LAS VEGAS – A 17-year-old aspiring politician from Nebraska captured the Miss America crown on Saturday after beating 52 other young women from across the United States.

Teresa Scanlan won a $50,000 scholarship and a yearlong run with the crown at the competition at the Planet Hollywood casino-resort in Las Vegas, giving the Cornhusker State its first-ever win at the pageant.

"And I never passed up a cookie on my journey here," Scanlan said.

She's the youngest Miss America since the pageant implemented age limits in 1938. Rosemary LaPlanche was runner-up in 1940 and easily won the crown in 1941 despite being one month too young to compete, according to the pageant's website.

On Saturday, Scanlan said age didn't matter, though she thought she might have been an underdog because of her youth.

"We were on an even playing field," she said. "From 17 to 24, that can be a huge age range. But with these girls, they are all at the highest level imaginible."

Miss Arkansas Alyse Eady won $25,000 as first runner-up, while Miss Hawaii Jalee Fuselier won $20,000 for third place.

Scanlan, a recent high school graduate from the western Nebraska town of Gering, planned to study American politics at Patrick Henry College in Virginia after her reign as Miss America.

Stem cells

Stem cells are cells that can both replicate themselves and differentiate into other types of cells. In a developing embryo, pluripotent stem cells, which can differentiate into all cell types, are told through complex signaling to differentiate into other cells. Embryonic stem cells go through several stages before becoming functional neurons, cardiomyocytes (beating heart cells), pancreatic beta cells or other types of tissue.

Once an embryonic stem cell starts to differentiate, it becomes multipotent and can become many cell types. These cells are moving towards a cellular identity but still have the flexibility to become different types of tissue. In other words, the cell knows its address and will migrate to the heart, liver, brain or other part of the body and differentiate into more specific cells types. Certain tissues in adults have their own multipotent stem cells, often called somatic stem cells or “adult stem cells.” However, the latter term is somewhat misleading as these cells are also found in embryos and children.

Perhaps the most intriguing types of stem cells are induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These cells are created from fully differentiated cells, often skin cells, which have been reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells. Like their embryonic cousins, iPS cells can form all cell types. This approach offers a number of benefits. For one, iPS cells may be ideal for transplantation, as they could be taken from a patient and would not face rejection from the patient’s immune system. Also, iPS cells could be used to study diseases on a cellular level.

“These iPS cells will give us the ability to study the molecular underpinnings of disease,” says Dr. Stuart Lipton, director of the Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging and Stem Cell Research Center. “We can set up models for Parkinson’s and figure out what is going wrong with those cells.”

Currently, iPS cells have their drawbacks. Some of the methods used to create them make them unsuitable for clinical use. And they replicate slowly, making them difficult to study. Also, scientists don’t know if iPS cells are identical to embryonic stem cells. More study is needed, but breakthroughs are being announced with great frequency This is Neural Stem Cells.

“The technology for iPS cells is changing every day,” says Dr. Lipton. “They have great potential, but we need to learn whether they are identical to embryonic stem cells, and we just don’t know yet.”

When the human genome project was completed in 2003, it revealed that we have roughly 22,000 different genes (see DNA 101). But not every gene is active in every cell at all  times. A skin cell doesn’t need to express the same genes as a liver cell. And a liver cell doesn’t always need to express the genes necessary to process alcohol, unless triggered to do so. To conserve resources and function properly, cells have many ways to control which genes are on, which are off and when to switch that up.

One way to regulate gene expression is with nuclear receptors – proteins that directly bind to DNA to turn genes on or off in response to outside signals. There are 48 known nuclear receptor family members. For some, it’s well known what turns them on or off and what genes they activate or inactivate in response. The estrogen receptor is a nuclear receptor that receives estrogen, the female hormone, and switches on genes that drive female characteristics. For other nuclear receptors, the orphan receptors, all we really know is that they resemble other family members. Their function and their binding partners remain a mystery.

Nuclear receptors make good drug targets because they have open pockets just waiting to hold a signaling molecule. Drug compounds can also be made to fit these pockets, switching the nuclear receptor on or off to alter gene expression. The breast cancer drug tamoxifen, for example, targets the estrogen receptor.