Researchers Successfully Achieve Suspended Animation With Mouse Embryos (engadget.com)

"It was completely surprising. We were standing around in the tissue culture room, scratching our heads, and saying 'Wow, what do we make of this?'" An anonymous reader quotes Engadget's report on new research with "huge implications": A team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco only wanted to slow down mice embryos' cell growth in the lab. Instead, they managed to completely pause their development, putting the blastocysts (very early embryos) in suspended animation for a month. What's more, they found that the process can put stem cells derived from the blastocysts in suspended animation as well, [and] the researchers were able to prove that the embryos can develop normally even after a pause in their growth. Team member Ramalho-Santos from the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research said... "To put it in perspective, mouse pregnancies only last about 20 days, so the 30-day-old 'paused' embryos we were seeing would have been pups approaching weaning already if they'd been allowed to develop normally."
The new research could lead to better treatments for damaged organs and even aging, according to the article. (Besides, of course, its science fiction-y implications for long-distance space travel...)

Comments

"long-distance space travel"

[lobiusmoop]

For that sort of thing, bacteria are a much better bet. Much more hardy than higher Earth-evolved species and proven to survive in suspended animation over the geological time-scales involved in interstellar travel.

stockpiled stemcells

[wierd_w]

It also means that we can now inexpensively stockpile stemcells without appreciable loss. Freezing is expensive, and it is costly in time and other resources to store and retrieve tissues that way.

Since this is a chemical doping technique, this would allow us to store regenerative stemcells much the way we store whole blood, or perhaps even longer, using simple refrigeration techniques.

This could have wide reaching implications in stemcell based regenerative medicine, since humans could inexpensively bank the cultures now.

Take a closer look at macropods...

[mi]

Instead, they managed to completely pause their development, putting the blastocysts (very early embryos) in suspended animation for a month.

Depending on availability of water and food, mama roo (and mama wallaby) can suspend her regular four-week pregnancy by up to two years (see embyonic diapause — it is not unique to marsupials).

This suggests two things:

• the mechanisms used by the animals in nature, may also be applicable to us;
• the suspension, however achieved, may not be infinite — there could be a point, after which the embryo, may not, in fact, resume normal development.

Cancer help

[iplayfast]

From the article "They used a drug that inhibited the activities of a protein called mTOR, which regulates different cellular processes. By inhibiting the protein, they also inhibit the cells' activities."

I wonder if this might prove useful for stopping runaway tumors.

Who needs culture

[petes_PoV]

We were standing around in the tissue culture room, scratching our heads

Well, I suppose that's one way to get samples.

It must be Pinky and the Brain!

[Required Snark]

This must be how the Brain is finally going to take over the eartht!

They're Pinky and the Brain

Yes, Pinky and the Brain

One is a genius, the other's other insane

They're laboratory mice

Their genes have been spliced

They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the Brain

Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain

-

Before each night is done

Their plan will be unfurled

By the dawning of the sun

They'll take over the world