UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Stem cells used in trachea transplant

BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The first successful human windpipe transplant using the patient's stem cells was completed in Spain, physicians at four European universities announced.

One physician said the procedure's success indicated "we are on the verge of a new age in surgical care," The New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday.

Physicians at universities in Spain, England and Italy helped in preparing the donor trachea with the adult patient's stem cells before the June operation in Barcelona, the Times said. The operation was necessary to help alleviate the patient's severe shortness of breath following tuberculosis.

Doctors and scientists stripped the trachea from an anonymous donor of all the donor's cells then added the patient's stem cells before the transplant, the physicians said in their article in the journal The Lancet.

Martin Birchall, a professor at Bristol University in Britain, said the transplant showed "the very real potential for adult stem cells and tissue engineering to radically improve their ability to treat patients with serious diseases. We believe this success has proved that we are on the verge of a new age in surgical care."

University of Barcelona's Paolo Macchiarini, who performed the operation, said he was excited by the results.

"Just four days after transplantation the graft was almost indistinguishable from adjacent normal bronchi," Macchiarini said.

Ginkgo won't delay dementia, survey shows

NEW YORK, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- The herbal supplement ginkgo biloba, popular among U.S. adults hoping to improve their memory, doesn't appear to delay or prevent dementia, a study indicates.

The longest and largest trial to date on the compound indicates Americans may have wasted $250 million spent on ginkgo annually, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

"This is going to be a wake-up call to people who are blindly taking over-the-counter brain boosters, thinking if it's being sold in a reputable store it's effective," P. Murali Doraiswamy, a memory expert at Duke University not involved in the study, told the Journal.

The study tracked 3,069 adults age 75 and older -- nearly evenly divided between those with normal cognitive function and those with a mild impairment -- for an average of nearly six years. One group received a twice-daily dose of ginkgo and the other received a placebo.

During the study's course, 523 participants developed dementia. Researchers said results indicate those who took ginkgo were just as likely to develop dementia as those taking the placebo.

They reported the overall dementia rate between the two groups was statistically insignificant.

Results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Study takes on mammoth genome sequencing

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- An international team led by a U.S. researcher has completed genome sequencing for an extinct animal, offering insight into its modern-day cousin.

Using DNA extracted from samples of the pre-historic woolly mammoth's hair, Pennsylvania State University biology Stephan Schuster and his 20 teammates collected the near-complete nuclear genome, the team reported in the journal Nature Wednesday.

Samples from several different mammoth species preserved in permafrost were used in the sequencing research, Schuster said. The authors said they believe the sequence is about 80 percent complete.

Their findings identify genes shared with the woolly mammoth's modern-day elephant cousins, and offer insight into its evolution, the article said.

Googling helps track flu season activity

ATLANTA, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A computer model based on online searches about the flu can offer real-time weekly levels of flu activity, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta reports.

The application, "Google Flu Trends," launched last week and the research behind the tool was published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Jeremy Ginsberg said he and fellow researchers used data from vast numbers of Google search queries to track flu-like illnesses in the United States. They found the frequency of certain searches correlates with trips to the doctor where a patient presents flu-like symptoms.

This correlation between Google searches and doctor's visits makes it possible to estimate accurately weekly levels of flu activity with only a one-day lag time, researchers said.

The authors said they believe the data would be useful as a way to spur more investigation and collection activity data.