http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:27:38 GMT Connecting you with the University of Missouri’s innovative research and creative activity http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/97 Take a good, hard mental image of a long line of people stretched for blocks. If you expand the line to roughly 100,000, this is the number of people waiting for an organ transplant. The imbalanced patient-to-organ ratio leaves many to die while waiting their turn. In response, some researchers try to tap into animal organs to save human lives, but those organs do not always work. Research in the University of Missouri’s <a href=http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/index.php>Division of Animal Sciences</a> may help solve this medical debacle by using genetic modification. When an organ goes from one animal to another (like to a human), preexisting antibodies in the human bind to the organ’s sugar molecules and kill the organ, making it useless. “When you take a pig cell and transfer it to a human, the molecule is immediately recognized as foreign,” explains MU’s Animal Science Professor, <a href=http://animalsciences.missouri.edu/faculty/prather/>Randall Prather</a>. “Within minutes you’ll get hyperacute rejection, and the cells will be destroyed.” Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:00:00 GMT http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/97 (Sean Powers) http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/104 <p>He calls it “fire in the gut.” It’s the excitement, the burning drive to work through a problem and see the solution. It’s staying up at night, turning something over and over in your head and feeling exhilarated when you finally come up with an answer, says Chris Hardin, Professor and Chair of the Nutritional Sciences Department.</p> Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:00:00 GMT http://www.syndicatemizzou.org/articles/show/104 (Jessica Huang)