Dr. Sandra Ryeom is the Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Ryeom’s lab focuses on understanding the contribution of endothelial cells in different organs towards maintaining stem cell populations. She joins us to discuss her work and recent paper in Nature Communications.

Zaps to Brain to Ease Depression – People’s moods quickly improved after scientists stimulated the orbitofrontal cortex in the brain, a finding that may ultimately usher in powerful ways to combat severe depression.

Gut Bacteria May Guard against Diabetes – The friendly gut bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila may help protect against Type II diabetes. Those bacteria are lost with aging, setting the stage for the disease.

Small Doses of Peanut Protein Can Help Allergies – A study finds that allergic children exposed to gradually increasing doses of peanut protein increased their tolerance to nuts, and lowered symptom severity.

Coffee or Tea Preference Is Written In DNA – Whether people drink tea or coffee may depend partly on which bitter chemicals they have a genetic sensitivity towards.

The First CRISPR Babies Are Born in China – A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies by using CRISPR technology.

Intestinal Allografts Contain Functional Hematopoietic Stem Cells – A surprising new study has found that the human intestine may provide up to 10 percent of blood cells in circulation from its own reservoir of hematopoietic stem cells.

Healthy Blood Stem Cell Have As Many DNA Mutations as Leukemic Cells – Researchers have found that the number of mutations in healthy and leukemic hematopoietic stem cells does not differ.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Sandra Ryeom

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