2/12/2017: The Science Behind the Action

Now that I've established a fair understanding of my project, this post will explain the basic science behind AniCell's treatments. 
SCIENCE TIME!

 AniCell Biotech has a very simple philosophy: you can't do better than nature, so use what it gives you. Going off of this, their treatments primarily rely on naturally collected amnion, a great source of stem cells, and recycling this into a usable product. But what exactly is amnion?  


As seen in this diagram of a human embryo, the amnion is one of the extraembryonic membranes or "layers" produced during gestation. Other notable ones include the allantois (not pictured) and the chorion. All three of these layers are potential sources of stem cells, but due to certain problems* with the chorion and the allantois, AniCell only uses the amnion to produce their treatment. Amnion also contains two substances in addition to stem cells that make it optimal for usage as a treatment:

 1) Extracellular matrix (ECM, which basically helps animal cells bind together, is essential for tissue growth and healing)

 2) Cytokines/growth factors (these proteins facilitate the development of new cells)

 One simple analogy my mentor used to explain why amnion is so effective in healing wounds is as follows: 

 Imagine a wound as the site of a tornado strike, wiped clear of everything. At this point, if you wanted to build a new house on the barren land, you would need materials, something to hold the materials together, and a way to put all these materials together. While stem cells are the perfect "materials", ECM and cytokines are the scaffolding and workers needed to properly utilize them.   

 These are the principles behind AniCell's products, and as the weeks go on, I'll be posting more about the science behind stem cells, and how they can be applied to solve various problems.
  

*Cells from the chorion often carry antigens from the mother, posing a risk for any animals using these cells as a treatment, and the allantois encloses waste materials which are best to avoid
Picture Source: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/chorion.html



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2/24/2017: Week 3 – Time to Get Technical

Image
Normally, my Week 3 wouldn't be over until ranch duty ends tomorrow, but unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the ranch again this week (due to a piano competition). However, this does mean an earlier post for all my fans who I know are dying to read more. 😛 One quick update on the ranch before I begin: Cheyenne is not yet on yellow alert, but she is close to giving birth. Also, there's a new horse at the ranch now. She's a beautiful white mare named Lansdowne.  Lansdowne Checking Out Her Temporary Home LET THE LAB WORK BEGIN Tuesday: As I mentioned in my previous post, Lil gave birth last week, so we finally had collection material to work with. Although we currently have both amniotic fluid and amnion, we spent this week working only with the amniotic fluid. You might remember this from one of my earlier posts, but amnion/amniotic fluid contains three substances that make it ideal to be processed into a treatment: extracellular matrix, g
Read more

3/3/2017: Complicated Papers x 2

Image
Hey, everyone! I've finished thoroughly reading the papers (on cancer and stem cells) that I mentioned and will be talking about what I've learned in this post. I'll also discuss the SOP's I talked about in previous posts. But, before I start, important updates on the horses! Cheyenne has been raised to orange alert and Lansdowne is on yellow alert. Because horses typically give birth during the night time, I will be going to the ranch later tonight (from 11 P.M. to 2 A.M.) on "barn-watch" duty, monitoring the two horses and being prepared to alert the team if either goes into labor. In my Week 4 post, I'll make sure to talk about this experience, as well as everything else I've done during my fourth week with AniCell.  This post, as the title states, will be about two different types of complicated papers. SCHOLARLY ARTICLES GALORE The first type of complicated paper I'll be discussing is, you guessed it, scholarly articles. As of now, I
Read more

3/20/2017: Week 6 – Building and Crushing

Image
Hey everyone, time for some Week 6 talk! LIFE ON THE RANCH Remember that project we were working on last week? After hours of grueling work this past Saturday, we finally finished. We now officially have one mini horse proof stable!  Beautiful As you can see in the picture, the final product looks quite different from the early stage picture I included last time. One important step we took was to cut the boards we'd painted in half using a table saw. Sawwwww This method let us conserve enough wood to eventually make another stable mini horse proof. This will be necessary since we're getting two mini horses and the one that gives birth first will start getting possessive very quickly. But anyway, pretty much all our time on the ranch this week was spent finishing this up, so that sums up the ranch portion of this post. BACK TO THE LAB AGAIN Working in the lab this week came with a good deal of new and exciting experiences. But before I get to those
Read more