Study confirms males and females have at least 1 thing in common: Upregulating X

Monday, October 24, 2011

In a study published today in the journal Nature Genetics, a group of scientists including UNC biologist Jason Lieb, PhD, present experiments supporting a longstanding hypothesis that explains how males can survive with only one copy of the X chromosome. The finding provides clarity to a hotly debated topic in science and provides biologists with more information to interpret experiments involving genetic measurements in males and females.

"The issue is important because many diseases are tied to a defect in a regulatory mechanism within the cell," said Lieb, who is also a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X and one Y. The lack of a 'back up' copy of the X chromosome in males contributes to many disorders that have long been observed to occur more often in males, such as hemophilia, Duchene muscular dystrophy, and certain types of color blindness. Having only one copy of X and two copies of every other chromosome also creates a more fundamental problem ? with any other chromosome, the gene number imbalance resulting from having only one copy would be lethal. How can males survive with only one X?

Biologists have been debating how organisms and cells manage the imbalance between X and other chromosomes for years, with the dominant theory being that both sexes up-regulate the expression of X-linked genes, essentially doubling their expression to "2X" in males and "4X" in females. Then, to correct the imbalance that now appears in females (since they have the equivalent of "4" Xs now and 2 of every other chromosome), females then 'turn off' one of the hyperactive X chromosomes, resulting in a balanced "2X" expression of those genes across both sexes.

The advent of new technology based on RNA sequencing and proteomic analysis has given scientists more accurate ways to measure gene expression, and some results published in the last few years have not supported the idea that X chromosomes up-regulate.

Lieb and his colleagues re-analyzed data used in previous analyses, along with new data from humans, mice, roundworms, and fruit flies and found more evidence that the up-regulation hypothesis is correct ? but with some interesting twists across species. In mammals ? humans and mice ? both males and females up-regulate X chromosome gene expression and females then equalize expression by turning off the one X chromosome. In roundworms (C. elegans) the both female X chromosomes stay active, but the genes on both Xs are down-regulated by half to compensate in the females. In fruit files (Drosophilia melanogaster), males increase the expression of X chromosome genes, with no upregulation of X in females.

"There are several ways to get the same result and we are seeing how the dosage-balancing mechanism works in different species," says Lieb. "We also found that not all X-linked genes are dosage compensated to the same degree? adding another layer of complexity for scientists who study gene regulation."

###

University of North Carolina School of Medicine: http://www.med.unc.edu

Thanks to University of North Carolina School of Medicine for this article.

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Well: The Limits of Breast Cancer Screening

Has the power of the mammogram been oversold?

At a time when medical experts are rethinking screening guidelines for prostate and cervical cancer, many doctors say it?s also time to set the record straight about mammography screening for breast cancer. While most agree that mammograms have a place in women?s health care, many doctors say widespread ?Pink Ribbon? campaigns and patient testimonials have imbued the mammogram with a kind of magic it doesn?t have. Some patients are so committed to annual screenings they even begin to believe that regular mammograms actually prevent breast cancer, said Dr. Susan Love, a prominent women?s health advocate. And women who skip a mammogram often beat themselves up for it.

?You can?t expect from mammography what it cannot do,? said Dr. Laura Esserman, director of the breast care center at the University of California, San Francisco. ?Screening is not prevention. We?re not going to screen our way to a cure.?

A new analysis published Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine offers a stark reality check about the value of mammography screening. Despite numerous testimonials from women who believe ?a mammogram saved my life,? the truth is that most women who find breast cancer as a result of regular screening have not had their lives saved by the test, conclude two Dartmouth researchers, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch and Brittney A. Frankel.

Dr. Welch notes that clearly some women are helped by mammography screening, but the numbers are lower than most people think. The Dartmouth researchers conducted a series of calculations estimating a woman?s 10-year risk of developing breast cancer and her 20-year risk of death, factoring in the added value of early detection based on data from various mammography screening trials as well as the benefits of improvements in treatment. Among the 60 percent of women with breast cancer who detected the disease by screening, only about 3 percent to 13 percent of them were actually helped by the test, the analysis concluded.

Translated into real numbers, that means screening mammography helps 4,000 to 18,000 women each year. Although those numbers are not inconsequential, they represent just a small portion of the 230,000 women given a breast cancer diagnosis each year, and a fraction of the 39 million women who undergo mammograms each year in the United States.

Dr. Welch says it?s important to remember that of the 138,000 women found to have breast cancer each year as a result of mammography screening, 120,000 to 134,000 are not helped by the test.

?The presumption often is that anyone who has had cancer detected has survived because of the test, but that?s not true,? Dr. Welch said. ?In fact, and I hate to have to say this, in screen-detected breast and prostate cancer, survivors are more likely to have been overdiagnosed than actually helped by the test.?

How is it possible that finding cancer early isn?t always better? One way to look at it is to think of four different categories of breast cancer found during screening tests. First, there are slow-growing cancers that would be found and successfully treated with or without screening. Then there are aggressive cancers, so-called bad cancers, that are deadly whether they are found early by screening, or late because of a lump or other symptoms. Women with cancers in either of these groups are not helped by screening.

Then there are innocuous cancers that would never have amounted to anything, but they still are treated once they show up as dots on a mammogram. Women with these cancers are subject to overdiagnosis ? meaning they are treated unnecessarily and harmed by screening.

Finally, there is a fraction of cancers that are deadly but, when found at just the right moment, can have their courses changed by treatment. Women with these cancers are helped by mammograms. Clinical trial data suggests that 1 woman per 1,000 healthy women screened over 10 years falls into this category, although experts say that number is probably even smaller today because of advances in breast cancer treatments.

Colin Begg, head of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said that he supports mammography screening and believes that it does save lives. But he agrees that many women wrongly attribute their survival after cancer to early detection as a result of mammography.

?Of all the women who have a screening test who have breast cancer detected, and eventually survive the cancer, the vast majority would have survived anyway,? Dr. Begg said. ?It only saved the lives of a very small fraction of them.?

The notion that screening mammograms aren?t helping large numbers of women can be hard for many women and breast cancer advocates to accept. It also raises questions about whether there are better uses for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on awareness campaigns and the $5 billion spent annually on mammography screening.

One of the reasons screening doesn?t make much difference is that advances in breast cancer treatment make it possible to save even many women with more advanced cancers.

?Screening is but one of the tools that we have to reduce the chance of dying of breast cancer,? Dr. Esserman said. ?The treatments that we have actually make up for a good deal of the benefits of screening.?

The Dartmouth analysis comes two years after a government advisory panel?s recommendations to scale back mammography screening angered many women and advocacy groups. The panel, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, advised women to delay regular screening until age 50, instead of 40, and to be tested every other year, instead of annually, until age 74. The recommendations mean a woman would undergo just 13 mammograms in her lifetime, rather than the 35 she would experience if she began annual testing at age 40.

But the new recommendations have scared many women who believe skipping an annual mammogram puts them at risk of finding breast cancer too late. But Donald Berry, a biostatistician at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said adding more screening is not going to help more women.

?Most breast cancers are not lethal, however found,? Dr. Berry said. ?Screening mammograms preferentially find cancers that are slowly growing, and those are the ones that are seldom deadly. Getting something noxious out of the body as soon as possible leads women to think screening saved their lives. That is most unlikely.?

Dr. Love, a clinical professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, says the scientific understanding of cancer has changed in the years since mammography screening was adopted. As a result, she would like to see less emphasis on screening and more focus on cancer prevention and treatment for the most aggressive cancers, particularly those that affect younger women. Roughly 15 percent to 20 percent of breast cancers are deadly.

?There are still 40,000 women dying every year,? Dr. Love said. ?Even with screening, the bad cancers are still bad.?

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9ec4b8a21709e970f917671646466805

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Tunisian Islamists to do well in first "Arab Spring" vote (Reuters)

TUNIS (Reuters) ? Islamists are expected to do well in Tunisia's first democratic election Sunday, 10 months after the ouster of autocratic leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in a popular uprising that set off protest movements around the Arab world.

The Ennahda party will almost certainly win a share of power after the vote, which will set a democratic standard for other Arab countries where uprisings have triggered political change or governments have tried to rush reforms to stave off unrest.

Sunday's vote is for an assembly which will draft a new constitution to replace the one Ben Ali manipulated to entrench his power. It will also appoint an interim government and set elections for a new president and parliament.

Polls open at 2 a.m. EDT and close at 2 p.m.

The mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young man whose self-immolation last December set off the Tunisian revolt, said the elections were a victory for dignity and freedom.

"Now I am happy that my son's death has given the chance to get beyond fear and injustice," Manoubia Bouazizi told Reuters. "I'm an optimist, I wish success for my country."

Ennahda, banned under Ben Ali who is now in exile in Saudi Arabia, is expected to gain the biggest share of votes. But the Islamist party will probably not win enough to give it a majority in the assembly and will seek to lead a coalition.

The North African country's elite fear the rise of Ennahda puts their secular values under threat. The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) has centered its campaign on stopping the Islamists, vowing to seek alliances to keep it out of power.

Ennahda has been at pains to assuage the concerns of secularists and Western powers, fielding several women candidates including one who does not wear the hijab, or Muslim head scarf, and promising not to undermine women's freedoms.

Tunisia was a pioneer of secular modernization among Arab and Muslim countries in the post-colonial period, banning polygamy, equalizing inheritance rights, giving women the right to vote and discouraging the veil.

Fundamentalist Islamists known as Salafists have attacked a cinema and a TV station in recent months over artistic material deemed blasphemous. Ennahda says they have nothing to do with them, but liberals do not believe them.

Observers says Ennahda's intentions are not clear. Its election campaign has scrupulously avoided offering policy details that mark it out as much different from its rivals.

At a final election rally Friday, Suad Abdel-Rahim, the female candidate who does not wear a veil, said Ennahda would protect women's gains.

But illustrating the party's contradictions, many of the books on sale on the fringes of the rally were by Salafist writers who believe women should be segregated from men in public and that elections are un-Islamic.

"In the country's interior, where it's more conservative, they use different rhetoric," said commentator Rachid Khechana. "It's about stopping culture from outside, moral corruption of youth, defending Islam, which they say has Shura (consultation), not democracy."

"ARAB SPRING" REPERCUSSIONS

An Ennahda victory would be the first such success in the Arab world since Hamas won a 2006 Palestinian vote. Islamists won a 1991 Algerian election the army annulled, provoking years of bloody conflict.

Ennahda's fortunes could bear on Egyptian elections set for next month in which the Muslim Brotherhood, an ideological ally, also hopes to emerge strongest.

Libya hopes to hold elections next year after a protest movement that transformed into an armed rebellion with NATO backing managed to oust Muammar Gaddafi. Unresolved violent conflict continues in Syria and Yemen, and many other governments have begun reforms to avoid civil unrest.

With so much at stake, there are concerns that even the smallest doubt over the legitimacy of the Tunisian vote could bring supporters of rival parties onto the streets.

Ennahda's leader, Muslim scholar Rachid Ghannouchi, riled opponents this week when he described the party as Tunisia's biggest and warned that the Tunisian people would start a new uprising if they suspected any poll rigging.

Prime Minister Beji Caid Sebsi said in a televised address Thursday that Tunisians should vote without fear of violence or cheating, a feature of Ben Ali's police state.

"No one can doubt the elections, they will be transparent and clean. Rigging will not be possible. The ballot boxes will be open to everyone," Sebsi said.

The government says 40,000 police and soldiers are being deployed to prevent any protests escalating into violence. Shopkeepers say people have been stockpiling milk and bottled water in case unrest disrupts supplies.

(Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Rosalind Russell and Jon Boyle)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111022/wl_nm/us_tunisia_election

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1 dead in Athens demonstration clashes (AP)

ATHENS, Greece ? A protester died during an anti-austerity demonstration that turned violent in the Greek capital Thursday, authorities said, hours before lawmakers were to vote on deeply unpopular new cutbacks demanded by creditors to keep Greece afloat.

Violent rioters attacked peaceful demonstrators with firebombs and stones as tens of thousands turned out in Athens. As the second day of a general strike paralyzed the country, more than 50,000 peaceful demonstrators flooded downtown Syntagma Square outside parliament, the scene of violent protests on Wednesday.

Creditors have demanded that Greece pass the extra austerity measures before they give the country more funds from a euro110 billion ($152 billion) bailout loan from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. Greece says it will run out of money in mid-November without the next euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment.

Greek lawmakers on Thursday were voting on details of the proposals, which include putting 30,000 public servants on reduced pay and suspending collective labor contracts.

Parliament deputy speaker Anastasios Kourakis announced the death during a debate on the new bill ahead of the final vote later in the evening.

A Communist-backed union participating in the demonstration and guarding the rally identified the casualty as a 53-year-old construction worker and member of the union. It said it did not have the exact details of his death.

Initial reports indicated the man felt unwell during the protest and was taken to hospital, where he died of a suspected heart attack. An official announcement from the hospital was expected later in the afternoon.

Communist party supporters taking part in the Thursday's rally set up a cordon in front of parliament to prevent hard-liners from starting fights with police. But they came under repeated attacks by hundreds of masked protesters in motorcycle helmets who threw gasoline bombs and chunks of marble into the crowd.

Fights broke out as the Communist party supporters retaliated. Chaos ensued as protesters and masked youths armed with clubs charged each other, and riot police fired volleys of tear gas to separate the two sides.

Running battles between protesters continued well into the afternoon. Groups of youths set mounds of trash on fire, while clouds of acrid tear gas sent protesters scurrying.

Stavros Flegas, a doctor, told Skai TV about 30 people had been treated for injuries and breathing problems since the morning.

The violence came a day after a massive Athens demonstration by more than 100,000 people also degenerated into a riot, with masked, black-clad protesters attacking riot police, who responded with volleys of stun grenades and tear gas.

The next installment of the bailout for Greece has yet to be authorized and there's growing unease in the markets about whether a summit of eurozone leaders this Sunday in Brussels will yield a comprehensive solution to the continent's debt crisis. Finance ministers from the 17 countries that use the euro will Friday, meet ahead of the summit.

The Greek government's latest round of austerity measures are expected to pass, although dissent from governing Socialist party deputies could further weaken Prime Minister George Papandreou's slim majority in Parliament, where he holds 154 of the 300 seats.

Greece's international creditors, meanwhile, warned that a second rescue package tentatively agreed upon in July may not be enough to save the country from bankruptcy, according to a draft of a debt inspectors' report obtained Thursday by The Associated Press in Berlin.

The inspectors said Greece has missed its deficit-cutting targets and called the pace of its reforms insufficient, but still said Athens should get euro8 billion ($11 billion) in bailout loans as soon as possible so it does not default on its debts next month.

Greece has depended on the rescue loans since May last year. In July, eurozone leaders tentatively agreed in a second euro109 billion ($150 billion) bailout, that would also see banks and other private bondholders give Greece easier terms on its debt.

However, the inspectors from the European Commission and the European Central Bank said Greece's debt dynamics remain "extremely worrying."

Their conclusions pile pressure on European leaders to make private creditors like banks take more losses on the Greek bonds they hold.

In Athens, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos issued an impassioned appeal to Socialist and opposition lawmakers alike Thursday, warning that failure to approve the measures would be disastrous.

"If the law is not approved, including every single article it contains ? particularly those that (Greece's creditors) and eurozone members regard a symbolic and political necessity ? there is no need for me even to go to the eurogroup meeting on Friday, or the prime minister to Sunday's summit," he said.

"The country will be exposed to the danger of a non-rational development, and will once again serve as the scapegoat on which Europe's historic, political and institutional shortcomings will be dumped," Venizelos said.

Unions seemed resigned to the law being passed, but warned that the whole country virulently opposed it.

"Our European friends must know that our prime minister will go to the European summit naked, because the promises he will make have no backing in his country," said Ilias Iliopoulos, secretary general of the Adedy civil servants' union.

The general strike Thursday disrupted public transport and left ships docked at ports. Schools and customs offices closed and state hospitals were running on emergency staff. All public services were shut, and even lawyers and prison guards were among those staying away from work.

___

Elena Becatoros and Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this report

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111020/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_greece_financial_crisis

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Feed a cold -- starve a tumor

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 20-Oct-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Dr. Hilary Glover
hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com
44-203-192-2370
BioMed Central

The condition tuberous sclerosis, due to mutation in one of two tumor suppressor genes, TSC1 or TSC2, causes the growth of non-malignant tumors throughout the body and skin. These tumors can be unsightly and cause serious damage to organs. Growth of tumors in the brain may cause seizures and in the kidney, liver or heart, tumors can disrupt normal function, to the extent of causing the organ to fail. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Cell and Bioscience shows that the growth of glucose-dependent TSC-related tumors can be restricted by 2-deoxyglucose, which blocks glucose metabolism, but not by restricting dietary carbohydrates.

TSC1 and TSC2 normally inhibit the mTOR signaling pathway but if the TSC genes are mutated, so that they no longer function, unregulated mTORC1 drives glycolysis and cell growth. Rapamycin works by blocking mTORC1 and is currently used to treat tuberous sclerosis. However, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant and can have significant side effects, especially when used long term. A group of researchers from the University of Washington, led by Prof Yeung, looked in detail at the potential of blocking cell proliferation by directly reducing glycolysis.

Surprisingly TSC2-negative tumors in mice kept on an unrestricted carbohydrate-free diet grew bigger than those on a western-style diet. However the glucose analogue, 2-deoxyglucose (2DG), which disrupts glucose metabolism, reduced the tumor size in mice on either diet. Prof Yeung explained, "Treatment with 2DG significantly reduced the rate at which the tumor cells divided, especially when paired with a diet which contained carbohydrates. This combination of 2DG and a western-style diet imposed the greatest energy stress on the tumors and correlated with the lowest levels of serum glucose. On the other hand, while the carbohydrate-free (and high-fat) diet provided enough free fatty acids to sustain tumor growth, some of the saturated fatty acids appeared toxic to the tumor cells. This in turn led to an accumulation of liquefied, necrotic materials that contributed to greater tumor size."

Compounds such as 2DG are able to inhibit TSC2-negative tumor growth by restricting glycolysis in a manner not seen by reducing dietary glucose. 2DG is currently undergoing trials for use in prostate cancer. This and other metabolic interventions hold promise for future cancer treatment.

###

Notes to Editors

1. Glucose deprivation in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex-related tumors.
Xiuyun Jiang, Heidi L Kenerson and Raymond S Yeung
Cell & Bioscience (in press)

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication.

2. Cancer Research Cell & Bioscience, the official journal of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America, is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that encompasses all areas of life science research.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 20-Oct-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Dr. Hilary Glover
hilary.glover@biomedcentral.com
44-203-192-2370
BioMed Central

The condition tuberous sclerosis, due to mutation in one of two tumor suppressor genes, TSC1 or TSC2, causes the growth of non-malignant tumors throughout the body and skin. These tumors can be unsightly and cause serious damage to organs. Growth of tumors in the brain may cause seizures and in the kidney, liver or heart, tumors can disrupt normal function, to the extent of causing the organ to fail. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Cell and Bioscience shows that the growth of glucose-dependent TSC-related tumors can be restricted by 2-deoxyglucose, which blocks glucose metabolism, but not by restricting dietary carbohydrates.

TSC1 and TSC2 normally inhibit the mTOR signaling pathway but if the TSC genes are mutated, so that they no longer function, unregulated mTORC1 drives glycolysis and cell growth. Rapamycin works by blocking mTORC1 and is currently used to treat tuberous sclerosis. However, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant and can have significant side effects, especially when used long term. A group of researchers from the University of Washington, led by Prof Yeung, looked in detail at the potential of blocking cell proliferation by directly reducing glycolysis.

Surprisingly TSC2-negative tumors in mice kept on an unrestricted carbohydrate-free diet grew bigger than those on a western-style diet. However the glucose analogue, 2-deoxyglucose (2DG), which disrupts glucose metabolism, reduced the tumor size in mice on either diet. Prof Yeung explained, "Treatment with 2DG significantly reduced the rate at which the tumor cells divided, especially when paired with a diet which contained carbohydrates. This combination of 2DG and a western-style diet imposed the greatest energy stress on the tumors and correlated with the lowest levels of serum glucose. On the other hand, while the carbohydrate-free (and high-fat) diet provided enough free fatty acids to sustain tumor growth, some of the saturated fatty acids appeared toxic to the tumor cells. This in turn led to an accumulation of liquefied, necrotic materials that contributed to greater tumor size."

Compounds such as 2DG are able to inhibit TSC2-negative tumor growth by restricting glycolysis in a manner not seen by reducing dietary glucose. 2DG is currently undergoing trials for use in prostate cancer. This and other metabolic interventions hold promise for future cancer treatment.

###

Notes to Editors

1. Glucose deprivation in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex-related tumors.
Xiuyun Jiang, Heidi L Kenerson and Raymond S Yeung
Cell & Bioscience (in press)

Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.

Article citation and URL available on request at press@biomedcentral.com on the day of publication.

2. Cancer Research Cell & Bioscience, the official journal of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America, is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that encompasses all areas of life science research.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2011-10/bc-fac101911.php

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How Gadhafi was killed: What we know (The Week)

New York ? An account of what happened in the minutes leading up to ? and just after ? the disgraced Libyan dictator's death on Thursday

As the world processes the news that Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's dictator for 42 years, was killed Thursday in the battle for Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, the prevailing question is: How did he die? Of course, many details are still unconfirmed and somewhat hazy. But there's plenty we do know. A concise guide:

Where did this happen?
Gadhafi "had been barricaded in with his heavily armed loyalists" in one of the few buildings they still held in Sirte,?CBS News?reports. These soldiers were?"furiously battling" the revolutionary fighters when NATO airstrikes, carried out by French warplanes, began blasting the area.?

Did Gadhafi try to escape?
Yes. Following the airstrikes,?an 80-vehicle convoy of pro-Gadhafi forces attempted to get out.?Gadhafi was part of that convoy,?the?AP?reports. When airstrikes halted the convoy's progress,?"revolutionary fighters moved in on the vehicle carrying Gadhafi himself." After gunfire was exchanged, Gadhafi, his neck wounded, was pulled from the vehicle, manhandled by angry crowds, and eventually taken to an ambulance. But not everyone agrees that soldiers pulled the despot from his vehicle: Reports from?BBC News?and Britain's?Telegraph?say that Gadhafi and his bodyguards were hiding in a large concrete pipe by a nearby roadway when he was cornered and captured.?

What happened when rebels got their hands on Gadhafi?
Several graphic videos show Gadhafi just after he was captured. In?one video?that originally aired on?Al-Jazeera, "the goateed balding Gadhafi is seen in a blood-soaked shirt, and his face is bloodied,"?says the?AP. As he is shoved through a crowd and pushed onto the hood of a pickup truck, fighters around him chant, "God is great." Pinned against the truck, Gadhafi is "struck on the head with a pistol while a group of fighters manhandled him,"?says?MSNBC. The footage then shows him being dragged again, while soldiers hit him and pull his hair. Gadhafi finally collapses on the ground, and his limp body is rolled over the pavement by the crowd. A doctor who was part of the medical team that examined Gadhafi tells the?AP?that he died a half-hour later after bleeding to death.

Was he shot?
According to many officials, news sources, and witnesses, Gadhafi was indeed shot. A rebel fighter tells James Foley at the Global Post that he saw Gadhafi get shot in the head and close to the heart. Another fighter tells?BBC News that Gadhafi shouted, "Don't shoot!" when he was surrounded by rebel soldiers. A recently surfaced cell phone photo purports to show Gadhafi's dead body with a bullet wound to the temple.?The doctor who examined Gadhafi said the deposed leader had two bullet wounds, to the head and chest.?According to?The Telegraph, Gadhafi also suffered two gun shots to the legs.?

What will happen to his body?
The body was paraded through the streets of the nearby city of Misrata, says CBS News, mounted on top of a vehicle and surrounded by a large crowd. Libyans chanted, "The blood of the martyrs will not go in vain," according to footage that aired on Al-Arabiya. According to Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the Tripoli military council, the body is now being transported to an undisclosed location.

Sources: AP, BBC News (2), CBS News, Global Post, MSNBC, NY Times, Telegraph, Times of India

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Preliminary Human Experiments to Test Safety of Paralysis Treatment Using Nerve Cells

News | Mind & Brain

The new approach, currently being studied by the FDA for Phase I trials, avoids the problems of immunological rejection and the controversy around the use of embryonic stem cells


Human Schwann cells Human Schwann cells in the final product generated from the sural nerve of an organ donor. The cells were purified and grown in strict accordance with a manufacturing protocol developed in the laboratories at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. The final product is of high purity and similar cells from a subject with spinal cord injury would be suitable for clinical transplantation. Image: Courtesy of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis/University of Miami

ROCKVILLE, Md.?A new experiment aimed at achieving actor Christopher Reeve's dream of finding an effective treatment for spinal paralysis was announced this week at an international meeting of scientists and people with spinal cord injury sponsored by the United 2 Fight Paralysis Foundation. The approach, which already is shown to be promising in animals and avoids the need for patients to take immunosuppressive drugs, has not yet been proved effective in humans. Nonetheless, patients are excited to see this advance as they have been frustrated waiting for the first human trials of the new approach.

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, announced here that his research team has submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to begin new "phase I" experiments on humans to treat paralysis using the new cell transplantation technique. (Phase I trials have nothing to do with efficacy. They are only to test safety and typically a nontherapeutic dose is used at the outset of the safety studies.) With the new technique, rather than using cells derived from embryonic stem cells, the patient's own mature cells are harvested from a nerve in the leg and grown in large numbers in the laboratory, then transplanted back into the injured spinal cord to repair damage. This approach avoids the problems of immunological rejection and the controversy that can arise from using cells derived from embryonic stem cells for treating neurological injury and disease. Typically, patients receiving an organ or tissue transplant from a donor must be given immunosupressant drugs to prevent their immune systems from attacking the foreign tissue.?

The cells being used for transplantation are Schwann cells, a type of non-neuronal cell (glia) that protects and insulates nerve fibers running through the body's limbs and trunk. Schwann cells also support the repair of damaged neurons; they provide vital proteins that protect nerve cells after injury, coax new nerve sprouts (axons) to grow and reconnect with the proper structures, and wrap electrical insulation, myelin, around the fibers, which is essential for axons to conduct electrical impulses. Unlike damage to the spinal cord, an injured nerve in the body can repair itself.?

Schwann cells are not present in the brain and spinal cord. Instead, a different cell called an oligodendrocyte forms the myelin insulation. This century-old observation was an important clue in answering the question of why a damaged nerve in the body's peripheral nervous system heals over time, but a damaged axon in the brain or spinal cord (central nervous system, or CNS) does not. Research transplanting Schwann cells into the damaged brain and spinal cord of experimental animals in the 1980s showed that neurons in the CNS could grow and repair damaged connections if Schwann cells were transplanted to support and guide them. This finding has been replicated in numerous studies in a wide range of animals. The cellular environment in the central nervous system is the reason that spinal cord injury results in permanent paralysis, not a weakness of the neurons themselves in recovering from damage.?

"This is great news?very exciting," says Martin Codyre, of Greystones, Ireland, "but I am frustrated because this [experiments in humans] should have happened 15 years ago." Codyre, who suffered a broken neck in a fall three years ago, has educated himself on the neuroscience of spinal cord injury and become an advocate for research to find a cure. "People in wheelchairs are going all over the world to get things [transplants] done in places like China, without knowing what they are getting?it's risky," he says, criticizing the slow pace of bringing research on experimental animals to experiments in humans. "People are desperate. They are dying in their chairs."? There are no cell transplantation therapies approved for treating patients for spinal cord injuries, but phase I trials were approved recently by the FDA to permit a biotech company, Geron Corp., to begin testing the safety of transplanting cells derived from embryonic stem cells (oligodendrocyte progenitor cells) into spinal cord injury patients last October. Transplantation of a different type of cell into the spinal cord that is derived from embryonic stem cells is being tested by Neuralstem, Inc. for safety in treating patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Safety concerns are greater with stem cell-based therapy, because unlike a drug, foreign cells transplanted into a patient's body cannot be removed, and some fear the possibility that they could form tumors.?

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