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Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the major stem cells for cell therapy, have been used in the clinic for approximately 10 years. From animal models to clinical trials, MSCs have afforded promise in the treatment of numerous diseases, mainly tissue injury and immune disorders. In this review, we summarize the recent opinions on methods, timing and cell sources for MSC administration in clinical applications, and provide an overview of mechanisms that are significant in MSC-mediated therapies. Although MSCs for cell therapy have been shown to be safe and effective, there are still challenges that need to be tackled before their wide application in the clinic.

Keywords: mesenchymal stem cell, cell therapy, tissue injury, degenerative disease, immune disorder, graft-versus-host disease, immunomodulation, trophic factor.

Stem cells are unspecialized cells with the ability to renew themselves for long periods without significant changes in their general properties. They can differentiate into various specialized cell types under certain physiological or experimental conditions. Cell therapy is a sub-type of regenerative medicine. Cell therapy based on stem cells describes the process of introducing stem cells into tissue to treat a disease with or without the addition of gene therapy. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have been widely used for allogeneic cell therapy. The successful isolation of pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells from the inner cell mass of early embryos has provided a powerful tool for biological research. ES cells can give rise to almost all cell lineages and are the most promising cells for regenerative medicine.

The government has called a state of emergency in 12 districts across southern Peru as eruptions continue at Mt. Ubinas. Local governments are being overwhelmed particularly by health emergencies.

The eruptions of dense ash began before dawn on Friday, darkening nearby villages and spreading across four regions of Moquegua, Arequipa and Tacna. The Peruvian Geophysical Insitute, IGP, first issued a yellow alert but raised this to orange by noon as the eruptions increased. The ash will affect the health of inhabitants and also crops and grazing land, as winds spread the ash across the south and southeast of the region.

Emergency measures include immediate intervention of most government ministries, including Health, Agriculture, Transport and Environment. In earlier eruptions —most recently in 2013 and 2014— people from the villages close to the volcano had to be housed further away until the eruptions subsided.

This video is the eleventh in a multi-part series discussing computing. In this video, we’ll be discussing what cognitive computing is and the impact it will have on the field of computing.

[0:28–5:09] Starting off we’ll discuss, what cognitive computing is, more specifically – the difference between current computing Von Neuman architecture and more biologically representative neuromorphic architecture and how these two paired together will yield massive performance and efficiency gains!

[5:09–10:46] Following that we’ll discuss, the benefits of cognitive computing systems further as well as current cognitive computing initiatives, TrueNorth and Loihi.

[10:46–17:11] To conclude we’ll extrapolate and discuss the future of cognitive computing in terms of brain simulation, artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces!