Stem cells are, perhaps, the biological\u00a0entity that has given rise to the most\u00a0dreams, hopes, frustrations and deceptions\u00a0among scientists, physicians, people\u00a0with complex medical conditions and their\u00a0family members in the past decade. In May\u00a02011, findings about stem cells and Parkinson\u2019s\u00a0disease by a group of scientists from S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0were featured on the cover of the Brazilian version of Pesquisa FAPESP, a monthly publication.\u00a0Because these findings continued to be\u00a0among the most important studies originally\u00a0published in 2011, we selected this study for\u00a0the magazine\u2019s special English language issue\u00a0and again as the cover story. The article\u00a0on page 14 presents an important clue that\u00a0may partially explain the failure of stem cell\u00a0transplant treatments and of older cell-based\u00a0therapies that involved the transplantation of\u00a0material from the adrenal glands or the brains\u00a0of aborted fetuses.<\/p>\n
In the original article published on April 19,\u00a02011, in the online issue of Stem Cell Reviews\u00a0and Reports, the S\u00e3o Paulo group suggested that one of the villains in this story might be\u00a0fibroblasts. Fibroblasts are skin cells that are\u00a0similar to certain stem cells but have di\u0087erent\u00a0properties. When implanted in mice with Parkinson\u2019s\u00a0disease in combination with mesenchymal\u00a0cells derived from the umbilical cords\u00a0of newborns, the fibroblasts not only reversed\u00a0the beneficial results observed when the mice\u00a0were implanted with pure stem cells but also\u00a0exacerbated the symptoms in the test animals.\u00a0What might one deduce from this finding?\u00a0\u201cPerhaps many of the poor results of scientific\u00a0work on cell therapies were due to this type of\u00a0contamination,\u201d stated geneticist Mayana Zatz.\u00a0In other words, fibroblasts may have been mistakenly\u00a0identified as stem cells and may have\u00a0been included with stem cells during implantation, which could cause new problems in patients\u00a0who receive poorly controlled transplants.\u00a0\u201cAnd patients should be warned about this,\u201d said\u00a0Zatz. Furthermore, contamination could result\u00a0in erroneous conclusions about the potential of\u00a0cell-based therapies. A positive aspect of this\u00a0story is that, once again, a window has opened\u00a0for experiments on treating Parkinson\u2019s disease\u00a0with pure and well-controlled mesenchymal\u00a0stem cells.<\/p>\n
In another field, the human and social sciences\u00a0section of the magazine carries an article\u00a0on the changes in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s migration\u00a0profile. The findings of this study provide a\u00a0better understanding of the impressive population\u00a0dynamics of the largest city in South America. S\u00e3o Paulo currently has just over 11\u00a0million inhabitants, but the S\u00e3o Paulo metropolitan\u00a0area has 19 million. During most of the\u00a0twentieth century, S\u00e3o Paulo was absorbed vast\u00a0numbers of internal and external migrants, who\u00a0were drawn to the city mainly because of the\u00a0strength of its industrial growth and its formal\u00a0jobs. However, in the twenty-first century, the\u00a0city joined the international migration route.\u00a0According to the article on page 56, S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0has now become a destination for highly qualified\u00a0individuals and for workers without documents\u00a0or specific training. These workers are\u00a0being absorbed by more flexible forms of production\u00a0that are aligned with the mobility of\u00a0the capital\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
The pieces highlighted here are good examples\u00a0of Brazil\u2019s capacity to generate diverse scientific\u00a0knowledge. The second article brings our readers\u00a0closer to the demographic reality of one of\u00a0Brazil\u2019s major science production centers \u2013 the\u00a0state of S\u00e3o Paulo, the capital of which shares\u00a0the same name, accounts for half of Brazil\u2019s scientific\u00a0production.<\/p>\n
Happy reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A powerful producer of Brazilian science\r\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"coauthors":[373],"class_list":["post-67559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67559"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=67559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}