Science News Roundup: Ebola Vaccine and Synthetic Ribosome

Guest: For this episode, we bring on internationally recognized stem cell pioneer Dr. George Daley from Children’s Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to discuss all things stem cells. Resources and Links New Ebola Vaccine Has ‘100 Percent’ Effectiveness in Early Results – Researchers announced promising results of a new vaccine’s trial called Ebola ça Suffit — French for “Ebola that’s enough” funded by World Health Organization, in Guinea, one of several countries affected by a historic outbreak in West Africa. Synthetic Ribosome Can Keep Bacteria Alive – According to this article, scientists have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the real thing—an organelle that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. Anxiety and Depression Caused By Stress Linked to Gut Bacteria Living in Intestines, Scientists Find – Anxious and depressive behavior brought on by exposure to stress in early life appears only to be triggered if microbes are present in the gut. Scientists Have Discovered the Taste of Fat and Say It Could Hold the Key to Tackling Obesity – Scientists describe the taste of fat as a unique and unpleasant taste called oleogustus, and suggest that its identification could lead to new ways of fighting obesity and heart disease, and to the creation of improved fat replacements. Study Shows Glitazone Antidiabetic Drug May Reduce Risk of Parkinson’s Disease – Researchers found that diabetes patients taking glitazone antidiabetes drugs (either rosiglitazone or pioglitazone) had a 28% lower incidence of Parkinson’s disease than people taking other treatments for diabetes who had never taken glitazones. Long-term Memories Are Maintained by Prion-like Proteins – Research from Eric Kandel’s lab at Columbia University Medical Center reveals that different prions are critical for the long-term storage of memories. Astronomers Spot Black Hole So big, It Defies Current Theories of Galaxy Evolution – This article describes the discovery of a galaxy called CID-947 with a black hole that makes up 10% of its mass has left scientists dumbfounded, possibly overturning current theories of how galaxies evolve. Physicists Confirm Existence of Rare Pentaquarks – Professors Sheldon Stone and Tomasz Skwarnicki, doctoral student Nathan Jurik and former University research associate Liming Zhang are on the team that has confirmed the existence of two rare pentaquark states. Should Aborted Foetuses Be Used for Stem Cell Research? –Recent incident where US company Planned Parenthood was found to be offering foetal tissue to buyers without the parents’ knowledge has raised serious ethical questions around the use of foetuses in stem cell research. Four Stem-Cell Stocks With Promise – Reni Benjamin, a biotech analyst at Raymond James Financial shared four stem cell stocks that has upside potential in the second half of the year. From Dish to Bedside: Lessons Learned While Translating Findings from a Stem Cell Model of Disease to a Clinical Trial – Scientists share lessons while taking a discovery made using iPSCs into a clinical trial. Scientists Create Functional Liver Cells from Stem Cells – Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Alexander Grass Center for Bioengineering report that they produced large amounts of functional liver cells from human embryonic and genetic engineered stem cells. Researchers Create Model of Early Human Heart Development from Stem Cells – UC Berkeley researchers, in collaboration with scientists at the Gladstone Institutes, have developed a template for growing beating cardiac tissue from stem cells, creating a system that could serve as a model for early heart development and as a drug-screening tool to make pregnancies safer. Stem Cells Could Treat Mitochondrial Disease – Researchers generated human stem cells in the lab, repaired common mitochondrial defects, and reported they were able to rescue cell function.