Students investigate the bone structure of a turkey femur and then create their own prototype versions as if they are biomedical engineers designing bone transplants for a bird. The challenge is to mimic the size, shape, structure, mass and density of the real bone. Students begin by watching a TED Talk about printing a human kidney and reading a news article about 3D printing a replacement bone for an eagle. Then teams gather data—using calipers to get the exact turkey femur measurements—and determine the bone’s mass and density. They make to-scale sketches of the bone and then use modeling clay, plastic drinking straws and pipe cleaners to create 3D prototypes of the bone. Next, groups each cut and measure a turkey femur cross-section, which they draw in CAD software and then print on a 3D printer. Students reflect on the design/build process and the challenges encountered when making realistic bone replacements. A pre/post-quiz, worksheet and rubric are included. If no 3D printer, shorten the activity by just making the hand-generated replicate bones.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Patellar tendinopathy, or jumper’s knee, is a common injury in athletes of all skill levels. Aside from causing pain and dysfunction, the condition can be costly for individuals and sports teams. Physical therapy is critical, but consistently effective treatment regimens remain elusive. Regenerative therapy is one promising alternative, as platelet-rich plasma injection and cultured stem cell injection have been shown to repair other types of damaged tissue. To explore the benefits for jumper’s knee, researchers compared these two treatments in patients with patellar tendinopathy. The findings, reported in _The American Journal of Sports Medicine_, suggest that cultured stem cell injection is a particularly promising option for functional and structural healing. The researchers examined 20 male patients with patellar tendinopathy that had lasted for at least 4 months, was unresponsive to nonsurgical treatments, and featured lesions larger than 3 mm..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Sound waves. They bring music to our ears, help doctors peer inside our bodies, and even allow us to “see” underwater. Now, scientists are using these versatile packets of vibrating energy for a new application: growing functional, transplantable blood vessels right on the benchtop. These engineered tissues can be used to repair injuries caused by diminished blood flow from blood clots or other blockages. But there’s a lot to consider when fabricating therapeutic blood vessels. There are biological and mechanical attributes that are tricky to get right. The body’s vasculature is complex and multiscale, and a precise geometric arrangement is needed for efficient perfusion. Vessels are also composed of multiple cell types, which need to be well integrated to function. To engineer tissues that meet these requirements, scientists developed a new acoustophoretic cell patterning technique. The method uses sound waves to precisely align cells into user-defined patterns..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multifunctional cells with the ability to reduce inflammation and repair tissue when injected directly. But MSC use is controversial, especially in patients with cancer or in cancer remission, as MSCs can release growth factors that can promote tumor growth. Fortunately, new research is showing that certain MSC contents can exert targeted beneficial effects without these drawbacks, most notably, microRNAs packaged inside exosomes. These loaded exosomes can accumulate at sites of tissue damage, and many studies suggest that MSC exosomes can be applied to cancer therapy, gene therapy, drug delivery, regenerative medicine, and other biomedical applications. Further research could reveal new and more effective ways of packaging and transferring exosomes from MSCs to recipient cells, and thereby lead to new methods of treating and monitoring various diseases..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Osteoarthritis is a painful degradation of joint cartilage. Therapies that boost cartilage's limited ability to repair using adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) have shown promise in cell culture and animal studies, but that success has not carried over to clinical trials. This variability in clinical trials may come down to how the cells are cultured prior to implantation. To test this, a recent study examined a co-culture system combining ASCs taken from the fat pad behind the patella and cartilage cells (chondrocytes). Co-cultured ASCs and chondrocytes had higher expression of cartilage-associated genes than expected, and the effect was larger in cultures with a lower ratio of ASCs to chondrocytes. This gene expression change likely reflects changes in the ASCs and would suggest that the ASCs are starting to make the molecular changes needed to repair damaged cartilage, but increased expression in the chondrocytes, rather than the ASCs, cannot be ruled out without further experiments..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This presentation was developed by Martha Lopez Yrigoyen. It is intended as a flexible tool for lectures and tutorials for first year students in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Diagrams are also encouraged to be used by scientists, science communicators and educators.Not all slides will be useful for everyone or for every occasion. Slides can be adapted for the purpose needed. There are two main activities intended for undergraduate students to engage and deepen their knowledge in the field of stem cells. The first  activity is more general and its aim is to familiarize students with the core concepts in stem cell and regenerative medicine. The second activity is a novel and current example of how induced pluripotent stem cells are being used in cutting edge biomedical research. The two publications suggested for students to read can be swapped for other examples. Presentationislicensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This presentation was developed by Martha Lopez Yrigoyen.
It is intended as a flexible tool for lectures and tutorials for first year students in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Diagrams are also encouraged to be used by scientists, science communicators and educators.

Not all slides will be useful for everyone or for every occasion. Slides can be adapted for the purpose needed.

There are two main activities intended for undergraduate students to engage and deepen their knowledge in the field of stem cells. The first activity is more general and its aim is to familiarize students with the core concepts in stem cell and regenerative medicine. The second activity is a novel and current example of how induced pluripotent stem cells are being used in cutting edge biomedical research. The two publications suggested for students to read can be swapped for other examples.

Presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Tribbles homolog 2 (Trib2) is a pseudo serine/threonine kinase that functions as a scaffold or adaptor in many signaling pathways. Trib2 can interact with E3 ubiquitin ligases and affect the protein stability of downstream effectors, controlling transcription, cell proliferation, apoptosis, survival, and differentiation, with effects on metabolism and disease. In contrast to its critical role in cell development and homeostasis, Trib2 is also induced by mitogens and enhances cancer cell proliferation. Its involvement in several hematopoietic cancers and solid tumors makes it a valuable biomarker for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Recent studies have shown that Trib2 also plays a major role in determining the fate of stem cells, which have the potential to self-renew and differentiate into many different cell types. Trib2 may be necessary for colony formation and self-renewal of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and loss of Trib2 function is associated with ESC differentiation..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The enzyme NOS2 produces nitric oxide, a signaling molecule involved in processes like blood pressure regulation, immunity, and stem cell differentiation. NOS2 has three isoforms (NOS2-1, NOS2-2, and NOS2-3), but it’s unclear which one is expressed in differentiating human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), which are important tools for regenerative medicine and research. To learn more about NOS2 in these essential cells, researchers recently examined public RNA sequencing data for hPSCs. They found that NOS2 mRNA was transiently expressed during differentiation of hPSCs into various cell types, such as heart muscle, cartilage, and pre-placental cells, and the specific isoform expressed, NOS2-2, had a markedly different structure than the common immunity-related isoform NOS2-1. In vitro, four separate hPSC cell lines transiently expressed NOS2 mRNA and protein while they were differentiating into cortical neurons, and further analyses revealed that only the NOS2-2 isoform was expressed in these cells..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.