[Transsexualism: a Brain Disorder that Begins to Known].

Transsexualism describes the condition when a person's psychological gender differs from his or her biological sex. People with gender identity disorder suffer persistently from this incongruence and they search hormonal and surgical sex reassignment to the desired anatomical sex. This review, from an ethical perspective, intends to give an overview of structural and functional neurobiological correlations of transsexualism and their course under cross-sex hormonal administration.

[Neuroethics: Ethical Endowments of Human Brain].

The neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of Neuroethics. Neurosciences demonstrate which cerebral areas are active and inactive whilst people decide how to act when facing a moral dilemma; in this way we know the correlation between determined cerebral areas and our human acts. We can explain how the ″ethical endowments″ of each person, common to all human beings, is ″embedded″ in the dynamic of cerebral flows.

[Biology and ethics of bioethics: an urgent need of realism].

Tenets and recommendations of bioethics should be based on a profound knowledge of biological processes and at the same time deeply integrated with their human significance. Integration has been usually distorted by those implied in disciplines involved with human nature. Biology of fertilization and embryo development have been often fodder of science fiction, when considering that techniques can achieve any aim without acknowledging natural limits, and often handling data, and accepting without any critical attitude pseudoscientific dogma.

[Delay the age of procreation, decline in fertility and increased use of assisted reproduction: risk of birth defects].

In recent years there has been a progressive decline in fertility, originated mainly on women by the aging of ovules and on man through changes in genetic material of sperm due to cumulative environmental factors over time. Infertility treatments and techniques of assisted reproduction, IVF or insemination, consist of, or preceded by ovarian stimulation treatment aimed to obtain a large number of mature ovules in one cycle. This stimulation does not resolve the crucial issue of changing the pattern of chemical modification, parental imprinting, which occurs in the epigenetic process of oogenesis.

[Select embryos: preimplantation genetic diagnosis].

The ability to detect chromosomal or genetic defects in embryos in vitro, associated with assisted human reproduction techniques before his possible transfer to the uterus to complete its development was presented as an alternative to eugenic abortion. And an option for older women to procreate, to avoid pregnancy of embryos with chromosomal defects. Genetic diagnosis before implantation (PGD) and screening of embryos in vitro (by the acronym, PSC), offers the image of the disabled person as an individual excluded from society.

[Estrogens and feminine brain maturation during adolescence: emergency contraceptive pill].

In the period between puberty and maturity takes place the process of brain maturation. Hormone levels induce changes in neurons and direct the architecture and structural functionality thus affecting patterns of development of different brain areas. The onset of puberty brings with it the invasion of the female brain by high levels of hormones, cyclic surges of estrogen and progesterone in addition to steroids produced in situ.

[Does 2009 mark a revival of embryonic stem cells?].

The legal possibility of using federal funds to work with embryonic cells and destroy embryos started on March 2009 in the USA. It has nothing to do with regenerative therapies. It is directed to create banks with human cells, banks directed by a few scientists involved in biotechnology enterprises connected with centers of in vitro reproduction.

[Lack of biological exchange in assisted reproductive techniques].

There is a clear dividing line in the group of actions aimed at solving sterility, and the techniques aimed at generating embryos to be transferred to a womb. The dividing line is now clearly established by science. The growing alarm among paediatricians raised by the higher risk of malformations and diseases in children when generated in vitro, with respect to those normally engendered, is leading to the need to clearly establish the consequences of in vitro technologies and informing society in an honest way.

[From the totipotence of the zygote to mature stem cells and reserve cells].

In the process of life-transmission, when could we say that we are in the presence of a developing human body? A new human being starts with conception, after the specific gametes of father and mother recognize and fuse with each other; inherited genetic information is fed back reciprocally between the two "pronuclei", during a number of hours, and the resulting egg cell is more than the sum resulting from the fusion of the gametes. It is a living being in its totipotent unicellular stage, a body indeed, with corporal axes assigned, and ready to develop following a "continuum", a marked-out sequence. Divisions initiated in the totipotent fertilized egg give rise to diverse stem cells: pluripotent, multipotent and germinating cells; these latter cells maturing in special niches.

[Communication between mother and embryo or foetus].

Molecular interactions and cellular exchanges between mother and foetus or embryo in pregnancy generate an intimate symbiosis of two different lives. Interpersonal communication is an established requirement in the life of each man to reach personal plenitude. Initially on a biological basis, each person is open to others and his surroundings.

Specific protein nitration in nitric oxide-induced apoptosis of human monocytes.

The sustained overproduction of nitric oxide (NO) observed in inflammatory conditions can contribute to cell demise by affecting apoptosis. Nitration of tyrosine residues occurs in a range of diseases involving macrophage activation. Since NO induces apoptosis in monocytes/macrophages, we tested the hypothesis that nitration of specific proteins could result in apoptotic cell death.

[Ethical principles in research related to regenerative therapy].

Recently published data on the function and properties of stem cells are examined and analyzed. This knowledge enhances our understanding of human development: stem cells follow a precise hierarchical pattern both in time and space, and they are part of the symbiosis of fetus and mother. The data do not support the idea of the existence of an early stage of the embryo development lacking a personal character.

Maternal antigen presenting cells are a source of plasmatic HLA-G during pregnancy: longitudinal study during pregnancy.

The aim of this work was to investigate the longitudinal evolution of plasmatic soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G: shed HLA-G1 plus HLA-G5) during pregnancy, and if peripheral maternal antigen presenting cells (APC) can be a source of sHLA-G. Blood samples were obtained from 45 volunteers during normal pregnancy, 8 of them monthly; from 8 pregnant volunteers in the first weeks of pregnancy who had later a miscarriage, and from 14 healthy nonpregnant control women. Monocytes obtained during pregnancy showed a moderately HLA-G cell surface expression and stimulation with interferon (IFN)-gamma increased this expression.

Flavonoids induce apoptosis in human leukemia U937 cells through caspase- and caspase-calpain-dependent pathways.

Flavonoids are polyphenolic phytochemicals that are ubiquitous in plants and present in the common human diet. They may exert diverse beneficial effects, including antioxidant and anticarcinogenic activities. In this study we tested the apoptotic activity of 22 flavonoids and related compounds in leukemic U937 cells.

Effect of nitric oxide in the differentiation of human monocytes to dendritic cells.

The aim of this work was to study the influence of nitric oxide (NO) in the differentiation of human monocytes to dendritic cells. Human monocytes from healthy donors were differentiated to immature dendritic cells in presence of GM-CSF and IL-4. Maturation of dendritic cells was achieved with GM-CSF and TNF-alpha.

Regulation of NF-kappaB activation by protein phosphatase 2B and NO, via protein kinase A activity, in human monocytes.

It has been reported previously that a short synthetic immunomodulating peptide (Pa) and the neuropeptide beta-endorphin modulate the immune system. We have found now that NF-kappaB participates in the stimulation of monocytes by both peptides and we investigated the molecular mechanism by which these stimuli activate NF-kappaB. Pa and beta-endorphin induce accumulation of cyclic 3('),5(')-adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in a calcium/calmodulin-dependent fashion since it was completely inhibited by the calmodulin antagonist W-7.