Posted: 15 Feb 2010 09:11 PM PST

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Armenian surgeons to study in L.A. (The Glendale News-Press)

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 07:24 PM PST

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GLENDALE — Two Armenian doctors will visit Southern California next month to study pediatric transplant methods at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Sponsored by World Children's Transplant Fund, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, surgeons Gegham Poghosyan and David Dallakyan will spend six months studying pediatric liver transplant techniques, which they can then apply to their work in Yerevan, Armenia.

Each year, Armenian children die because of the lack of qualified physicians and specialized equipment needed to perform successful transplant surgeries, said Valerie McCaffrey, a member of the nonprofit's board of directors.

Meanwhile, transporting the children to other countries for the procedures can expose them to other diseases and place undue stress on their already weak bodies, she said.

"The goal is to train the doctors so the kids don't have to travel to receive these surgeries, to provide the training and technology and donor awareness in these counties," she said.

Once the doctors complete their six-month observation and training, they will return to Armenia, where they can share their techniques with other doctors and continue to spread awareness, she said.

McCaffrey, who is of Armenian descent, spearheaded efforts to establish a World Childrens Transplant Fund center in Armenia, where the fund employs a full-time director who provides support to local doctors, as well as conducting awareness and fundraising campaigns.

Other centers are in Argentina, Costa Rica and Mexico.

The nonprofit has successfully lobbied for laws banning the sale of organs in Armenia, she said.

"No one gets a penny from the organ they are going to be donating," she said. "Otherwise, kids will start disappearing off the street."

Next, nonprofit officials plan to lobby the government to change laws that limit most organ donations to blood relatives.

Harut Sassounian, president of the United Armenian Fund, a coalition of charities that send clothes, medical equipment and other items requested by residents in Armenia, said the doctors would learn valuable information to bring home to Armenia.

"The Armenian doctors are very talented and very dedicated to serving their patients; however, they need the exposure to [the West's] latest medical systems and also the latest technology," he said.

Tonight, the World Children's Transplant Fund, in conjunction with the Armenian Consulate, will host a cocktail party to gather support and donations for the visiting doctors program.

They are expected to arrive next month, at which point another event will be held, organizers said.

In addition to financial donations to help support the six-month stay, McCaffrey said she hopes the community will show their moral support.

"These two doctors are coming from a foreign country," she said. "We want to integrate their whole experience so that they receive as much help as possible."

Get in touch MELANIE HICKEN covers City Hall. She may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at melanie. hicken@latimes.com.

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Non-embryonic stem cells limited, UW study finds (Wisconsin State Journal)

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 12:43 PM PST

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A new kind of stem cells, which don't involve the destruction of embryos, can't turn into brain cells as well as embryonic stem cells can, a UW-Madison study found.

Induced pluripotent stem cells, discovered in 2007 in part by campus scientists James Thomson and Junying Yu, can morph into several types of brain cells. But they don't do so as consistently or efficiently as embryonic stem cells, which Thomson was the first to create, in 1998.

The findings, by campus neuroscientist Su-Chun Zhang, raise questions about how useful induced stem cells are for researching diseases and developing cell therapies. But the limitations of the cells can probably be overcome, Zhang said.

"At this point there is still some work to be done to generate ideal induced pluripotent stem cells for application," he said in a news release.

Zhang's study, with fellow researcher Baoyang Hu, is published in this week's edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Both kinds of stem cells offer promise for medical research because of their capacity to become all of the body's 220 cell types. Scientists are using the cells to create models of diseases in the lab and develop potential therapies for Parkinson's disease, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, heart disease and other conditions.

The induced stem cells, also discovered by a competing team led by Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka, have been considered more promising than embryonic stem cells for two main reasons.

They are made by reprogramming skin or other cells back to their embryonic state, not by creating or destroying embryos, so the cells appease ethical concerns.

The induced stem cells also can be made from a patient's own cells, potentially reducing the risk of rejection when delivering therapies made from the cells.

But whether induced stem cells are as good as embryonic stem cells at becoming heart, kidney, pancreas, brain and other kinds of cells hasn't been shown.

Based on Zhang's study, induced stem cells aren't yet up to the job, at least regarding brain cells.

The study looked at how well a dozen groups of induced stem cells and five groups of embryonic stem cells became brain cells.

The induced stem cells didn't perform as well as the embryonic stem cells. That was true even for induced stem cells created without reprogramming genes, which had been thought to be the main barrier.

It has taken years for scientists to find ways to better grow embryonic stem cells, and it will also take some time to perfect the development of induced stem cells, the study suggests.

"It tells us the techniques for generating induced pluripotent stem cells are still not optimal," Zhang said. "There is room for improvement."

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Study: Fed Lands Hold Oil and Gas Bonanza (Forbes)

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 12:03 PM PST

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The United States has more oil and gas reserves on federally owned lands than previously thought. Federal acreage onshore and offshore holds more than 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (about 75 years worth of current domestic consumption) and 229 billion barrels of oil (about 50 years worth).

So says a study released Monday by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Data gathering and number crunching for the two-year study was done by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a big government contractor, with input from academics and oil companies like Shell, BP, Marathon Energy.

Previous government estimates, using the same methodology, identified 1750 tcf of gas and 186 billion barrels of oil. The increase is due largely to improvements in finding and recovering oil and gas. Any way you look at it, those reserves are more than those controlled by most OPEC nations.

What's more, the report states that some 285 trillion cubic feet of gas and 46 billion barrels of oil are on certain federal lands still off limits to oil and gas drilling (such as more than 6 billion barrels in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). Congress in 2008 removed restrictions on some promising areas, like the offshore Outer Continental Shelf, but the Department of Interior hasn't yet determined whether to lease sections of the OCS to development.

This might spur action. The report states that continuing to keep promising lands off limits will mean foregoing $2.36 trillion in cumulative gross domestic product between now and 2030.

The reports conclusions are no surprise, seeing as most of the parties that worked on the report are in favor of throwing open all restricted acreage to development. In the executive summary, they state that the effect of maintaining this moratoria would be to "reduce real consumption levels; decrease gross domestic product; increase dependence on foreign oil and natural gas imports; increase payments to exporting nations; decrease real industrial shipments; elevate energy costs; decrease employment levels; decrease household income; and, produce a mix of negative and positive environmental effects."

It's hard to argue with any of that. Sure, environmentalists will insist that more drilling in the U.S. will just continue our addiction to fossil fuels and will dirty up the air and water. Yet it doesn't make much sense to hand over $300 billion a year to foreign oil producers when there's still so much oil left in the U.S. Offshore oil drilling techniques perfected over 30 years in the Gulf of Mexico and along the continental shelf of Norway can be deployed along the U.S. coasts with minimal environmental impact.

These oil and gas fields will be produced eventually. There might not be much pressure to drill now, with plentiful oil on world markets and reasonable prices. But if the Peak Oilers are right that a supply crunch will usher in $500 a barrel prices within a decade, then those federal lands better get drilled soon.

A reasonable position that could get bipartisan traction (when pigs fly): open certain federal lands to drilling on two conditions: 1. That oil companies adhere to higher environmental standards than anywhere else in the world, and 2. that before they they put up an "environmental bond" before they start drilling (say $100 million per lease block) to cover any spills and to fund the eventual plugging and abandonment of wells.

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Study Techniques

Monday, February 15, 2010

“February brings study skills workshops in Florham Park (Florham Park Eagle)” plus 3 more

“February brings study skills workshops in Florham Park (Florham Park Eagle)” plus 3 more

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