EMBARGOED

A reporter's PressPass is required to access this story until the embargo expires on 4/17/2014 12:00 PM EDT

Symposium on Cellular Reprogramming to be Held at Penn Medicine

The University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine will host a symposium on Friday, April 11, 2014 to detail the progress researchers are making toward reprogramming human cells to treat a variety of diseases.

View | Comment

Study Helps Unravel the Tangled Origin of ALS

By studying nerve cells that originated in patients with a severe neurological disease, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher has pinpointed an error in protein formation that could be the root of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

View | Comment

Cell-Surface Receptor Offers Promising Breakthrough for Pancreatic Cancer Patients

Findings provide a direct proof for a new therapy and provide hope for the people with this disease

View | Comment

Researcher Invents ‘Mini Heart’ to Help Return Venous Blood

Narine Sarvazyan, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and physiology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, has invented a new organ to help return blood flow from veins lacking functional valves.

View | Comment

Stem Cell Findings May Offer Answers for Some Bladder Defects and Disease

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in coaxing laboratory cultures of human stem cells to develop into the specialized, unique cells needed to repair a patient’s defective or diseased bladder.

View | Comment

Stem Cell-Derived Beta Cells Under Skin Replace Insulin

Scientists at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have shown that by encapsulating immature pancreatic cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESC), and implanting them under the skin of diabetic mouse models, sufficient insulin is produced to maintain glucose levels without unwanted potential trade-offs of the technology.

View | Comment

First Stem Cell Study of Bipolar Disorder Yields Promising Results

What makes a person bipolar, prone to manic highs and deep, depressed lows? Why does bipolar disorder run so strongly in families, even though no single gene is to blame? And why is it so hard to find new treatments for a condition that affects 200 million people worldwide? New stem cell research may help scientists find answers to these questions.

View | Comment

‘Stem Cell Tourism’ Takes Advantage of Patients, Says Law Professor

Desperate patients are easy prey for unscrupulous clinics offering untested and risky stem cell treatments, says law and bioethics Professor Alta Charo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is studying “stem cell tourism.”

View | Comment

A New Way to Make Muscle Cells From Human Stem Cells

As stem cells continue their gradual transition from the lab to the clinic, a research group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered a new way to make large concentrations of skeletal muscle cells and muscle progenitors from human stem cells.

View | Comment