Genetic Eng.

Elizabeth Loboa, dean of the MU College of Engineering, and her team recently tested methods to make the process of tissue engineering more cost effective and producible in larger quantities. Tissues could help patients suffering from wounds caused by diabetes and circulation disorders, patients in need of cartilage or bone repair and to women who have had mastectomies by replacing their breast tissue.

If you trace our evolutionary tree way back to its roots -- long before the shedding of gills or the development of opposable thumbs -- you will likely find a common ancestor with the amazing ability to regenerate lost body parts. Lucky descendants of this creature, including today’s salamanders or zebrafish, can still perform the feat, but humans lost much of their regenerative power over millions of years of evolution.

Researchers have developed a way of growing realistic human tissues outside the body. Their 'person-on-a-chip' technology, called AngioChip, is a platform for discovering and testing new drugs, and could eventually be used to repair or replace damaged organs. Prof. Milica Radisic, graduate student Boyang Zhang and the rest of the team are among those research groups around the world racing to find ways to grow human tissues in the lab, under conditions that mimic a real person's body.

A breakthrough in understanding human skin cells offers a pathway for new anti-ageing treatments. For the first time, scientists at Newcastle University have identified that the activity of a key metabolic enzyme found in the batteries of human skin cells declines with age. A study, published online in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, has found that the activity of mitochondrial complex II significantly decreases in older skin.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has approved a research application from the Francis Crick Institute to use new 'gene editing' techniques on human embryos. The aim of the research, led by Dr Kathy Niakan, a group leader at the Crick, is to understand the genes human embryos need to develop successfully.

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and University of Iowa scientists have used a new gene-editing technology called CRISPR to repair a genetic mutation responsible for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), an inherited condition that causes the retina to degrade and leads to blindness in at least 1.5m cases worldwide.

Columbia Engineering researchers have shown, for the first time, that electrical stimulation of human heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) engineered from human stem cells aids their development and function. The team used electrical signals, designed to mimic those in a developing heart, to regulate and synchronise the beating properties of nascent cardiomyocytes, the cells that support the beating function of the heart.

A discovery about how the body deals with the cholesterol contained within its dying cells has suggested an exciting new approach to control people's cholesterol levels - and thus their risk of developing heart disease.