Establishment of a Captive Cave Nectar Bat () Breeding Colony in Singapore.

Bats are known natural reservoirs of several highly pathogenic zoonotic viruses, including Hendra virus, Nipah virus, rabies virus, SARS-like coronaviruses, and suspected ancestral reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The capacity to survive infections of highly pathogenic agents without severe disease, together with many other unique features, makes bats an ideal animal model for studying the regulation of infection, cancer, and longevity, which is likely to translate into human health outcomes. A key factor that limits bat research is lack of breeding bat colonies.

A Porcine Model Using Adipose Stem Cell-Loaded Scaffolds for Alveolar Ridge Augmentation.

Tooth loss greatly affects a person's quality of life and many turn to dental implants to replace lost teeth. The success of a dental implant depends on the amount of alveolar bone supporting the implant, and thus, bone augmentation is often necessary to preserve or build up bone volume in the alveolar ridge. Bone can be augmented with autogenous bone, allografts, or xenografts, but the limitations of such natural bone grafts prompt researchers to develop synthetic scaffolds supplemented with cells and/or bioactive agents as alternative bone grafts.

Early Regenerative Capacity in the Porcine Heart.

Background: The adult mammalian heart has limited ability to repair itself after injury. Zebrafish, newts, and neonatal mice can regenerate cardiac tissue, largely by cardiac myocyte (CM) proliferation. It is unknown whether hearts of young large mammals can regenerate.