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Inducing Fertilization and Development in Sand Dollars
Sand dollars are common marine invertebrates in the phylum Echinodermata and share the same class (Echinoidea) as sea urchins. They have served as model laboratory organisms for such embryologists as Frank Rattray Lillie and Ernest Everett Just. Both Lillie and Just used Echinarachnius parma for their studies of egg cell membranes and embryo development at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the early 1900s.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
The Hayflick Limit
The Hayflick Limit is a concept that helps to explain the
mechanisms behind cellular aging. The concept states that a normal human
cell can only replicate and divide forty to sixty times before it
cannot divide anymore, and will break down by programmed cell death
or apoptosis. The concept of the Hayflick Limit revised Alexis
Carrel's earlier theory, which stated that cells can replicate
themselves infinitely. Leonard Hayflick developed the concept while
at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia,
Format: Articles
Subject: Theories
"Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using Recombinant Proteins" (2009), by Hongyan Zhou et al.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are studied carefully by scientists not just because they are a potential source of stem cells that circumvents ethical controversy involved with experimentation on human embryos, but also because of their unique potential to advance the field of regenerative medicine. First generated in a lab by Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka in 2006, iPSCs have the ability to differentiate into cells of all types.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
"Viable Offspring Derived from Fetal and Adult Mammalian Cells" (1997), by Ian Wilmut et al.
In the 1990s, Ian Wilmut, Jim McWhir, and Keith Campbell performed experiments while working at the Roslin Institute in Roslin, Scotland. Wilmut, McWhir, and Campbell collaborated with Angelica Schnieke and Alex J. Kind at PPL Therapeutics in Roslin, a company researching cloning and genetic manipulation for livestock. Their experiments resulted in several sheep being born in July 1996, one of which was a sheep named Dolly born 5 July 1996.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
A Toolkit for Integrating Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) into Humanitarian Response (2017), by Marni Sommer, Margaret Schmitt, and David Clatworthy
In October 2017, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, New York, and the International Rescue Committee published A Toolkit for Integrating Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) into Humanitarian Response. Researchers Marni Sommer, Margaret Schmitt, and David Clatworthy collaborated on the Toolkit to benefit women and girls in Lebanon, Myanmar, and Tanzania. The Toolkit serves as a guideline for humanitarian organizations to ensure better menstrual hygiene management, or MHM, in low and middle-income countries.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Leonard Colebrook (1883–1967)
Leonard Colebrook was a physician who researched bacteria and infections in England during the twentieth century. In 1936, Colebrook deployed the antibiotic Prontosil to treat puerperal fever, a disorder that results from bacterial infections in the uterine tracts of women after childbirth or abortions. Colebrook also advanced care for burn patients by advocating for the creation of burn units in hospitals and by using antisepsis medication for burn wound infections. Colebrook’s work on treatments for puerperal fever reduced cases of puerperal fever throughout the world.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Vaginal Speculum (after 1800)
A vaginal speculum is a medical device that allows physicians and health providers to better view a woman’s cervix and vagina during pelvic exams. Most specula are made of metal and plastic, and physicians insert a portion of the speculum into the patient’s vagina to separate the vaginal walls. Physicians have used devices to view inside a woman’s vagina for centuries, but physicians did not begin using what is known as a speculum in the twenty-first century until the 1800s.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction
“Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus: Implications for Male Reproductive Function” (2007), by Ishola Agbaje, Deirdre Rogers, Carmel McVicar, Neil McClure, Albert Atkinson, Con Mallidis, and Sheena Lewis
In 2007, Ishola Agbaje, Deirdre Rogers, Carmel McVicar, Neil McClure, Albert Atkinson, Con Mallidis, and Sheena Lewis published “Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus: Implications for Male Reproductive Function,” hereby “Diabetes Mellitus: Implications,” in the journal Human Reproduction. In their article, the authors explore the effects of elevated blood sugar in the form of diabetes mellitus on the quality of male sperm.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Disorders
Robert Geoffrey Edwards (1925-2013)
Robert Geoffrey Edwards worked with Patrick Christopher Steptoe to develop in-vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques during the 1960s and 1970s in the United Kingdom. Louise Brown, the world' s first "test-tube baby," was born as a result of Edwards and Steptoe's IVF techniques in 1978, and since then more than four million children have been born using IVF techniques. Publicity and controversy accompanied Edwards and Steptoe's work as conservative religious institutions expressed concern over the morality of the IVF procedure.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Reproduction
Shinya Yamanaka (1962- )
Shinya Yamanaka gained international prominence after publishing articles detailing the successful generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, first in mice, then in humans. Yamanaka induced somatic cells to act like human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), allowing researchers to experiment with non-embryonic stem cells with a similar capacity as hESCs. The research involving iPS cells therefore offered new potential for research and application in medical treatment, without many of the ethical objections that hESC research entailed.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
"Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells without Myc from Mouse and Human Fibroblasts" (2007), by Masato Nakagawa et al.
In November 2007, Masato Nakagawa, along with a number of other researchers including Kazutoshi Takahashi, Keisuke Okita, and Shinya Yamanaka, published "Generation of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells without Myc from Mouse and Human Fibroblasts" (abbreviated "Generation") in Nature. In "Generation," the authors point to dedifferentiation of somatic cells as an avenue for generating pluripotent stem cells useful for treating specific patients and diseases.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Experiments
Seed Banking 1979-1994
In the early twentieth century, scientists and agriculturalists collected plants in greenhouses, botanical gardens, and fields. Seed collection efforts in the twentieth century coincided with the professionalization of plant breeding. When scientists became concerned over the loss of plant genetic diversity due to the expansion of a few agricultural crops around mid-century, countries and organizations created seed banks for long-term seed storage.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations
"Human Factor IX Transgenic Sheep Produced by Transfer of Nuclei from Transfected Fetal Fibroblasts" (1997), by Angelika E. Schnieke, et al.
In the 1990s, researchers working at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, performed cloning experiments in collaboration with PPL Therapeutics in Roslin, Scotland, on human coagulation factor IX, a protein. The team of scientists used the methods identified during the Dolly experiments to produce transgenic livestock capable of producing milk containing human blood clotting factor IX, which helps to treat a type of hemophilia.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
Chapter One and Chapter Two from “Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development” (1994), by United Nations Population Fund
“Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development” comprises the majority of context within the twenty-year sustainable development plan, International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action, hereafter POA, published in 1994 by the United Nations Population Fund or UNFPA. Given the rising global population, the goal of the POA was to outline the steps governments around the world were to take to achieve sustainable development by 2014.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Outreach
“Child Development in the Context of Disaster, War, and Terrorism: Pathways of Risk and Resilience” (2012), by Ann S. Masten and Angela J. Narayan
In 2012 Ann S. Masten and Angela J. Narayan published the article “Child Development in the Context of Disaster, War, and Terrorism: Pathways of Risk and Resilience” in Annual Reviews in Psychology. The authors conducted their study at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the article, Masten and Narayan review a number of articles to examine and compile the research made since the twenty-first century on the psychological impact of mass trauma, such as war, terrorism, and disasters, on children.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Mizuko Kuyo
Mizuko Kuyo is a Japanese Buddhist ceremony that focuses on a deceased fetus or stillborn child. This ceremony was originally developed to honor Jizo, a god believed to be responsible for transporting dead fetuses or children to the other world. The practice has become more popular in the last half century due to the growing number of abortions taking place and the particular views that Japanese Buddhists have about fetuses and abortion.
Format: Articles
Subject: Religion, Reproduction
Eric Wieschaus (1947- )
Eric Wieschaus studied how genes cause fruit fly larvae to develop in the US and Europe during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, Wieschaus and colleague Christiane Nusslein-Volhard described genes and gene products that help form the fruit fly body plan and establish the larval segments during embryogenesis. This work earned Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
Amniocentesis Prior to 1980
The extraembryonic membranes that surround and originate from the embryos of vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, and mammals are crucial to their development. They are integral to increasing the surface area of the uterus, forming the chorion (which in turn produces the placenta) and the amnion, respectively. The amnion will ultimately surround the embryo in a fluid-filled amniotic cavity. This amniotic fluid, which cushions and protects the fetus and helps prevent the onset of labor, is sampled in amniocentesis to screen for genetic diseases.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes, Reproduction
John Philip Trinkaus (1918-2003)
John Philip Trinkaus studied the processes of cell migration and gastrulation, especially in teleost fish, in the US during the twentieth century. Called Trink by his friends, his social confidence and work ethic combined to make him a prolific and decorated developmental biologist. His scientific contributions included investigations of several different aspects of embryology.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
John D. Gearhart
John D. Gearhart is a renowned American developmental geneticist best known for leading the Johns Hopkins University research team that first identified and isolated human pluripotent stem cells from human primordial germ cells, the precursors of fully differentiated germ cells. Born in Western Pennsylvania, Gearhart lived on the family farm located in the Allegheny Mountains for the first six years of his life.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
"Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells" (2007), by Junying Yu et al.
On 2 December 2007, Science published a report on creating human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human somatic cells: "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Somatic Cells." This report came from a team of Madison, Wisconsin scientists: Junying Yu, Maxim A. Vodyanik, Kim Smuga-Otto, Jessica Antosiewicz-Bourget, Jennifer L. Frane, Shulan Tian, Jeff Nie, Gudrun A. Jonsdottir, Victor Ruotti, Ron Stewart, Igor I. Slukvin, and James A. Thomson.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
“HeLa Cells 50 Years On: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (2002), by John R. Masters
Published in 2002, prostate cancer researcher John R. Masters authored a review article HeLa Cells 50 Years On: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that described the historical and contemporary context of the HeLa cell line in research in Nature Reviews Cancer. The HeLa cell line was one of the first documented immortal cell lines, isolated from cervical cancer patient Henrietta Lacks in 1951 at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. An immortal cell line is a cluster of cells that continuously multiply on their own outside of the original host.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Menstrual Hygiene Management in Low-Income Countries
Menstrual hygiene management, or MHM, is a concept that concerns girls' and women’s access to the appropriate information and resources to manage menstruation. In December 2012, the Joint Monitoring Program, or JMP, was one of the first organizations to define MHM as a global development goal. Since then, other organizations like WaterAid and the United Nations have expanded MHM’s definition to include menstrual education that is biologically accurate and free of taboo and stigma.
Format: Articles
Subject: Processes
The Role of the Notch Signaling Pathway in Myogenesis
Among other functions, the Notch signaling pathway forestalls the process of myogenesis in animals. The Notch signaling pathway is a pathway in animals by which two adjacent cells within an organism use a protein named Notch to mechanically interact with each other. Myogenesis is the formation of muscle that occurs throughout an animal's development, from embryo to the end of life. The cellular precursors of skeletal muscle originate in somites that form along the dorsal side of the organism.
Format: Articles
The First Successful Cloning of a Gaur (2000), by Advanced Cell Technology
Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a stem cell biotechnology company in Worcester, Massachusetts, showed the potential for cloning to contribute to conservation efforts. In 2000 ACT researchers in the United States cloned a gaur (Bos gaurus), an Asian ox with a then declining wild population. The researchers used cryopreserved gaur skin cells combined with an embryo of a domestic cow (Bos taurus). A domestic cow also served as the surrogate for the developing gaur clone.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments