NEJM retracts article from former researcher once hailed as heart stem cell pioneer

The view of the heart as a static organ implies that myocyte death and formation play a negligible role in cardiac homeostasis. Although stem cells have been unexpectedly identified in several organs, including the brain, kidney, lung, and skeletal muscle, the search for a cardiac stem cell (CSC) has been perceived as a futile effort, given the acknowledged lack of regenerative potential of the myocardium. Nevertheless, in the past several years, the demonstration of myocyte renewal in the normal and diseased heart has revealed a new, dynamic, and lively picture of this organ. Components of the cell cycle machinery and markers of cell replication have been detected in cardiomyocytes. The demonstration that karyokinesis and cytokinesis involve cells expressing contractile proteins has provided evidence that cardiomyocyte division occurs in the adult heart.1 More recently, pulse-chase assays with thymidine analogs,2 lineage tracing protocols,3 and 14C birth dating of cells4 have shown the existence of myocyte turnover, a process that has been found to differ in magnitude according to the methods used for its documentation and quantification. Article see p 2559 Over the years, the heart has provided us with the evidence that solves the critical problem of the origin of cardiomyocytes. At this moment in time, paraphrasing Eugenio Montale, we could say that the human heart is “on the verge of betraying [its] final secret offering the opportunity to uncover…the still point of the world, the link that won't hold, the thread to untangle that will finally lead to the heart of a truth.”5 Newly generated myocytes may derive from division of preexisting parenchymal cells or from activation and differentiation of resident CSCs. Discriminating between these two possibilities is not an easy task. Fate-mapping strategies, which are commonly used to track the origin of cells and …

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A wealth of evidence attests that the organs of developing embryos, particularly the developing brain, are acutely sensitive to chemical perturbations. However, scientists know very little about how exposures to specific endogenous chemicals actually impact human development or children’s ability to learn. And there are almost no data on how the vast majority of the 84,000 chemicals currently listed in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory1—including most of the 201 compounds known to be neurotoxic to adults and the 1,000 chemicals shown to be neurotoxic to animals2—may affect developing infants. It is also unclear whether testing with animals always provides accurate insights into human developmental susceptibility. A new line of research based on human stem cells is providing important insights into how chemicals may affect neonatal development. Stem cells are the master cells capable of producing some or all of the 200-plus different types of cells in the human body. In time, some researchers believe stem cells may enable scientists to amass far more data on how exposure to environmental chemicals affects human development, particularly the development of the brain. Now is a “critical time to be talking about stem cell research in the environmental health context,” says Tracey Woodruff, director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School.

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Professional advancement in academic plastic surgery may depend on scholarly activity. The authors evaluate gender-based publishing characteristics in three international plastic surgery journals. A retrospective review of all articles published in 2016 in the following journals was undertaken: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, European Journal of Plastic Surgery, Annals of Surgery, and New England Journal of Medicine. Data were collected on lead author gender (first or senior author) and differences in author gender proportions, by journal, by article topic, and by geographic location were evaluated. Overall, 2610 articles were retrieved: 34.1 percent were from plastic surgery journals, 12.8 percent were from the Annals of Surgery, and 53.1 percent were from the New England Journal of Medicine. There was a lower proportion of female lead authors among plastic surgery journals compared with the Annals of Surgery and the New England Journal of Medicine (31 percent versus 39 percent versus 39 percent; p = 0.001). There were no differences in female lead author geographic location in the Annals of Surgery or the New England Journal of Medicine; within the plastic surgery journals, there were differences (p = 0.005), including a lower proportion arising from East Asia (15 percent) and a higher proportion arising from Canada (48 percent). Within plastic surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery had the lowest proportion of female lead author (p < 0.001). The proportion of female lead author varied by article topic (p < 0.001) and was notably higher in breast (45.6 percent) and lower in head and neck/craniofacial-orientated articles (25.0 percent). There are gender disparities in three mainstream plastic surgery journals-Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, the European Journal of Plastic Surgery-and there are lower proportions of lead female authorship compared with the Annals of Surgery and the New England Journal of Medicine. Further research should focus on understanding any geographic disparities that may exist.

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