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Scientists Save Child's Life By Growing Him New Skin (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: The German doctors realized they had to do something drastic or their seven-year-old patient would die. The boy had escaped war-ravaged Syria with his parents, and a rare genetic disease had left him with raw, blistering sores over 80 percent of his body. His doctors in a children's burn unit tried everything they could to treat his illness, called junctional epidermolysis bullosa -- even grafting some skin from his father to see if it would heal the child's wounds. But his body rejected this. Finally, they e-mailed Michele De Luca, a researcher in Italy, to ask for help.
The doctors took a small sample of skin from one of the few places on the boy's body where it was not flaming red or flaking off, and sent it to De Luca. His team at the center used a virus to insert into the skin cells a correct copy of a gene called LAMB3; the boy's own defective copy had caused his epidermolysis bullosa. De Luca and his colleagues grew the skin cells over scaffolds in their lab to form large sheets, the way doctors often do for burn patients. In two surgeries in October and November 2015, the Italian and German teams covered the boy's limbs, sides and back with these sheets of fresh skin. After being too sick even to get out of bed before his surgeries, "he was standing up already by Christmas," De Luca says. In January 2016 the boy, whose name is not being released to protect his privacy, received a few more skin patches -- and in February he was released from the University Hospitals of the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.
The doctors took a small sample of skin from one of the few places on the boy's body where it was not flaming red or flaking off, and sent it to De Luca. His team at the center used a virus to insert into the skin cells a correct copy of a gene called LAMB3; the boy's own defective copy had caused his epidermolysis bullosa. De Luca and his colleagues grew the skin cells over scaffolds in their lab to form large sheets, the way doctors often do for burn patients. In two surgeries in October and November 2015, the Italian and German teams covered the boy's limbs, sides and back with these sheets of fresh skin. After being too sick even to get out of bed before his surgeries, "he was standing up already by Christmas," De Luca says. In January 2016 the boy, whose name is not being released to protect his privacy, received a few more skin patches -- and in February he was released from the University Hospitals of the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.
with greasy solar atoms? That would have forced the the body cells to react, to protect themselves. That means growing skin.
The results are published in Nature today.
And so it is indeed news.
https://www.nature.com/article...
The story came out today because the peer-reviewed article came out today.
The surgeries were done at those times you mention. The skin healing and coming to an equilibrium would take months after that. To confirm it was growing as normal would take more months after that. Tests on samples collected after several months would themselves take months after that. Writing the paper would take months after that. Review would take at least one month. And that brings us up to the present day. Doing the surgery and saying "Well we healed him permanently" the next day would be premature.
This isn't some app some douche made that takes pictures and adds new filters, this is real science, and real science takes time.
Next stop, foreskin regeneration!
Did you know about it before? It's not like it's gone stale. It takes time to evaluate the result of something like this. Complaining about this particular article "not being news" implies a cynicism in you bordering on Grumpy Old Man status.
This is a really great outcome. It would be horrible to have such a debilitating disease. For these scientists to be able to fix his DNA to cure him of this is truly remarkable, and should be applauded. Now, this young boy gets to grow up and have a chance at enjoying life without these sores and the crippling pain that is associated with it.
--
"...to the moon..." - Neil Armstrong
So no mention of the patient's name, good. But why bother to mention the Syria connection? Does that have anything to do with the treatment or outcome/?
Sorry for feeding the troll, but I can say if it were my little girl (yes, she's white) that this happened to, then I would be thanking the doctors, even if it failed. What life is worth living under the "natural" state you see here.
I would also defend Dr. Frankenstein to the bitter end. For trying.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
If not through it being published?
Also, I want to know these things! And nobody here heard of it before! Which, by definition, makes it news!
Why are you so obsessed with the Plank time unit it arrives in front of your eyes being the Planck time unit it happened? What’s wrong with you?
... that some (morons) believe the kid (!) does not deserve it, because happened to be born somewhere else.
Like he chose to be born in a fucking war country...
(And btw, where was that fucking "God" asshole? Mysterious deliberately-letting-kids-suffer ways again?)
And they never fucking realize, that this kid will suck up our (German) culture, and contribute to our society like everyone else. He certainly will not contribute less, than any jobless alcoholic dumbass of a blaming-others failure of a neo-Nazi ever did. Cause that'd be a fucking achievement on its own!
Yeah, I'm sorry, this makes me swear a lot. I think that's what swearing was invented for. Maybe watch some Malcolm Tucker to make this here feel milder... :)
The first skin graft with this method was in October. October to February is up to 5 months.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
And Poe's law in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
So you're the kind of person that does not question stories.... I bet money you believe in fairy tales and don't know it.
They literally patched his DNA...
If that bothers you, just look at it that way that they used that little expendable refugee to try some new medicine that might one day save good Aryan blood, just like their forefathers did on other expendables.
Should make you feel better instantly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
unauthorized
Where do you get this bullshit from?
Why do you believe doctors shouldn't try everything they can to save the live of a middle-eastern girl?
You seem to have a unique flavor or racism where you hate every race.
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This is not his fault - he has been indoctrinated, starting from school following trough with media coverage of all that is even slightly challenging to the ruling elite as nazis. Some of them may be but we will never know because instead of a factual discussion a mud throwing (you are a nazi!) is usually taking place. This result is a mental disease affecting huge parts of population that makes actual intolerance and other threats to open society go unchecked. The usual mass hysteria that affects societies from time to time. The currently common approach to 'discussing' issues i.e. pressing on emotions instead of using facts and reason makes any meaningful conversation difficult and causes real life losses - UK politician accused of misconduct committed a suicide this week.. Germans I am afraid are specially affected in right wing over-sensitivity making them incapable to protect open society that they once had.
I didn't know the ability to grow skin from existing skin cells was so advanced. Does this cost an insane amount? It would seem to be a good way to grown new skin that can be grafted on to replace scarred tissue.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Let me guess. Science performs a miracle with the pinnacle of current human understanding. Parents thank their god(s).
Bert
Science performs miracles all the time, that doesn't impress me. What would impress me is religion performing science ;-)
How do you define news? And do you understand that your definition isn't the same as the rest of the world?
Given that it's his normal skin I don't see why it wouldn't. But why are you thinking about the penis of a 7yo?
To be honest much of criticism of GMO isn't about gene manipulation per se but the type of manipulation and potential risks of it as used. But sure there are plenty of "natural" idiots too - IMO they should be fed 100% natural strychnine.
No. Publishing history isn't news.
The news is that an in situ gene replacement technique has worked in one patient and is the subject of a paper. The implications of this are very large.
The nationalism you're seeing now in Europe is a reaction to the less savory aspects of a new insurgency, rather than being internally whipped up hatred for a minority that had been a productive and peaceful part of your society for hundreds of years.
They performed a radical and unauthorized medical experiment al la Joseph Mengele on some foreign little brown kid and not a single one of you finds anything grotesquely sick with this!?
Every medical advance began with researchers toying with some cohort of patients. This little boy was about to die after all conventional treatments had failed. All patients who fit this criterion get experimented on. I have a brother who is alive today because when all else had failed was the subject of a radical experiment.
Interestingly, the technique used in the German case was genetic engineering. People like you will refuse such a treatment, and therefore will not be around to influence future generations. This is a good thing.
Except this "insurgency" only exists in the minds of the nationalists, just as the hatred for the minority you mentioned.
I'm sure that, as the boy matures, he will be well aware of the ramifications of his mutation, and will be duly hesitant to pass it on. Parents can be jerks to their children in many ways, but knowingly gifting them a terrible (often fatal, but now treatable) genetic mutation is not usually something a parent would do.
There are ways to fix this and prevent the mutation from propagating, however. Pre-implantation selection is one possibility, which is already used routinely to screen for other genetic problems. Also: at the rate we are going, we'll probably have ways of completely removing this mutation from his genetic line by the time he is looking to have a family. If not him, then probably by the time his children are reproducing. Third: the article is unclear, but this may be a condition that requires a defect in both the mother's and father's genes - a recessive trait. If his female partner doesn't have the same mutation, then no problem. Finally: who's to say that this guy is going to have biological children? He may have none, he may yet die before reproducing, he may adopt children not genetically linked to him, etc.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
Kyle Reese: [in a stolen car, while being chased by the police and the terminator] All right, listen. The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs.
Sarah Connor: Look, Reese, I don't know what you want from...
Kyle Reese: Pay attention! I gotta ditch this car.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The real news is that this means they're one step closer to being able to reverse male-pattern baldness!
A large bunch of people showing up on your doorstep, unvetted by any national immigration system, is an insurgency. At least our own insurgents are Catholic.
Parents can be jerks to their children in many ways, but knowingly gifting them a terrible (often fatal, but now treatable) genetic mutation is not usually something a parent would do.
Does not jibe with the world we have now. Families have known that a lot of their ancestors died from the same mysterous illness for centuries. People seem to very much do it.
..."left him with raw, blistering sores over 80 percent of his body."...
Well, that's a link I won't click. Thanks for the warning! =-]
urd