From reverse transcription to human brain tumors

Attempts to isolate virus from human brain tumors.

In order to study the viral etiology of human brain tumors, attempts were made to isolate cytopathogenic agents from human brain tumors by the tissue culture of tumor tissues and by the mixed culture of tumor tissues with HeLa cells. Five glioblastomas, a mixed form of glioblastoma and fibrosarcoma, two astrocytomas, two ependymomas, two meningiomas, an oligodendroglioma, a spongioblastoma pola...

Reverse engineering the human brain

Advances in the physical sciences often foster advances in the biological sciences. In this paper I deal with just one of those many contributions and describe a trail that leads from Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction to a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which can be used to temporarily prevent the brain from carrying out some of its normal functions. Th...

One-Step Reverse Transcription PCR (RT-PCR). Fatemeh Mehrpooyan*

Role of miRNA in distinguishing primary brain tumors from secondary tumors metastatic to the brain.

Cancer is the result of complex processes that involve multiple molecular alterations. The understanding of such complexity has been improved by the advent of a new class of small, noncoding RNA gene products known as microRNAs (or miRNAs). miRNAs play an essential role in cancer development and progression by modulating gene expression binding to target mRNA, causing either mRNA degradation or...

A comparison between stem cells from the adult human brain and from brain tumors.

OBJECTIVE To directly compare stem cells from the normal adult human brain (adult human neural stem cells [AHNSC]), Grade II astrocytomas (AC II), and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), with respect to proliferative and tumor-forming capacity and differentiation potential. METHODS Cells were isolated from tissue obtained during epilepsy surgery (AHNSCs) or tumor surgery (glioma stem cells [GSC])....