the year ahead. Without these products, it will be difficult to feed the 2 billion people expected to be born into the world in the next 30 years, according to FAO.
At present, an estimated 24,000 people die daily due to hunger-related conditions. Yet only the developed world has reaped the full benefits of this technology, the report pointed out, while the countries that need it most have been left behind by the biotech revolution.
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