Word: melton
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cinematic originality has never been “Saw’s” strong point. The appeal, of course, is the blood and gore, and “Saw VI” delivers exactly what audiences have come to expect. Writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, also responsible for “Saw IV” and “Saw V,” essentially re-combine the elements of earlier films into various permutations: “Let’s cut off someone’s hands and feet... with bombs...
...researchers are hoping to learn whether diabetes begins in the thymus or in the pancreas, where beta cells somehow change and are no longer recognized or protected by the immune system. "We still really don't know the mechanism of what causes this disease," says Melton. "We don't know which cell is initially responsible, and we don't know if certain people are destined to get it, or if there are things we can do to prevent it, or how to reverse...
That may soon change, if the beta cells Melton created can give scientists a full picture of the disease. If, for example, it turns out that the new beta cells can be made to survive the attack by the immune system, then the next step would be to return the functional beta cells, generated through strategies like the one used by Melton, back into the patients from whom the original skin cells came. But even that won't happen until more testing is done on the cells to ensure they are both safe and effective...
...genome of the skin cell with the help of a virus. Such embedding of foreign matter isn't ideal for a treatment designed for the clinic, since changes in the genome could result in a variety of potential problems, including the formation of tumors and uncontrolled cell growth. Melton's group, as well as those in other stem-cell labs around the world, are working to substitute these dangerous genes and viruses with chemicals that might prove safer. (See pictures of the swine flu virus...
...before that can happen, says Melton, the newly formed beta cells can become a valuable resource for understanding Type 1 diabetes better - to answer key questions such as what makes the cells so ineffective in diabetics, and whether new populations of beta cells could survive and function if transplanted into patients. "This is opening a door to a long-term project to get at the cause of this disease," he says. "But it is a new door...