
Stem Cells Remember Tissues’ Past Injuries - hourislate
https://www.quantamagazine.org/stem-cells-remember-tissues-past-injuries-20181112/
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pseudosudoer
I have ulcerative colitis, which is a disease that falls under the category of
IBD. My story is similar to many other IBD testimonials. I was a perfectly
healthy young individual who contracted a severe infection that landed me in
the hospital. I was treated with antibiotics and steroids, and made a full
recovery. After a follow up colonoscopy, I was diagnosed with IBD.

I had an idea, albeit without any real proof, that my disease was onset by my
infection by somehow "reprogramming" my immune system. This was how I
rationalised going from a healthy to diseased status so rapidly. That idea
trivialises much of what goes on behind the scenes in our bodies, but it seems
to be more or less what this research is pointing towards.

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DennisP
Based on a quick check at Mayo Clinic, it appears that IBD can be an
autoimmune problem, but isn't necessarily. Another possibility is that
antibiotics took out some important species of your gut bacteria. Based on
other things I've seen, it seems possible that a fecal transplant could
restore them if that's the case.

[https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/irritable-
bow...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/irritable-bowel-
syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20360016)

~~~
pseudosudoer
Mayoclinic isn't really a cite-able source, but I agree on the rhetoric that
antibiotics can cause a microbe imbalance. Unfortunately there hasn't been any
research (that I have seen) that has found a causation between Ulcertive
Colitis and the microbiome of the colon. There is definitely a correlation
between gut health and it's microbiome ([research
paper][[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5757125/]](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5757125/\])),
but it doesn't seem to bear causation for the underlying disease.

Autoimmune diseases (and the immune system as a whole) are still a mystery to
doctors/researchers, so the best approach we have to treating it is empirical
instead of deterministic. The stem cell article is the type of research that I
hope for, as it attempts to permeate the opaqueness of such a system.

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doctorpangloss
Stem cells don’t remember anything, especially not injuries. No way. That’s so
ridiculous, and whatever Alex actually found is probably meaningless.

Single cell sequencing can statistically correlate with anything. It
practically can explain anything. It’s a veritable paper factory system, not a
path towards credible medical therapies (the only thing that people really
care about).

Hacker News, Y Combinator possibly specifically, and VC generally is being
overrun with a dodgy zeitgeist: the dot com bulge of nutritional-supplement-
quality “science” masquerading as biotech.

I mean seriously. These posts are always overrun with personal andecdotes of
hack “I know enough” biology. Can’t we see the red flags?

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stanfordkid
Interesting, care to elaborate?

I don't think we understand biology well enough, yet, to be so dismissive
based on purely structural grounds.

We don't even understand the role of mRNA's fully or how they might be used as
a memory mechanism... it seems perfectly plausible that injuries result in
transcription of some sort of mRNA that yields this sort of behavior. You seem
excessively dismissive without giving any real specific evidence as to why.

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bitwize
Do they actually remember the injuries? Or can they read information about
them from their environment?

It's an important distiction, especially when it comes time to find ways to
exploit (or prevent) this effect.

