Categories
Microbiology

Researchers make neuron regeneration breakthrough

Researchers have successfully created new nerve cells in the brains and spinal cords of living mammals without the need for stem cell transplants to replenish lost cells.

The new study, which was conducted at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center, offers hope to those suffering from traumatic brain injury or spinal cord damage and could be used to treat Alzheimer's disease.

However, the scientists involved have stressed that it is too soon to know whether the neurons created in these initial studies resulted in any functional improvements. 

Injuries to the spinal cord can lead to an irreversible loss of neurons. Along with scarring, they can ultimately lead to impaired motor and sensory functions. As adult spinal cords only have a limited ability to produce new neurons, biomedical scientists have sought to replace them using stem cells – but they have encountered difficulties with this approach.

Scientists in UT Southwestern's Department of Molecular Biology have successfully turned scar-forming astrocytes in the spinal cords of adult mice into neurons. Their findings are published in Nature Communications and follow previous findings published in Nature Cell Biology.

A transcription factor – a biological substance that regulates the expression of genes – was introduced into areas of the brain or spinal cord where that factor is not highly expressed in adult mice. A factor known as SOX2 switched fully differentiated, adult astrocytes to an earlier neuronal precursor, or neuroblast, stage of development.

The mice were then given a drug called valproic acid (VPA) that encouraged the survival of the neuroblasts and their maturation (differentiation) into neurons.

According to the study's senior author, Chun-Li Zhang, neurogenesis (neuron creation) occurred in the spinal cords of both adult and aged (over one-year old) mice of both sexes, although the response was much weaker in the aged mice.

SOX2-induced mature neurons created from reprogramming of astrocytes persisted for 210 days after the start of the experiment in the spinal cord study – the longest time the researchers examined.

Categories
HR Information

Economic recovery leads top talent to new opportunities

A recent study has shown a correlation between economic recovery and higher levels of employees leaving firms to look for new opportunities. A report by HR consulting form Towers Watson has revealed that when the economies improve, people increasingly start looking for better prospects.
 
The organisation's Industry Compensation Survey Report has unearthed a direct connection between high GDP growth and higher levels of attrition among talented employees, while no correlation was found between higher wage increases and staff retention, HR Magazine reports.
 
This could mean that more jobs become available as the economy improves further, with the top talent leaving for pastures new and creating openings for others, but the researchers are urging employers to look beyond staff pay as means of retaining their best workers.
 
Carole Hathaway, director of Towers Watson's Rewards practice in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that people will often move jobs in countries where the economy is healthy, as there are likely to be new roles available and greater confidence in employment security. In places where the economy is challenged, employees will often stay put to for peace of mind.
 
Retaining the best staff is a multifaceted issue that extends beyond pay alone, she added, saying that "company culture, good communication, responsive leadership, opportunities for career development and a clear understanding of mission and values" can all contribute to employee retention, along with wages.
 
Research conducted by Oxford Economics on behalf of insurer Unum has recently highlighted that the cost of replacing top talent in some sectors can cost as much as £30,000 per worker. The study looked at how much is spent replacing an employee who earns more than £25,000 a year, as well as impacts on productivity.
 
In large firms, staff were found to take 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity levels when replacing a former employee, at a cost of £25,181 to the company. Some of the total figure comprises lost wages while the rest was made up of lost capital income.

Categories
Microbiology

Promising new treatment for Hepatitis B identified

A new technique has been developed to treat conditions such as Hepatitis B (HBV) without damaging cells infected by the virus.

Viruses such as HBV are able to survive by depositing their genes in their hosts' cell nuclei, where DNA is not normally degraded, which protects them from antiviral drugs. New research at the Helmholtz Zentrum, Munich and the Technische Universitat, Munich may pave the way to treating these viruses.

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 240 million people around the world are currently suffering from a chronic HBV infection, despite the availability of preventive vaccination. Sufferers of the disease are at risk of developing liver cirrhosis or even cancer as a result of the condition.

Antiviral medicines are available but they cannot completely eliminate the disease – as soon as treatment is discontinued, the virus is reactivated due to the presence of virus DNA (cccDNA: covalently closed circular DNA) "hidden" in the cell nucleus.

The cccDNA stored in the nuclei of infected liver cells (hepatocytes) serves as a template for the virus's own proteins and new viral genomes. The international team of scientists headed by Prof Ulrike Protzer and Prof Mathias Heikenwalder has found a way to selectively attack and eliminate the viral DNA without damaging the host liver cells in the process. 

"The degradation of viral DNA in the cell nucleus that we describe represents an important mechanism in the defence against the virus," Protzer reports. "Moreover, for the first time, the results offer the possibility to develop a treatment that can heal hepatitis B."

According to the scientists, in addition to interferons (the immune system's defence agents), activation of the lymphotoxin-beta receptor in the host cell promotes certain proteins and supports their function so that they chemically modulate and degrade viral cccDNA.

As a result of this process, the virus is prevented from reactivating and the disease cannot break out again following the cessation of treatment. The proteins do not affect the genetic information of the host cells and the team believe their research could lead to new treatments becoming available.

Categories
HR Information

Government’s policy on non-EEA graduates comes under fire

The EEF has criticised the government for restricting employers' access to skilled non-European Economic Area (EEA) graduates.

Evidence has been submitted by the manufacturers' organisation to the House of Lords' Science and Technology Committee inquiry into international STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) students, arguing the government is "acting unreasonably" by imposing restrictions.

EEF criticises the government for abolishing the Tier one post-study work route, which allowed non-EEA graduates who had studied in the UK to seek employment for a period of two years upon completing their studies. 

According to the organisation, this means it is increasingly difficult to attract recruits from outside Europe and many candidates are forced to leave the country when they finish their studies.

Recruiting international graduates is time-consuming and burdensome, the EEF claims, and this is hampering employers' attempts to recruit such talent.

It says that while one in ten companies specifically plan to recruit a non-EEA student in the next three years, over half of manufacturers surveyed disagreed that recruiting such a candidate is easy.

Some 53 per cent found the process of recruiting a non-EEA candidate very time-consuming and four in ten companies experienced problems in securing a sponsorship licence when recruiting a non-EEA student.

Despite these difficulties, 22 per cent of companies claimed they would definitely hire a non-EEA student again.

The EEF recommends restoring the Tier one post-study work route and simplifying the process of recruiting non-EEA graduates in order to give employers access to a wider pool of talent.

Tim Thomas, head of employment and skills policy at EEF, said: "Government should promote the value of international graduates, just as employers do. It should restore the Tier one post-study work route or introduce a route which allows international STEM graduates to stay in the UK after their studies to occupy hard-to-fill roles in industries such as manufacturing." 

He added that government should try to remove the barriers faced by employers looking to hire international graduates and improve organisations' access to much-needed skills.

Categories
Microbiology

Progress made in regenerating heart cells

Regenerative medicine offers hope to sufferers of chronic conditions such as heart failure. Previous attempts to transform skin cells into heart muscle have only been partially successful, however, as the transformation is often incomplete.

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes in California have come up with a new method of reprogramming skin cells in a way which renders them almost indistinguishable from heart muscle cells. Their findings are based on animal models and are described in the latest issue of Cell Reports. 

While heart disease remains the world's biggest killer, the chances of surviving a heart attack have been greatly improved due to recent medical advances. However, many people are now living with heart failure – a condition in which the heart does not beat at full capacity due to damage sustained during a cardiac arrest.

Previous research into regenerating heart muscle has required the insertion of several genetic factors to spur the reprogramming process. However, scientists have recognised problems with scaling this gene-based method into successful therapies.

Gladstone senior investigator Sheng Ding and colleagues used skin cells extracted from adult mice to screen for chemical compounds, known as 'small molecules', that could replace the genetic factors.

The team tested various combinations of small molecules before settling on a four-molecule 'cocktail' called SPCF that could aid the transformation of skin cells into heart cells. Although the resulting cells exhibited some behaviour characteristic of heart muscle cells, the transformation was incomplete.

An additional factor, Oct4, was therefore added to the cocktail, enabling the team to generate a completely reprogrammed, beating heart cell.

"Once we added Oct4 to the mix, we observed clusters of contracting cells after a period of just 20 days," explained Dr Ding. "Remarkably, additional analysis revealed that these cells showed the same patterns of gene activation and electric signaling patterns normally seen in the ventricles of the heart."

The researchers believe this may be a more desirable reprogramming method and are confident it represents progress towards their goal of an developing an entirely pharmaceutical-based method to regrow heart muscle.

Categories
HR Information

HR salaries rising significantly

Salaries for HR professionals are set to grow by as much as ten per cent of base rate, according to the Robert Walters Salary Survey 2014.

Companies are investing more in their HR departments compared with previous years and there is particularly high demand for talent, reward and learning and development professionals. 

HR pay is rising at its sharpest pace in the London financial services sector. However, salaries have also been growing steeply in other parts of the country, climbing by up to nine per cent in Birmingham and the Midlands.

Ben Wood, manager of HR recruitment at Robert Walters, said recruitment activity has been picking up, leading to new opportunities for HR professionals looking to progress their careers.

"There are reasons to be optimistic across a number of sectors: banks are ploughing resources back into people management as the sector works hard to repair reputational damage and improve staff morale. SMEs are also taking on HR professionals to administer government auto-enrolment schemes," he commented.

Mr Wood said the upward trend is expected to continue and there will be a renewed focus on attracting and retaining talent.

Renewed optimism about the economy is expected to improve prospects for many in HR departments. Recently, a forecast by recruitment company Hays predicted more opportunities for HR staff in 2014, with 47 per cent of employers expecting to hire more permanent staff.

The report also forecast salary rises in line with the cost of living, with 14 per cent of employers saying they would increase above inflation. More than half of those surveyed reported having awarded pay rises during the previous year.

However, the Hays report also said there would be a significant shortfall in experienced talent during the next 12 months. Some 64 per cent of employers anticipated a shortage of such candidates.

New research from The Conference Board and UK partner Chartered Management Institute recently revealed developing, retaining and engaging talented employees is currently the biggest challenge facing company CEOs.

Categories
Microbiology

Scientists uncover key role of protein in mitosis

New research conducted at the Warwick Medical School has solved an enduring mystery of biology by uncovering the key role of a protein in shutting down endocytosis during mitosis.

Their study outlines the role of actin, a protein, in shutting down clathrin-dependent endocytosis during mitosis.

Endocytosis is the process by which cells absorb molecules that are too large to pass through the plasma membrane, such as proteins. Normally, this takes place via clathrin-dependent endocytosis.

During this process, clathrin forms a pit on the inner surface of the membrane which allows the cell to engulf and bring in a small volume of fluid from outside the cell.

The question of how clathrin-dependent endocytosis shuts down during mitosis was first posed by American cell biologist Don Fawcett in 1965. He became aware of the phenomenon but scientists have hitherto been unable to find out the reason behind it.

Two competing theories emerged as possible explanations. One suggested the tension of the plasma membrane is too high for endocytosis to occur; the other that mitotic phosphorylation – the addition of a phosphate group to the cell proteins – switches off the proteins.

Recently, it was found that endocytosis can still occur in non-dividing cells with high membrane tensions because actin can be recruited to help clathrin overcome the high tension in the membrane.

The Warwick team found membrane tension in dividing cells is much higher than in non-dividing cells, raising the question of why actin does not help in this case. They found that actin is used to form a stiff cortex in cells during mitosis and thus cannot be used to facilitate endocytosis.

Endocytosis was re-started in mitotic cells when the researchers tricked them into making actin available during mitosis. According to the team, mitotic phosphorylation does not inhibit the process and their paper argues against the alternative theory.

Team leader Dr Steve Royle commented: "The implications for human health are truly fascinating; by knowing the role played by actin we can look to use it to restart endocytosis during cell division. That could mean that we're able to make dividing cells receptive to pharmaceuticals or other medical treatments in a way that we haven't before."

Categories
HR Information

HR directors need to offer ‘good-quality pension schemes’

HR directors need to ensure they offer good-quality pensions as more employees take up workplace schemes through auto-enrolment, according to a pensions expert.

Henry Tapper, First Actuarial director and founder of advice website Pension Playpen, told HR Magazine employers will have to pay more attention to the value of their pension schemes following a change in the law that means they automatically have to offer staff a workplace pension scheme.

HR managers are increasingly overseeing schemes alone, Mr Tapper claims, while managing such pensions has become more complicated.

"HR managers have found that what were previously great retention and recruitment tools have now become a major problem for them," Tapper said.

"Over the last five years, as we've moved away from what you want to do as a company to what you have to do, they've turned from being an 'HR plus' to an 'FD minus'. They're a big negative to the finance department."

Under the auto-enrolment scheme, which began in 2012, workers are automatically enrolled onto a workplace pension scheme, with employers making a contribution and the government adding extra through tax relief.

Mr Tapper said that while dissatisfaction among workers is already being felt due to regulation and the recession, employers will be forced to change their attitudes as a result of the changes provoked by auto-enrolment.

People are likely to become more critical of schemes as they are required to contribute more, Mr Tapper claimed. He called for HR managers to "wake up" to the fact that the quality of pension schemes is important as well as auto-enrolment.

He recommends HR directors seek external advice in order to ensure employees receive good information and warns against pension schemes that promise "free commission-based advice", which often result in extra charges for employees when they leave the employer.

Mr Tapper claims employers need to provide advice and information at the right point – not when employees join a scheme, but when they leave it.

Categories
Microbiology

New blood cells could help treat multiple sclerosis

Researchers have identified a new type of regulatory blood cell that is able to combat hyperactive T-cells responsible for degenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

Diseases like MS occur when hyperactivity of the immune system results in a chronic state of inflammation. Scientists at BRIC, the University of Copenhagen, stimulated the regulatory blood cells and thereby reduced the level of brain inflammation and disease in a biological model. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine.

The new blood cells belong to the group of white blood cells known as lymphocytes. A molecule called FoxA1, responsible for the cells' development and suppressive functions, is expressed by these cells.

When inserting FoxA1 into normal lymphocytes using gene therapy, the team found they were able to modify them to actively regulate inflammation and inhibit multiple sclerosis.

FoxA1-expressing lymphocytes were previously unknown. Headed by professor Shohreh Issazadeh-Navikas, the BRIC researchers examined the blood of patients with multiple sclerosis, before and after two years of treatment with the drug interferon-beta. They discovered that patients who benefit from the treatment increase the number of this new blood cell type, which fight disease.

"From a therapeutic viewpoint, our findings are really interesting and we hope that they can help find new treatment options for patients not benefiting from existing drugs, especially more chronic and progressive multiple sclerosis patients. In our model, we could activate lymphocytes by chemical stimulation and gene therapy, and we are curious whether this can be a new treatment strategy", said professor Issazadeh-Navikas.

The next phase of the team's research is to focus on developing such treatments. They have begun testing whether the FoxA1-expressing lymphocytes are able to prevent degradation of the nerve cell's myelin layer and brain degeneration in a model of progressive multiple sclerosis.

A number of other autoimmune diseases could potentially be treated by the team's research into preventing chronic inflammation, including type one diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

During the past five years, the number of people suffering from MS has increased by ten per cent globally. It currently affects 100,000 people in the UK.

Categories
HR Information

Ageing workforce ‘to boost demand for healthcare benefits’

An ageing workforce is expected to create more demand for healthcare benefits, according to a report for the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The report, Is 75 the new 65?: Rising to the challenge of Ageing on Workforce, states that in 2012 the percentage of the population at working age fell for the first time in 40 years and this trend is forecast to continue until 2060. Almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of employers expect
the proportion of their employees aged over 60 to increase by 2020.

Employers are beginning to welcome the experience and skills offered by older workers, rather than discriminating against them.

John Ball, UK head of pensions at Towers Watson, commented: "An ageing workforce creates significant challenges for organisations. But few UK employers report negative attitudes towards older workers. Only 13 per cent say older workers are less productive than younger workers; only 16 per cent say they are less motivated and only 24 per cent say they take more time off sick."

Despite this, 47 per cent of employers expect an ageing workforce to lead to higher benefit costs.

Almost half of organisations surveyed say they will make changes to ensure the skills of older employees remain up-to-date. In addition, significant minorities plan to adapt their structures to ensure workers who reduce their working hours or responsibilities continue to feel valued.

Changes which organisations are making to accommodate the needs of an older workforce will benefit all employees, according to the report. More than half (56 per cent) plan to offer more flexible working hours or allow staff to work from home, while 48 per cent will allow employees more choice over the benefits they receive. 

The report also forecasts that managing talent will be a significant driver of change in 2020. Cost control will be displaced by new priorities such as people management as Europe recovers from economic crisis. Some 46 per cent of respondents expect it to be one of the top drivers of change, after technologies and globalisation.