woman health blog 25

Scientists have pinpointed the cells in the hypothalamus that control aging. Credit: © red150770 / Fotolia Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that stem cells in the brain's hypothalamus govern how fast aging occurs in the body. The finding, made in mice, could lead to new strategies for warding off age-related diseases and extending lifespan. The paper was published online today in  Nature . The hypothalamus was known to regulate important processes including growth, development, reproduction and metabolism. In a 2013  Nature  paper, Einstein researchers made the surprising finding that the hypothalamus also regulates aging throughout the body. Now, the scientists have pinpointed the cells in the hypothalamus that control aging: a tiny population of adult neural stem cells, which were known to be responsible for forming new brain neurons. "Our research shows th...

n the journal  Respiratory Research , the scientists demonstrated that they could harvest lung stem cells from people using a relatively non-invasive, doctor's-office technique. They were then able to multiply the harvested lung cells in the lab to yield enough cells sufficient for human therapy. In a second study, published in the journal  S tem Cells Translational Medicine , the team showed that in rodents they could use the same type of lung cell to successfully treat a model of IPF -- a chronic, irreversible, and ultimately fatal disease characterized by a progressive decline in lung function. The researchers have been in discussions with the FDA and are preparing an application for an initial clinical trial in patients with IPF. "This is the first time anyone has generated potentially therapeutic lung stem cells from minimally invasive biopsy specimens," said co-senior author of both papers Jason Lobo, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at UNC and medic...