Category Archives: Arkansas Stem Cells

Oakleyorginals/cc-by-2.0 The spinach plants structure resembles that of animal heart tissue.

In 1967, Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the worlds first human heart transplant. Since then, organ transplants have continued to save millions of lives.

Despite the continued improvement of technology and medical advances, organ transplants are still highly invasive and run the risk of life-threatening rejections. Donors are also difficult to find, a harsh reality that renders even the most advanced transplant procedures useless.

Therefore, researchers have been experimenting with human tissue regeneration in the hopes of growing healthy tissues in recent years. Eventually, the hope is for full organs outside of the human body to be used in tissue and organ replacement.

If scientists can produce fully-functioning organs in the lab, the issues of physical rejection and donor scarcity would have a reduced negative impact on patients health.

But these researchers face a problem. Currently, human tissue regeneration takes place on the scale of small samples on cell culture petri dishes. For tissue regeneration to be truly useful in the context of medical implementation, researchers must design a method that allows for the growth and development of life-sized tissues and organs.

This presents one significant challenge in particular: how to create a vascular system that is at the same time robust and intricate enough to deliver blood to all parts of the growing tissue.

Even with advanced bioengineering techniques such as 3Dprinting, scientists are not yet able to construct the complex system of blood vessels, especially to the precision of the tiniest capillaries, which is essential to oxygen and nutrient transport for healthy tissue development.

Despite these difficulties, a recent collaborative study by Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Arkansas State University at Jonesboro shows a lot of promise.

Research teams at the three locations teamed up to explore a novel concept: using plants to grow animal tissues.

Although plants and animals exhibit immense disparities in anatomy and in their methods of fluid and chemical delivery, the scientists were able to take advantage of the similarities between the structures of plant and animal vascular networks.

The teams used decellularized spinach leaves to culture beating human cardiomyocytes. In order to decellularize the leaves, or strip the leaves of their plant cells, they flowed a detergent solution through the stems and into the veins of the leaves.

The result was a cellulose framework that is biodegradable, resembles the vessel network in human tissue and is environmentally friendly, yet harmless to humans.

To test the framework for its potential use in human tissue regeneration, researchers cultured the type of human cells that line blood vessels in the spinach veins. Then they pumped fluids and microbeads the same size as human blood cells through the system.

This method was tested and found to be effective and easily replicable in culturing human heart tissue, and with further development, the researchers hope to experiment using multiple spinach leaves to grow layers of heart muscle that can be used to treat the damaged tissue of heart attack patients.

In addition to heart tissue regeneration, the concept also has many other applications. Using different species and parts of plants, the technique is expected to work with various types of tissues.

The researchers have already successfully decellularized plants such as parsley and peanut hairy roots. Different structures of different plant species or plant parts can be used for the regeneration of specialized tissues.

In an article titled Crossing kingdoms to be published in a May 2017 edition of Science Direct a team of researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Arkansas State University-Jonesborowhy state that certain plant materials are used over others.

The spinach leaf might be better suited for a highly vascularized tissue, like cardiac tissue, whereas the cylindrical hollow structure of the stem of Impatiens capensis (jewelweed) might better suit an arterial graft. Conversely, the vascular columns of wood might be useful in bone engineering due to their relative strength and geometries.

This study not only has the potential to pioneer tissue and organ regeneration by introducing the use of plant structures, but also demonstrates that when people in different fields combine their individual knowledge, experience and perspectives, they can develop new interdisciplinary solutions.

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Human heart tissue grown from spinach The Johns Hopkins News ... - Johns Hopkins News-Letter

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Published at 6:54 AM EDT on Apr 3, 2017

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Happening Today: Tornadoes, Kushner, Gorsuch, Brain Cells, Bob Dylan, Doris Day - NBC New York

Posted on March 29, 2017, 6 a.m. in Cardio-Vascular Bioengineering

Researchers have cultured beating human heart cells on spinach leaves that were stripped of plant cells.

Research teams from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University-Jonesboro are trying to take human tissue generation to a new level to treat disease and serious injuries. The hope is to soon generate working tissue, organs, and bones to implant into patients. The main problem is how to efficiently deliver oxygen and nutrients deep into developing tissue. Current technology like 3D printing has not yet matured to do this, so researchers are trying to solve this problem by decellularizing plants and using the plants scaffolding to grow human tissue on. This new technology could unlock a new branch of bioengineering. In addition to the University researchers, specialists in plant biology and human stem cell research joined in on the project. This interdisciplinary research is expected to deliver novel solutions. Cardiac Tissue Grown on Spinach Leaves

Decellularized plants could be the answer to solving a host of limitations that tissue engineering has had to face in the past, and there are abundant plant species to choose from. The team of researchers conducted a series of experiments on decellularized spinach leaves stripped of all the cells leaving just the scaffolding. They were able to get fluids flowing through the plant's network of vessels and seeded the scaffold with functioning human heart cells. The hope is to use this technique to build layers of new heart tissue for heart patients.

Using spinach leaves, the researchers designed a technique called perfusing using a solution of detergents which is pressed through the veins of the leaves. The acidic solution dissolves the cells of the leaf leaving behind the scaffolding made of cellulose which is biocompatible with humans. This method has been used successfully before in regenerative applications to grow bone and cartilage tissue.

Plants Could Generate Arteries and Bone Tissues

The team of researchers are also experimenting on other plant species and expect successful results. The spinach leaf is unique for heart-cell generation applications because of the intricate network of vessels that mimic cardiac tissue. But other plants with hollow cylindrical tubes could be used to graft arteries or even generate bone tissue.

Tissue generation using plants may prove to be very cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Compared to the limitations and higher cost of composite or synthetic materials, plants are a sustainable source of scaffolding for tissue engineering. Research is continuing with the goal of optimizing the process of plant decellularization. Further research is needed to determine how different human tissues cells will grow and how they will be nourished on the scaffold of various plants. Finally, work is continuing on improving the vascular network necessary for the flow of blood in the human tissue.

Joshua R. Gershlak, Sarah Hernandez, Gianluca Fontana, Luke R. Perreault, Katrina J. Hansen, Sara A. Larson, Bernard Y.K. Binder, David M. Dolivo, Tianhong Yang, Tanja Dominko, Marsha W. Rolle, Pamela J. Weathers, Fabricio Medina-Bolivar, Carole L. Cramer, William L. Murphy, Glenn R. Gaudette. Crossing kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds. Biomaterials, 2017; 125: 13 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.02.011

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Beating Human Heart Tissue Grown on Spinach | Worldhealth.net ... - Anti Aging News

JONESBORO -- To most who look inside the refrigerator in a third-floor lab of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute on the Arkansas State University campus, the plastic containers of spinach and other leafy vegetables that line the shelves look like lab workers' lunches.

But to Fabricio Medina-Bolivar, a professor of metabolic engineering at ASU, they look like the future of health care.

Medina-Bolivar and a team of researchers with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and the University of Wisconsin at Madison are working together to create vascular networks for heart patients out of leaves and roots.

"The vascular system of the heart is similar to plants," said Medina-Bolivar, who started at ASU in 2005. "We began talking and said, 'Let's see what nature is doing.'"

Representatives from the three universities began brainstorming in 2014 and met at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute in Jonesboro in early 2015.

They liked what they saw, Medina-Bolivar said.

"They were doing stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin," he said. "We wondered if we could really use plant cells for human tissues. We used the same approach with plants."

The team focuses primarily on spinach leaves as the "scaffolds" in which to transplant human cells. The group has already created a replica heart on a spinach leaf by transplanting human heart cells into the plant. A video that the team recently released shows a tiny network of veins leading to the beating "heart."

Researchers flowed fluids and "microbeads" similar in size to human blood cells through the spinach's created vascular system. They also seeded the spinach veins with human cells that line blood vessels.

They also have removed cells from parsley, sweet wormwood and hairy roots of peanuts.

Medina-Bolivar said the growth of human cells in plants also can be used for developing heart muscle, and vascular columns of wood may be useful in bone engineering.

"We have a lot of work to do, but so far this is very promising," Glenn Gaudette, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said in a news release about the process. "Adopting abundant plants that farmers have been cultivating for thousands of years for use in tissue engineering could solve a host of problems limiting the field."

Joshua Gershlak, a student of Gaudette's, said in the news release that the stem of a spinach leaf reminded him of an aorta.

"So I thought, 'Let's perfuse right through the stem,'" he said. "We weren't sure it would work, but it turned out to be pretty easy and replicable."

It may sound like the fodder of campy science-fiction films in which mad scientists try to create humans out of plants, but it's working.

"This is incredible," Medina-Bolivar said. "Something like this sounds crazy. This opens the possibility of doing things people never thought of before."

As a youngster growing up in Peru, Medina-Bolivar was curious about how plants were often used for medical remedies when pharmaceutical medicines were not available.

"There was always a plant to be used for something," he said.

He earned a bachelor's degree in biology in Lima, Peru, in 1982, and later a doctorate in plant physiology at Pennsylvania State University.

The research group will meet again next Monday to discuss its next step. The researchers also are seeking millions in grant money, Medina-Bolivar said. They will look at other plants to determine whether they can be used to grow human tissue, he said, but they are still years away from testing in humans.

"This is a whole new venue," he said. "We can repair damaged hearts with plants. This is amazing."

State Desk on 04/03/2017

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Plants studied as tissue substitute - Arkansas Online

Scientists have made progress toward solving a fundamental challenge in the quest to engineer human tissue. They have a colleague who likes spinach to thank.

A team from Worcester Polytechnic Institute joining researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University has grown a piece of heart tissue on a leaf of spinach that beats and sends fluids through the vascular system just like a human heart would.

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Their findings are being published this May in the scientific journal Biomaterials.

Researchers stripped the spinach of its plant cells and cultured human heart tissue in its place. The hope is that by using plants naturally occurring network of veins scientists will be able to grow organs vastly more complex than what current 3D technology allows, said Tanja Dominko, associate professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

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One of the broadest challenges for tissue engineering is how to make [the tissue] clinically viable, Dominko said. To do that, it needs to be big. But engineered tissues dont survive well at large sizes. So we looked to where these kinds of circulatory systems exist in nature.

It turns out that plants have a very similar system and thought how much engineering would be needed to grow tissue on a plant? It turns out, not much, she said.

The idea to use spinach came about because someone in the office always had it for lunch, Dominko said.

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Dominko said the hope is that tissues could be grown on plants before being grafted onto damaged organs inside the human body. While this is very exciting news, Dominko said, it could still be a long time before that becomes a reality.

Its almost impossible to say with things like this, she said. You look at things like stem cell therapy. That was discovered 20 years ago, but its still rare. It might take a long time, but Im hopeful that it wont.

The next step is to take some plant-grown tissue in mammal subjects and see how the body reacts, Dominko said.

Weve designed an experiment to see how a mammalian system reacts to the new tissue. Well watch for any kind of adverse reaction like system failure and what happens when the plant structure eventually gives out, she said.

While getting a plant-grown heart, lung, or muscle may be years away, there is no doubt that seeing what was a once-green spinach leaf beat with life is exciting.

As the researchers wrote in their study, The development of decellularized plants ... opens up the potential for a new branch of science.

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Can a beating heart tissue grow on a spinach leaf? Yes, and WPI did it. - The Boston Globe

Posted on March 29, 2017, 6 a.m. in Cardio-Vascular Bioengineering

Researchers have cultured beating human heart cells on spinach leaves that were stripped of plant cells.

Research teams from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University-Jonesboro are trying to take human tissue generation to a new level to treat disease and serious injuries. The hope is to soon generate working tissue, organs, and bones to implant into patients. The main problem is how to efficiently deliver oxygen and nutrients deep into developing tissue. Current technology like 3D printing has not yet matured to do this, so researchers are trying to solve this problem by decellularizing plants and using the plants scaffolding to grow human tissue on. This new technology could unlock a new branch of bioengineering. In addition to the University researchers, specialists in plant biology and human stem cell research joined in on the project. This interdisciplinary research is expected to deliver novel solutions. Cardiac Tissue Grown on Spinach Leaves

Decellularized plants could be the answer to solving a host of limitations that tissue engineering has had to face in the past, and there are abundant plant species to choose from. The team of researchers conducted a series of experiments on decellularized spinach leaves stripped of all the cells leaving just the scaffolding. They were able to get fluids flowing through the plant's network of vessels and seeded the scaffold with functioning human heart cells. The hope is to use this technique to build layers of new heart tissue for heart patients.

Using spinach leaves, the researchers designed a technique called perfusing using a solution of detergents which is pressed through the veins of the leaves. The acidic solution dissolves the cells of the leaf leaving behind the scaffolding made of cellulose which is biocompatible with humans. This method has been used successfully before in regenerative applications to grow bone and cartilage tissue.

Plants Could Generate Arteries and Bone Tissues

The team of researchers are also experimenting on other plant species and expect successful results. The spinach leaf is unique for heart-cell generation applications because of the intricate network of vessels that mimic cardiac tissue. But other plants with hollow cylindrical tubes could be used to graft arteries or even generate bone tissue.

Tissue generation using plants may prove to be very cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Compared to the limitations and higher cost of composite or synthetic materials, plants are a sustainable source of scaffolding for tissue engineering. Research is continuing with the goal of optimizing the process of plant decellularization. Further research is needed to determine how different human tissues cells will grow and how they will be nourished on the scaffold of various plants. Finally, work is continuing on improving the vascular network necessary for the flow of blood in the human tissue.

Joshua R. Gershlak, Sarah Hernandez, Gianluca Fontana, Luke R. Perreault, Katrina J. Hansen, Sara A. Larson, Bernard Y.K. Binder, David M. Dolivo, Tianhong Yang, Tanja Dominko, Marsha W. Rolle, Pamela J. Weathers, Fabricio Medina-Bolivar, Carole L. Cramer, William L. Murphy, Glenn R. Gaudette. Crossing kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds. Biomaterials, 2017; 125: 13 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2017.02.011

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Beating Human Heart Tissue Grown on Spinach - Anti Aging News

Researchers face a fundamental challenge as they seek to scale up human tissue regeneration from small lab samples to full-size tissues, bones, even whole organs to implant in people to treat disease or traumatic injuries: how to establish a vascular system that delivers blood deep into the developing tissue.

Current bioengineering techniques, including 3-D printing, cant fabricate the branching network of blood vessels down to the capillary scale that are required to deliver the oxygen, nutrients, and essential molecules required for proper tissue growth. To solve this problem, a multidisciplinary research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University-Jonesboro have successfully turned to plants. They report their initial findings in the paperCrossing kingdoms: Using decelluralized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffoldspublished online in advance of the May 2017 issue of the journalBiomaterials.

Plants and animals exploit fundamentally different approaches to transporting fluids, chemicals, and macromolecules, yet there are surprising similarities in their vascular network structures, the authors wrote. The development of decellularized plants for scaffolding opens up the potential for a new branch of science that investigates the mimicry between plant and animal.

In a series of experiments, the team cultured beating human heart cells on spinach leaves that were stripped of plant cells. They flowed fluids and microbeads similar in size to human blood cells through the spinach vasculature, and they seeded the spinach veins with human cells that line blood vessels. These proof-of-concept studies open the door to using multiple spinach leaves to grow layers of healthy heart muscle to treat heart attack patients.

Other decellularized plants could provide the framework for a wide range of tissue engineering technologies. We have a lot more work to do, but so far this is very promising, said Glenn Gaudette, PhD, professor of biomedical engineering at WPI and corresponding author of the paper. Adapting abundant plants that farmers have been cultivating for thousands of years for use in tissue engineering could solve a host of problems limiting the field.

In addition to Gaudette, the WPI research team includes Tanja Dominko, PhD, DVM, associate professor of biology and biotechnology, who studies molecular mechanisms of human cell development; Pamela Weathers, PhD, professor of biology and biotechnology, a plant biologist; and Marsha Rolle, PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering, who focuses on vasculature tissue engineering. The collaborative team also includes human stem cell and plant biology researchers at Wisconsin and Arkansas. This project speaks to the importance of interdisciplinary research, Gaudette said. When you have people with different expertise coming at a problem from different perspectives, novel solutions can emerge.

The papers first author is Joshua Gershlak, a graduate student in Gaudettes lab, who helped design and conduct the experiments, and who developed an effective process for removing plant cells from spinach leaves by flowing or perfusing a detergent solution through the leaves veins. I had done decellularization work on human hearts before," Gershlak said, "and when I looked at the spinach leaf its stem reminded me of an aorta. So I thought, lets perfuse right through the stem. We werent sure it would work, but it turned out to be pretty easy and replicable. Its working in many other plants.

When the plant cells are washed away what remains is a framework made primarily of cellulose, a natural substance that is not harmful to people. Cellulose is biocompatible (and) has been used in a wide variety of regenerative medicine applications, such as cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering, and wound healing, the authors wrote.

In addition to spinach leaves, the team successfully removed cells from parsley, Artemesia annua (sweet wormwood), and peanut hairy roots. They expect the technique will work with many plant species that could be adapted for specialized tissue regeneration studies. The spinach leaf might be better suited for a highly vascularized tissue, like cardiac tissue, whereas the cylindrical hollow structure of the stem of Impatiens capensis (jewelweed) might better suit an arterial graft. Conversely, the vascular columns of wood might be useful in bone engineering due to their relative strength and geometries, the authors wrote.

Using plants as the basis for tissue engineering also has economic and environmental benefits. By exploiting the benign chemistry of plant tissue scaffolds, they wrote, we could address the many limitations and high costs of synthetic, complex composite materials. Plants can be easily grown using good agricultural practices and under controlled environments. By combining environmentally friendly plant tissue with perfusion-based decellularization, we have shown that there can be a sustainable solution for pre-vascularized tissue engineering scaffolds.

At WPI, the research continues along several lines, Gaudette said, with studies to optimize the decellularization process and further characterize how various human cell types grow while they are attached to, and are potentially nourished by, plant-based scaffolds. Also, engineering a secondary vascular network for the outflow of blood and fluids from human tissue will be explored. On April 7, 2017, Gershlak will present the technology and early results as an invited speaker at the National Academy of Inventors inaugural Student Innovation Showcase in Boston, where he will detail the work for more than 200 accomplished inventors and technology commercialization leaders.

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Team Grows Heart Tissue on Spinach Leaves - Laboratory Equipment

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On the roster: Will Trump stick with TrumpCare?- Whodunnit? CIA chasing culprit in damaging breach- Ill Tell You What: Health fibs and panda ribs- Nerd Bracket: The Flourishing Four- He only reads it for the ordinances

WILL TRUMP STICK WITH TRUMPCARE? President Trumpisreportedly headingto Louisville this weekend and its not to get a head start on handicapping the Derby.

The Bluegrass State is home toone ofthe many critics of Trumps newly proposed overhaul of Americas health care system, Sen.Rand Paul, who was one of Trumps most detested rivals during the 2016 Republican primaries.

Paul could be feeling the squeeze. Trump won 63 percent of the vote in Pauls commonwealth, a full 6 points better than Paul did in his re-election bid last year. Trump can also apply some friendlier pressure to Pauls Kentucky colleague, Senate Majority LeaderMitch McConnell, while hes at it.

And if the President means to see his first major policy initiative succeed, his weekends are going to look a lot like this and less like Mar-A-Lago golf outings for some time to come.

Trumps legislation is unpopular, but then again any replacement for ObamaCare was going to be unpopular.

Now, thats not to say that they couldnt have come up with something better than this, which is both simultaneously unambitious and flinty. But lets face facts: this was never going to be easy.

The components of this legislation reveal the audience of one for whom the bill was written, the president of the United States.

SpeakerPaul Ryanandthe House leadership team, working in conjunction with Health and Human Services SecretaryTom Price,have months to work on cutting side deals with specific caucuses and interest groups but without Trump they cannot succeed.

But Trump cannot succeed without this bill.

It only took a day for the moniker TrumpCare to adhere to this plan. Thats good news for Ryan & Co. since they will need the presidents unflagging support and undivided attention to jam and cram the legislation through.

Getting Trump and the White House on the record with full-throated support was the first and, arguably, mainobjective in preventing legislative disaster. The legislation already looks to be on life support, but a more tepid response by Trump would have put the plan straight in the morgue.

Instead, now the president owns it and its success or failure will be determined in the largest part by his gifts as a salesman and an enforcer.

Paul makes an interesting case study, much like his fellow critics Sen.Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va.,and Sen.Tom Cotton, R-Ark. They are conservative Republicans who have reasons to oppose the hyper-regulatory approach of the proposed law but also represent states that would suffer considerably under its slated elimination of Medicaid coverage.

They are doubly motivated to kill the bill, and Trump provides the only counterweight.

If the law is to pass, there will be considerable deal making at the end. But, to get to that point Trump will have to deploy political brute force. Trump extols the rebellious virtues ofAndrew Jackson, but it is the backroom badgering ofLyndon Johnsonthat the 45thpresident will need to emulate right now.

Other than his pride, what Trump has on the line now is no less than the entirety of his ambitious agenda.

If this measure fails, which it surely could, Trump can kiss goodbye his plans for overhauling the tax code and a trillion-dollar infrastructure spending package. Ryan and the rest of the Republican leadership have to now hope that Trump sees it the same way.

What remains to be seen is if Trump, famously mercurial, will stick with the already-unpopular plan as the seas get heavier.

Remember, the negotiations and sweeteners come later. If Trump cant enforce party discipline in the opening phase of this bill, there will be no deals to be made at the end because there will be no bill. RYAN TRIES TO RALLY CONSERVATIVES FOR TRUMPCARE WaPo:House SpeakerPaul D. Ryan(R-Wis.) sought on Wednesday to stem the tide of resistance to a Republican proposal to revise the Affordable Care Act, calling his plan a conservative wish list that will deliver on many years of GOP campaign promises to reform the health care system. I have no doubt well pass this because were going to keep our promises, Ryan said at a news conference following 24 hours of conservative backlash against the bill. This is a monumental, exciting conservative reform, Ryan said. Ive been working on this for 20 years. This is exciting. This is what weve been dreaming about doing. Lawmakers gathered in two House committees Wednesday to begin working on the legislation, which has also received pushback from moderates in the Senate and key health -care industry stakeholders since it was released on Monday.

Conservative caucus says Ryan doesnt have the votes -The Hill: House Freedom Caucus members saidTuesday the GOPs ObamaCare repeal and replace plan does not have the votes necessary to pass the lower chamber.The 40-member conservative caucus didnt take a formal position on the GOPs plan at their meetingTuesdaynight, but several members indicated afterward that they would not support it. The House needs 218 votes to pass the bill, meaning Republicans can only lose 20 members.

Cotton says TrumpCare plan moving too fast: Thats what we did with ObamaCare -WashEx:Arkansas Sen.Tom Cottonbelieves Republicans are moving too quickly on healthcare reform and the process is reminding him a lot of what was done in order to pass the Affordable Care Act that Republicans opposed.Were moving a bit too quickly on healthcare reform, [said on MSNBC Wednesday]. This is a big issue. This is not like the latest spending bill were going to live with healthcare reform forever. He added, I dont think we need to introduce legislation on Monday and have one chance to amend it on Wednesday. Thats what we did with Obamacare.

Physician, medical organizations slam plan -Forbes: Providers of medical care, including the American Medical Association, that have benefited from millions of paying customers under the Affordable Care Act have come out strong against the GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives American Health Care Act, also known as Trumpcare with the AMA calling it critically flawed, harming vulnerable populations. The AMA joined a chorus of groups, including the American Hospital Association and the American Academy of Family of Physicians, bemoaning the House bills lack of coverage, financial details and transparency.

AARP moves to kill bill -The Hill:AARP is going on the warpath against the Republican proposal to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The lobbying group for seniors accused House Republican leaders of crafting legislation that increases insurance premiums for consumers, while giving a sweetheart deal to big drug companies and special interests. Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable, saidNancy LeaMond, AARPs executive vice president, said in a statement.

Going it alone: Corporate bigs chart own course on health care -WSJ: Plans include prescription-drug contracts with CVS and UnitedHealth, using IBMs Watson to analyze data. A U.S. alliance formed last year by more than three dozen companies, including American Express Co., Johnson & Johnson and Macys Inc., is announcing its first plans aimed at lowering the companies health-care spending.

[Ross Douthatexplainswhy Republicans are so bad at health care legislation.]

THE RULEBOOK: LOOKING AT YOU CALIFORNIA When the dimensions of a State attain to a certain magnitude, it requires the same energy of government and the same forms of administration which are requisite in one of much greater extent.Alexander Hamilton,Federalist No. 13

TIME OUT:SO TIGERS CAN CHANGE THEIR STRIPES? Nat Geo:Spring is coming, and as some of us prepare to trade snowsuits for swimsuits, we may find a few extra pounds under our winter coats. Animals are smart. They never take their coats off. But what does animal skin look like under fur or hairespecially strikingly patterned animals such asbig catsandzebras? The short answer is it depends on the animal. All mammalian hair color is dictated by melanin-producing cells, called melanocytes, that live within hair follicles. Melanocytes that live between follicles control skin color, saysGreg Barsh, a geneticist at Hudson Alpha Biotechnology Institute in Huntsville, Alabama.The two systems are controlled by different genes, hormones, and other factors, says Barsh, who studies the genetics of animal color patterns.

Flag on the play? -Email us atHALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COMwith your tips, comments or questions.

WHODUNNIT? CIA CHASING CULPRIT IN DAMAGING BREACH Reuters: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Wednesday that they have been aware since the end of last year of a security breach at the CIA that led to anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks publishing agency documents on its hacking tools. The officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that they believed that the documents published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday were authentic. Investigators were focusing on CIA contractors as the likely source of passing materials to WikiLeaks, the officials said. The group published what it said were nearly 8,000 of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used between 2013 and 2016.

Cyber contractor warns of more to come: heavy s--- coming down -Fox News: A day after WikiLeaks released what it alleged to be the entire hacking capacity of the CIA, the focus Wednesday began shifting to just who gave the stunning surveillance information to [WikiLeaks]. There is heavy s--- coming down, said a veteran cyber contractor for the intelligence community who previously worked in the breached unit, the CIAs Center for Cyber Intelligence.

[Applesresponseto the Wiki dump? Keep your security software updated.]

SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO TEST TRUMPS CLAIM OF WIRETAPS AP: The leaders of a congressional inquiry into Russias efforts to sway the U.S. election called on the Justice Department Wednesday to produce any evidence that supports President Donald Trumps explosive wiretapping allegation. Declaring that Congress must get to the bottom of Trumps claim, Sens.LindseyGraham, R-S.C., andSheldonWhitehouse, D-R.I., asked Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and FBI Director James Comey to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Departments criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. ILL TELL YOU WHAT: HEALTH FIBS AND PANDA RIBS DanaPerinoandChrisStirewaltlook back on how we got ObamaCare and where Republicans go next. And how about those claims of wiretapping? Our duo break it all down. Plus, Dana talks about her upcoming trip with Mercy Ships while Stirewalt further pushes the acceptable boundaries of acceptable food items.WATCH HERE.

AUDIBLE: YAY? Youre stuck with me for another six and a half years. FBI DirectorJames Comeyat a Boston College law enforcement conference affirming his intention to serve out a full term, despite being dogged by political controversy for months.

PLAY-BY-PLAY Trump taps former Bush lawyerNoel Franciscoas solicitor general as part of new high-powered legal team-WashEx

Perdue, Cotton say Trump is onboard with their plan to clamp down on legal immigration -Politico

Bipartisan Senators sign letter asking Trump to address bomb threats against Jewish groups -Time

Q Poll: 81 percent of Republicans agree with Trump that the press is the enemy of the American people -Quinnipiac University

NERD BRACKET: THE FLOURISHING FOUR Its down to four. And what a quartet it is.

Thanks to the hundreds of voters who have helped us get to the semifinals of our bracket challenge for great American political oratory. But now were heading down to two and, our grand champion.

Submit your winning choices for each of the two brackets listed below toHALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COMbefore Friday at noon ET to have your voice heard. The winner of the championship will be determined by which of the two finalists got the most votes in this round.

1) a)Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg address (1863) b)George Washington: Farewell address (1796)

2) a)Ronald Reagan:The Boys of Pointe du Hoc (1984) b)Patrick Henry: Give me Liberty or Give me Death (1775)

When you send in your submission toHALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COM, you can just list the corresponding number before the entry.

[Ed. note: A sample entry would look like this: 1b, 2a]

The Gettysburg Address is simply far and away the predominant speech ever given by any American. What boggles the mind is that Mr. Lincoln was basically a self-educated man who studied word and sentence structure via the classics in order to hone those skills he felt he would need in a courtroom. That he mastered those skills we hold to be self-evident. (Sorry, couldnt help myself there). BrettCarls, Prescott Valley, Ariz.

[Ed. note: Lincoln may have been self-educated in large part, but his source material was pretty great. The collected plays ofWilliamShakespeareand the King James Bible would be a good enough grounding for even a prairie boy with dreams of great things. One of the hallmarks of Lincoln in his youth was his insatiable appetite for books and reading. He famously had to work for a neighbor to pay off the debt of a book that had become damaged by water and was also said to keep a slim volume in his back pocket while plowing so he could pause at the end of a row to turn a few pages. Needless to say, this was not common practice in the frontier woods of Indiana.]

I think people favor the impact of things theyve personally experienced. I especially wish citizens were more familiar with Lincolns second inaugural address, which is a masterpiece of healing and of accepting corporate responsibility for institutional sins. If only he were here for the immigration debate! KathyNesper, Long Beach, Calif.

[Ed. note: You could hardly be more right, Ms. Nesper. Appreciation and proximity often go together. But even at a distance so great as ours to the spring of 1865 the power and significance of Lincolns words to a nation at the end of its most horrible struggle sound a powerful note in any human heart.]

For us oldsters, Patrick Henrys speech represents the real American spirit of freedom. Of course, my ancestors (Virginia first generation 1720s) were more than likely non-players on either side Quakers I think. MikeWilmore, Driftwood Texas

[Ed. note: Henrys challenge to his fellow Virginia burgesses is a stark one, especially for Americans today who daily wrestle with the balance between liberty and comfort. Henrys argument was that no amount of concessions from the crown would be worth sacrificing the inherent freedom granted by God to all human kind. Very little discussion in America today centers on the discussion of freedom for its own sake. I wonder about its chances in the final pairings since the language is not just archaic, but unfamiliar to the ears of many today.]

Your second bracket of the second round, Ronald Reagans The Boys of Pointe du Hoc (1984) v. Abraham Lincolns Second Inaugural Address (1865) appears to be the exact same pairing from the first round.Admittedly, I know very little about sports, so if theres something Im missing please forgive this email! I love the Halftime Report--thank you so much for your witty and informative writing. A fellow Mountaineer. SusanKescenovitz, Sheboygan, Wisc.

[Ed. note: You are right and our listing was in error. But it is too late now to start again. We transposed Reagans entries and ended up with a different, more beautiful, but less historically significant entry for the 40thpresident. Even so, the Gipper is represented, and with a speech that was good enough to get him in to the final four. Were sorry for the error, but glad that it didnt affect the outcome.]

Great idea to do a Worst Speeches Ever andJimmy Carters Malaise speech should definitely make the Sour Sixteen.I also nominateBill Clintons 1988 keynote speech to the 1988 Democratic National Convention when he was still Governor of Arkansas. It went on forever and ever and ever. It was supposed to last 15 minutes and instead lasted 33 minutes. I grew a full beard as I listened. The crowd actually cheered when he said In conclusion . . . DuaneBrown, Decherd, Tenn.

[Ed. note: If only politicians could learn that excellence and duration are usually inversely correlated when it comes to political oratory!]

Shareyour color commentary:Email us atHALFTIMEREPORT@FOXNEWS.COMand please make sure to include your name and hometown.

HE ONLY READS IT FOR THE ORDINANCES Panama City News Herald:The city of [Springfield, Fla.s] former website has been taken over by some questionable content. Last week the city began receiving complaints from citizens who were visiting the citys old website. Our main website is springfield.fl.gov, and if the citizens go to (the old website), it now goes to a porno site, MayorRalph Hammondsaid. Hammond said the city apparently let the domain name expire, and the site now contains Japanese pornography. The citys IT department now is seeking to buy back the domain and any domains names similar to the citys current springfield.fl.gov website. Hammond said the city will keep its .gov website and will have a year to buy back the old domain. Its quite embarrassing, Hammond said. I had one gentleman call and say, Im not voting for you anymore because you got porn on the city website.

AND NOW, A WORD FROM CHARLES But the real story is I think this is worse than [Edward]Snowden. Its one thing to disclose names and places and even operations, but once you are describing the sources and methods, thats the key to what we do. -CharlesKrauthammeron Special Report withBretBaier.

ChrisStirewaltis the politics editor for Fox News.SallyPersonscontributed to this report. Want FOX News Halftime Report in your inbox every day? Sign uphere.

Chris Stirewalt joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in July of 2010 and serves as digital politics editor based in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he authors the daily "Fox News First" political news note and hosts "Power Play," a feature video series, on FoxNews.com. Stirewalt makes frequent appearances on the network, including "The Kelly File," "Special Report with Bret Baier," and "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace." He also provides expert political analysis for Fox News coverage of state, congressional and presidential elections.

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Will Trump stick with TrumpCare? - Fox News

Advanced materials are revolutionizing our daily lives from clothing to clinics to cattle?

A nanomaterial-based bone regeneration technology developed at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock helped save a valuable animals life. In the future, this technology could help people suffering from a variety of severe injuries and ailments.

Alexandru Biris, director of the UA Little Rock Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, led the development of this technology, the NuCress scaffold, a temporary, implantable filler for missing bone that encourages healthy bone regeneration and is absorbed into the body.

In addition to its unique 3-D structure, the device can be loaded with beneficial drugs, such as antibiotics to fight infection or hormones and stem cells to encourage healing.

Biris began developing the device in 2005, initially intending it for regeneration of small sections of bone, such as in the human jaw. He believes the NuCress scaffold will, one day, be an invaluable tool for repairing the kind of irregular, complicated bone gaps often seen in victims of severe trauma from wartime violence, car crashes, and bone disease.

For now, the scaffold is making a name for itself in Americas heartland.

More than a decade ago, Biris started collaborating with David Anderson, a veterinarian, and the pair have been refining and developing the device ever since.

Anderson has conducted biomaterials and bone trauma research since 1991 through his work at Kansas State and Ohio State universities. Since 2012, he has been a professor and the head of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. Anderson is an internationally renowned expert in veterinary orthopedic surgery, having given keynote addresses in more than a dozen countries and published extensively on the subject.

Andersons position and reputation mean he is occasionally called on to take his skills from the classroom to the community.

Veterinary teaching hospitals exist for two main purposes. One is to educate vet students, and the other is to serve the community with advanced expertise in technologies, Anderson said. If the primary veterinarian is not able to fix the problem, they can send it to the tertiary care center at the veterinary teaching hospital, where the equipment and expertise is available to be able to deal with these types of complex problems.

This is exactly what happened in 2010, when he was contacted by a local veterinarian whose patient, a young bull in Kansas, had a serious leg injury likely caused by a misplaced step in a hole. While Anderson and his team were no strangers to complicated animal injuries, this case was unique.

It was an open fracture that was very badly contaminated with hair, dirt, manure, and debris. The bone was severely damaged, Anderson said.

Not only was the injury severe, but the stakes were high the animal was no ordinary bovine.

The bull was an Angus breeding bull selected to add genetic advancement for that herd. This was probably about a $20,000 bull. It would have been a total loss for the owner if the bull was put down.

Initially, Anderson and his team put in an external skeletal fixation system to stabilize the bone, hoping this would be sufficient to heal the bull.

The bull, however, was not responding. The complexity and contamination of the wound resulted in a bone break that simply wouldnt heal. Infection had set in, conventional methods had been exhausted, and the prize bull was running out of options.

We either had to do something dramatic or we would have to euthanize the animal, Anderson said.

Not ready to give up, Anderson turned to his research with Biris.

In previous studies, the pair had already shown that their scaffold was effective for delivery of antibiotics. Though this scaffold was smaller in size than what the bull would require, Anderson decided to take a chance.

I called Alex and I asked if he could make one for this bull to see if we could try to control the infection and stimulate the bone to heal more quickly, Anderson said.

Biris immediately went to work, scaling up the scaffold by almost six times the original prototypes size.

The scaffold was loaded with antibiotics and implanted by Andersons team inside the bulls fractured leg. Then they waited, keeping their expectations low.

When the infection has progressed to that extent, it is actually fairly uncommon to be able to reverse it, and most of these animals with such infections end up being euthanized because they are simply too big to survive with an amputated limb, Anderson explained.

But the bull and the scaffold defied expectations. Not only did the bone heal, but the infection was stopped in its tracks and completely reversed.

These results, Anderson asserts, were astounding.

The bull returned to full function in his herd in a relatively short amount of time at a fraction of the cost to the rancher that replacement would have involved.

While this experience was not the first evidence of the scaffolds usefulness, it reinforced its potential value.

There is no question that this is a product that has real merit, Anderson said. It can change the way we do therapy and can really improve outcomes for patients.

Today, UA Little Rock has patented the scaffold technology, and Biris and his team received almost $10 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop it further. The researchers hope to bring the NuCress scaffold to clinical trial in the next few years, but theyll always remember their first successful patient a prize bull from a ranch in the heartland.

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From Bovines to the Battlefield: New Bone Regeneration Technology Has Wide-ranging Benefits - Laboratory Equipment

Newswise LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (March 6, 2017) Advanced materials are revolutionizing our daily lives from clothing to clinics to cattle?

A nanomaterial-based bone regeneration technology developed at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock helped save a valuable animals life. In the future, this technology could help people suffering from a variety of severe injuries and ailments.

Dr. Alexandru Biris, director of the UA Little Rock Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences, led the development of this technology, the NuCress scaffold, a temporary, implantable filler for missing bone that encourages healthy bone regeneration and is absorbed into the body.

In addition to its unique 3-D structure, the device can be loaded with beneficial drugs, such as antibiotics to fight infection or hormones and stem cells to encourage healing.

Biris began developing the device in 2005, initially intending it for regeneration of small sections of bone, such as in the human jaw. He believes the NuCress scaffold will, one day, be an invaluable tool for repairing the kind of irregular, complicated bone gaps often seen in victims of severe trauma from wartime violence, car crashes, and bone disease.

For now, the scaffold is making a name for itself in Americas heartland.

More than a decade ago, Biris started collaborating with Dr. David Anderson, a veterinarian, and the pair have been refining and developing the device ever since.

Anderson has conducted biomaterials and bone trauma research since 1991 through his work at Kansas State and Ohio State universities. Since 2012, he has been a professor and the head of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine. Anderson is an internationally renowned expert in veterinary orthopedic surgery, having given keynote addresses in more than a dozen countries and published extensively on the subject.

Andersons position and reputation mean he is occasionally called on to take his skills from the classroom to the community.

Veterinary teaching hospitals exist for two main purposes. One is to educate vet students, and the other is to serve the community with advanced expertise in technologies, Anderson said. If the primary veterinarian is not able to fix the problem, they can send it to the tertiary care center at the veterinary teaching hospital, where the equipment and expertise is available to be able to deal with these types of complex problems.

This is exactly what happened in 2010, when he was contacted by a local veterinarian whose patient, a young bull in Kansas, had a serious leg injury likely caused by a misplaced step in a hole. While Anderson and his team were no strangers to complicated animal injuries, this case was unique.

It was an open fracture that was very badly contaminated with hair, dirt, manure, and debris. The bone was severely damaged, Anderson said.

Not only was the injury severe, but the stakes were high the animal was no ordinary bovine.

The bull was an Angus breeding bull selected to add genetic advancement for that herd. This was probably about a $20,000 bull. It would have been a total loss for the owner if the bull was put down.

Initially, Anderson and his team put in an external skeletal fixation system to stabilize the bone, hoping this would be sufficient to heal the bull.

The bull, however, was not responding. The complexity and contamination of the wound resulted in a bone break that simply wouldnt heal. Infection had set in, conventional methods had been exhausted, and the prize bull was running out of options.

We either had to do something dramatic or we would have to euthanize the animal, Anderson said.

Not ready to give up, Anderson turned to his research with Biris.

In previous studies, the pair had already shown that their scaffold was effective for delivery of antibiotics. Though this scaffold was smaller in size than what the bull would require, Anderson decided to take a chance.

I called Alex and I asked if he could make one for this bull to see if we could try to control the infection and stimulate the bone to heal more quickly, Anderson said.

Biris immediately went to work, scaling up the scaffold by almost six times the original prototypes size.

The scaffold was loaded with antibiotics and implanted by Andersons team inside the bulls fractured leg. Then they waited, keeping their expectations low.

When the infection has progressed to that extent, it is actually fairly uncommon to be able to reverse it, and most of these animals with such infections end up being euthanized because they are simply too big to survive with an amputated limb, Anderson explained.

But the bull and the scaffold defied expectations. Not only did the bone heal, but the infection was stopped in its tracks and completely reversed.

These results, Anderson asserts, were astounding.

The bull returned to full function in his herd in a relatively short amount of time at a fraction of the cost to the rancher that replacement would have involved.

While this experience was not the first evidence of the scaffolds usefulness, it reinforced its potential value.

There is no question that this is a product that has real merit, Anderson said. It can change the way we do therapy and can really improve outcomes for patients.

Today, UA Little Rock has patented the scaffold technology, and Biris and his team received almost $10 million from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop it further. The researchers hope to bring the NuCress scaffold to clinical trial in the next few years, but theyll always remember their first successful patient a prize bull from a ranch in the heartland.

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New bone regeneration technology has wide-ranging ... - Newswise - Newswise (press release)