Phillip Marzella from the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery is part of the team that developed Neopec, the new stem cell technique for regrowing breast tissue. The researchers implant a chamber containing some of the individual's own fat tissue under the skin. The chamber is connected to the individual's blood vessels, and fat then grows to fill the chamber, creating a new breast. The chamber itself degrades naturally over time.

Marzella's team has had success with Neopec in pig trials, with the pigs growing new breasts in just six weeks. In the next three to six months, they plan to start a human trial on women who have had partial or total mastectomies. Marzella says that he hopes the technique will someday alleviate at least one aspect of the breast cancer diagnosis, and says that while Neopec might have some cosmetic applications down the road, he doesn't see it being used for cosmetic purposes in the next 10 years.

Australian scientists to start 'breast regrowth' trial [Telegraph via PopSci]

In the new issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine will detail their findings in penile tissue regeneration. Using twelve New Zealand White rabbits with damaged penises, the team engineered replacement tissues using each rabbit's own erectile tissues. They then injected these replacement cells into scaffold made from rabbit penises that had been stripped of their cells; the scaffold act as support for the developing cells. The scaffolds were then implanted in the rabbits, after which the organized tissues began to form.

Once the penises were fully formed, the rabbits were just as sexually active as rabbits with non-reconstructed genitals, mating with female rabbits within a moment of introduction. The team also found that the rabbits' sexual performance was fully functional, and several female rabbits became pregnant and produced healthy offspring as a result of the encounter.

Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University Baptist, believes that the same technique can be applied to human males who have erectile cells, but have damaged or deformed penises — as well as men looking to upgrade their current equipment. The procedure probably wouldn't require scaffolding from another penis, however. Researchers are currently looking into printable structures made from collagen and other materials.

Artificial Penis Tissue Proves Promising in Lab Tests [LiveScience]

Nanoboxes

Researchers at Washington University in St Louis have developed tiny gold cubes called nanoboxes which could deliver drugs to precisely targeted areas of the body. How? These boxes only open up and spill their drug contents when exposed to light.

The nanoscale boxes will come packed with a drug, and then release it when hit by a laser. To do this, nanoscale gold boxes are created, and then coated with a polymer called poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). The polymers cling to the outer walls of the cube like hairs on a muppet, and seal the pores on the cube, thus preventing any of the payload from leaking. When the gold is hit by light of a resonant frequency, it absorbs it and converts it to heat, and when the polymer is warmed, it shrinks and collapses, releasing the medicine. Once the light is turned off, the polymers stand on end again, re-sealing the boxes.

According to Dr. Jingyi Chen, one of the principal investigators on the technology, the opening and closing is nearly instantaneous. The nanocubes heat up "from a nanosecond to a femtosecond, [the drugs] are released a little bit slower, that takes around a millisecond." They cool down at the same rate, which allows for extremely fine targeting of dosage. The really cool part is that both the gold and polymer can be fine tuned to work under specific conditions. By thickening the gold walls, the wavelength of light that it can absorb shifts. In this case, they're aiming for the 750-900 nanometer range. Why this wavelength? Because at this point it can penetrate the human body very easily, and can travel inches into the body, as the muscle and blood doesn't easily absorb this wavelength of light. The polymer is then tuned to react to a level of heat that won't kill any cells, but is still above the normal temperature of the body. In trials, the boxes were exposed to a laser of the correct frequency, releasing their dose, and then closing up once the light was turned off. Researchers used the boxes as a way of delivering targeted chemotherapy drugs and antibiotics to a controlled area.

Synthetic Skin

If you're dealing with open wounds, once you flush out any possible bacteria, you need to deal with the realities of closing the flesh. In situations where an injury is over a certain size, it can't be relied on to close normally. Through the use of collagen extracted from skin, doctors can induce new skin to grow by giving it a framework over which to expand. The collagen can be extracted and grown from a variety of sources, such as donated skin, baby's foreskins (apparently up to four football fields worth, which is an utterly disturbing mental image), or from non-human sources, such as mammal organs or reptile skin. The collagen can also be impregnated with other ingredients, such as silver, which is naturally antibiotic. For anything from burns to bedsores, this skin scaffolding can lead to impressive regrowth and healing.

Nerve Regeneration

With spinal injuries, on the other hand, growth is a major problem. The creation of scar tissue around damaged areas of the central nervous system can prevent nerves from healing and regaining function. Previously, the enzyme chrondroitinase ABC (chABC) was used to reduce the scar tissue, but it functioned poorly at body temperature. Within an hour of being injected, it loses half of its potency, and the rest within a few days. Due to this a catheter or pump has to be installed, so that the enzymes can be repeatedly delivered over the two weeks required for it to be effective. Researchers at Georgia Tech have discovered away to reduce the thermal sensitivity of the enzyme, so it can stay in your body effectively for weeks, by bonding the chABC with the sugar trehalose. They also developed a new way to deliver the drug, via an injection of hydrogel filled with microtubes, which allowed deeper penetration than catheters, and slowly releases the drugs over a two week period. This means that the spinal scar tissue can be effectively reduced by a single injection, rather than weeks of constant exposure, and without requiring invasive implants.

Tennant already filmed a scene, from his final episode, where he says goodbye to 1970s traveling companion Sarah Jane Smith and her adopted son Luke. But now Tennant is back in Penarth, where Sarah Jane's house is, and so is his time machine, the TARDIS. This could just be another pick-up scene from his Doctor Who episode, except that Tennant is wearing a different outfit. Also, rumor has it he was at the script read-through for the third season of Sarah Jane's spin-off show, the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Here's hoping he will turn up in at least one episode of Sarah Jane's show — it's his last chance, after all. I have no clue when her next season will air, or whether it'll be before his own final episodes. It would be terribly, terribly naughty of Tennant's Doctor to say his final goodbyes to Sarah Jane, regenerate into Matt Smith and then have an earlier version of himself pop up to have one last adventure with her. (Or maybe it's the other way around. He would have an adventure with her, then go back to say goodbye — accidentally arriving at an earlier point in her timeline? Either way, confusing!) Set pics by Mali. [Planet Gallifrey]

The show, now filming in Australia, has released a ton of new information about this new version of K-9. Including an explanation for why he no longer looks like the original version on television. Co-creator and series writer Bob Baker (who also wrote the Wallace And Gromit films) fielded fans' questions on his official forum, and he said that when we first see K-9, he'll look identical to the version which the Doctor left on his home planet, Gallifrey, with his companion Leela. Also, the voice won't come from original voice artist John Leeson, but will have the same speech patterns.

So how does K-9 go from looking like his 1970s incarnation to getting all spiffed up? Here's the synopsis that Park Entertainment released:

K9 is a children's sci-fi/adventure series combining comedy, action and suspense "X Files" meets "Men in Black" with a zany dash of "Ghostbusters". K9 mixes live action characters with stunning visual-effects.

London, in the future: STARKEY (14) orphan and rebel ultimately plans to bring down the system but for the time being he is prepared to simply slip through the cracks. While evading the police he takes refuge in a large detached house, now the residence of reclusive scientist, Professor GRYFFEN. He is followed by JORJIE (14) an adventurous girl who partly admires Starkey's dissident stance, but mostly wants to share whatever excitement is afoot.

Inside the dilapidated mansion, they see Gryffen absorbed in an experiment with a strange piece of alien technology, a Space Time Manipulator (S/TM). DARIUS (15) an artful dodger who, among his many occupations, runs errands for Gryffen, confronts the pair, but at that moment a portal opens and through the hole torn in the fabric of space/time burst two reptilian warrior JIXEN. The Jixen attack Starkey. The teenager is saved from certain death by a small dog-like robot, K9 Mark I, who follows the Jixen through the portal and places himself between the monsters and boy.

In the ensuing battle, the only way K9 can defeat the Jixen is to blow himself and them to pieces. One surviving Jixen limps out of the mansion. Before expiring, K9 is able to give instructions that allow Starkey to initiate a regeneration program. A new, more sophisticated and futuristically designed K9 is regenerated.

K9 and Starkey, with the assistance of Jorjie, Darius and Gryffen, become the earth's front line defence against dangers threatening from anywhere and anytime in the galaxy. They will have a lot of fun, action, adventure, and some scares along the way, saving the earth from alien creatures, monsters and more than a few human threats.

And Baker said K-9 will meet "a menagerie of super monster 'uglies'" in the course of the first 26 half-hour episodes.

Meanwhile, production site Metal Mutt released a partial list of episode titles. The first two episodes are "Feast Of The Merons" parts one and two. Episode four is "The Last Oak Tree In England." Episode six is "Sirens Of Ceres". Episode seven is "Dreameaters." Episode eight is "Devil's Den." Nine is "Jaws Of Orthrus." Episode ten is "Oroborus." Episode eleven is "Alien Avatar." Episode 12 is "The Curse Of Anubis." And episode 13 is "The Fall Of The House Of Gryffen."

And there's a gallery of some of the locations they're using on the series, including some ominous tunnels, an old gun turret, some mediaeval steps and lots of countryside that K-9 will have to navigate somehow. More images are over at Metal Mutt.

Top K-9 image from Wired. K-9 News [Outpost Gallifrey]

Complete with a pistol that sprays skin-healing stem cells (pictured), a tissue-printer that can print human organs, and of course the very famous — and controversial — "pixie dust" derived from pig bladders for regenerating limbs, the newly created Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine will throw $250 million at new therapies to help patch up of fixing soldiers maimed in battle in Iraq. It's always possible that some of the techs may not work out but with a quarter billion dollars of backing, it's probably just a mater of time until you see "Skin Guns" right next to the Band Aids in your local drugstore aisle. (from: PopSci)

Turns out Alan Spievak worked in regenerative medicine, and was familiar with Stephen Badylak's work at the University of Pittsburgh. Toiling in the lab, Badylak figured out that extra cellular matrix from a pig bladder (the stuff leftover when bladder cells are washed away), is chock full of biochemical signals that prevent scarring from stunting cells' regenerative tendencies. But he'd never used it on people, so when Spievak rubbed the powder on the nub of his finger, it was untested. But it worked, and an article on the BBC website has got the video to prove it. The question is: how much of a limb or organ could we one day regrow with the stuff?

From the BBC story:

If they can perfect the technique, it might mean one day they could repair not just a severed finger, but severely burnt skin, or even damaged organs . . . They hope soon to start a clinical trial in Buenos Aires on a woman who has cancer of the oesophagus. The normal procedure in such cases is often deadly. Doctors remove the cancerous portion and try to stretch the stomach lining up to meet the shortened oesophagus. In the trial they will place the extra cellular matrix inside the body from where the portion of oesophagus has been removed, and hope to stimulate the cells around it to re-grow the missing portion.

So could limbs be re-grown? Dr Badylak is cautious, but believes the technology is potentially revolutionary.

"I think that within ten years that we will have strategies that will re-grow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones. And that is a major step towards eventually doing the entire limb."

Source: BBC via PopSci

Image: Daily Mail

If Simm is to return in any guise, the show's writers would either have to explain his resurrection or add him in another way. And if he is indeed to return as the Doctor, an even more ingenious explanation will be required to account for his transformation from the Timelord's sworn enemy to the central character himself - unless, of course, their facial similarities are entirely glossed over.

Actually, the original Doctor Who already showed a Time Lord (Romana) regenerating into the doppleganger of someone she'd recently met. Maybe the Doctor's subconscious guilt that he couldn't save the Master will drive him to take on his face? A reality check is in order, however: it's probably way too early to be casting the next Doctor, since Tennant is set to play the role through 2009. But we can dream. In other news, Captain Jack will be in Doctor Who season four.

John Simm Tapped To Be New Doctor Who [IC Wales]