Made-to-measure skin and bones, which could be used to treat burn victims or patients who have suffered severe disfigurements, may soon be a reality using inkjets which can print human cells. Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed the breakthrough technology which will allow tailor-made tissues and bones to be grown, simply by inputting their dimensions into a computer.

In a finding that broadens our insight into the cause of certain kinds of UV-induced skin cancer, researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) have employed an evolutionarily ancient enzyme-repair system to identify the principal type of DNA damage responsible for the onset of skin-tumor development. The researchers' findings also suggest that this enzyme system may be useful in developing preventative therapies against skin cancer.

Microbes living in the brilliantly colored hot springs of Yellowstone National Park use primarily hydrogen for fuel, a discovery University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say bodes well for life in extreme environments on other planets and could add to understanding of bacteria inside the human body. A team of CU-Boulder biologists led by Professor Norman Pace, one of the world's leading experts on molecular evolution and microbiology, published their report "Hydrogen and bioenergetics in the Yellowstone geothermal system" this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team's findings, based on several years of research at the park, refute the popular idea that sulfur is the main source of energy for tiny organisms living in thermal features.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have discovered a way to overcome one of the major hurdles in gene therapy for cancer: its tendency to kill normal cells in the process of eradicating cancer cells. In a new study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers demonstrated that the technique works by incorporating it into a specially designed virus. The virus eradicated prostate cancer cells in the lab and in animals while leaving normal cells unscathed.

Researchers at Nanosphere, Inc. today reported unprecedented benefits in the company's technology for the medical analysis of human DNA.

Nanosphere's nanoparticle-based technology allows for rapid, highly-sensitive and specific Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, which is the direct detection of a particular gene and the extent to which it is normal or mutated. The technology, reported in the February 2005 (Volume 33, Number 2), issue of Nucleic Acids Research, allows detection of a SNP in an unknown genotype with a greater than 99 percent confidence threshold and can be used with human DNA obtained from samples as small as a drop of blood. Importantly, the technology eliminates the need for costly, time and labor intensive gene amplification or enzymatic interventions – two widespread methods currently used to perform such analyses.

Following the "Current human embryonic stem cell lines contaminated UCSD/Salk team finds" story from two days ago, I spotted an interesting comment from the White House Gaggle : "This is an issue that has been previously raised and discussed. We've known from the very beginning that the lines that were authorized for research had this particular trait…and the scientists at NIH are very well aware of it and remain confident that the stem cell lines that are available will provide us with the adequate supply to do the most basic research." The NIH had asked the FDA to specifically look at the issue and the FDA concluded that the same issue is presented by human feeder cells. "There is still much uncertainty about the promise of stem cell research. We are only at the stage of the beginning of basic research to understand the promise of embryonic stem cell research."