Age and diseases may be responsible for curve penis

According to a doctor, the penis can become curve naturally as a man gets older, it can be a sign of a serious disease which has recently been linked to cancer. Some men have a more bent penis for a harmless reason-the two tubes that fill with blood to give an erection can be different sizes. The skin on the organ can affect how curved it appears, aging makes skin gets looser, the curve can look more pronounced.

But a bent penis can be a symptom of a condition known as Peyronie's disease, which is estimated to affect up to seven percent of males. Researchers recently linked this with a higher risk of various cancers-including testicular, melanoma and stomach. Signs of  Peyronie's include scar tissue, a significant bend, erection problems and pain.

When the penis becomes erect, it's because two tubes called the corpora cavernosa fill up with blood,
the resultant curve may not be too noticeable when a man is flaccid but become more obvious when he is hard. As we all age, the skin all over our body produces less collagen and as a result, the skin becomes thinner and more fragile and starts to sag. So the natural curve can be more prominent as the skin hangs down looser.

Peyronie's disease occurs when a scar formation in penis prevents straight erection. It can make sex painful and cause erectile dysfunction. But in many cases men have no recollection of a specific trauma. In some, Peyronie's comes on gradually and doesn't seem to be related to an injury. Researchers therefore suspect it can be related to genes. In some men, injury and genetics could both be involved.

A recent study of different men found Peyronie's disease brought a higher risk of testicular cancer by 40 percent, melanoma by 29 percent and stomach cancer by 40 percent. A gene that may trigger the complaint could also be linked to the development of tumors.
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Using silk to repair spinal cord

Modified silk from Asian wild silkworms could be used in a strategy to repair damaged spinal cords, according to scientists. Cleaned, sterilised silk from the Antheraea pernyi (AP) silk spinner had properties well suited to spinal repair.

Presently there is no cure for serious spinal cord trauma because spinal nerves are unable to cross the scar tissue barrier and the cavity that forms in the cord after the injury. The modified silk would be a 'scaffold' that bridges the spinal injury cavity, supporting nerve growth across damaged region.

Modified silk from Asian wild silkworms could be used in a strategy to repair damaged spinal cords, according to scientists. Cleaned, sterilised silk from the Antheraea pernyi (AP) silk spinner had properties well suited to spinal repair.


Scientists discovered that the modified AP silk had important properties desirable in a scaffold suitable for spinal repair. It has the correct rigidity: if it is too rigid it can harm the surrounding spinal cord tissue but if it is too soft the nerves would fail to grow across it.

The AP silk has a repeated "RGD" chemical sequence on its surface that binds to receptors on the nerve cells, encouraging them to attach to the material and grow along it. The AP silk did not trigger a response by the immune system cells that would be present in the spinal cord, therefore minimising inflammation.

AP silk degrades gradually over time. So, after it has supported the early growth of nerves across the injury site the material dissolves gradually and these pioneer nerves take over the role as scaffold, supporting further nerve growth.

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How to turn scar tissue into healthy tissue

Limited therapeutic options and the heart's inability to regenerate healthy cells after heart attacks are parts of factors that cause sudden death in heart attack patients. Scientists are exploring ways to reprogram scar tissue cells into healthy heart muscle cells to reduce death.

Creation of cardiomyocytes with genetic signatures that closely mimic those found in healthy adult heart muscle cells can solve the problem. The other reprogramming approach leads to the creation of cardiomyocytes with more embryonic cell signatures.

The differences in the cardiomyocytes generated using these two methods are
Cardiomyocytes, the cells responsible for the beating of the heart, are essential to repairing the heart after injury. But after injury, such as a heart attack, many of these cells are irreversibly lost; they've been turned into scar tissue cells.

The replacement of these lost cells with patient-specific cardiomyocytes has gained attention as a potential therapy because existing healthy heart tissue better accepts these cells and because of increased recovery rates. Patient-specific cardiomyocytes also offer unique advantages for drug screens to help doctors identify each patient's drug type and dosage.

There are presently two widely practiced approaches to generate patient-specific cardiomyocytes.
In the first approach, an adult connective cell called a fibroblast is reprogrammed back into a naïve embryonic stem cell-like state. Once in this naïve state, the cell has the potential to develop into any cell type in the body, but scientists direct it to develop into a cardiomyocyte. These newly created cardiomyocytes are called induced pluripotent stem cell cardiomyocytes iPSC-CM.

In the second approach called direct cardiac reprogramming, a fibroblast is directly converted into a cardiomyocyte, without having to first be reprogrammed into a naïve embryonic stem cell. These new cardiomyocytes are called induced cardiomyocytes iCM. The researchers found that both methods resulted in cells with classic cardiomyocyte molecular features. However, by comparing the unique set of genes activated or not activated in each group of cells, the researchers found that iPSC-CMs more closely resembled embryonic cardiomyocytes, while iCMs more closely resembled adult cardiomyocytes.

Researchers also found that iPSC-CMs feature more active genes and a higher number of genes poised to be either activated or repressed a trait more commonly found in potent cells.
Metabolically, iPSC-CMs had a higher expression of glycolytic genes while iCMs had a higher expression of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation, the primary means of energy production in adult hearts.

In iPSC-CMs, heart muscle cells called sarcomeres, which give the heart a striated look, were less organized than in iCMs. The contractibility of cardiomyocytes as measured by the intake and removal of calcium was also greater in iCMs, suggesting that iCM cells are more mature than iPSC-CM cells.
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