Pigs Could Be the Salvation of Diabetes Sufferers

sumsung submitted, created time 9 months 4 weeks (www.sciam.com)

Most people probably view pigs at best as a source of sustenance or, at worst, as filthy, gluttonous animals. But it seems our porcine pals may also prove invaluable in the fight against type 1 diabetes. Researchers are experimenting with new ways of harvesting insulin-producing islet cells from pigs and transplanting them into diabetes sufferers in the hope of one day reducing the need for daily insulin shots and even replacing them with twice-yearly islet-cell treatments.

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Glowing Pig Passes Genes to Piglets

DanyC submitted, created time 10 months 3 weeks (news.nationalgeographic.com)

A cloned pig whose genes were altered to make it glow fluorescent green has passed on the trait to its young, a development that could lead to the future breeding of pigs for human transplant organs, a Chinese university reported.
Besides,Tokyo's Meiji University last year successfully cloned a transgenic pig that carries the genes for human diabetes, while South Korean scientists cloned cats that glow red when exposed to ultraviolet rays—an achievement they said could help develop cures for human genetic diseases

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Identification of H2N3 influenza A viruses from swine in the United States

davidd submitted, created time 10 months 3 weeks (www.pnas.org)

In this report, they isolate and characterize genetically similar avian/swine virus reassortant H2N3 influenza A viruses isolated from diseased swine from two farms in the United States. The H2N3 viruses were able to cause disease in experimentally infected swine and mice without prior adaptation. In addition, the swine H2N3 virus was infectious and highly transmissible in swine and ferrets. Taken together, these findings suggest that the H2N3 virus has undergone some adaptation to the mammalian host and that their spread should be very closely monitored.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: drug-resistant viruses drug resistance adaptive radiation viruses influenza pigs swine H2N3 influenza A viruses