Feature Channels: Stem Cells

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Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys have shown that a protein called BMI1 is a promising drug target for an AML subtype in which two normally separate genes, CALM and AF10, fuse together. The findings, published in Experimental Hematology, provide a rationale for evaluating a BMl1-inhibiting drug that is currently in clinical development for solid tumors.

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Treating a stubborn blood disease that strikes children may come down to tweaking energy production in stem cells, suggests research out of West Virginia University. Wei Du, an assistant professor in the School of Pharmacy, is investigating the link between how stem cells make energy and how Fanconi anemia develops.

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*For the first time, researchers have developed a non-intrusive way to generate large quantities of stem cells using only a small amount of blood* *The stem cells can repair cells damaged as a result of vascular diseases, which has the potential to prevent blindness and reverse the need for amputations*

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Using stem cells derived from six people, UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers recapitulated retinal cells in the lab. This “eye-in-a-dish” model allowed them to identify genetic variants that cause age-related macular degeneration, a common cause of vision loss.

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Recent work highlights a better way to grow smooth muscle cells, one of the two cellular building blocks of arteries, from pluripotent stem cells. This research is part of an effort to create artery banks — similar to blood banks common today — with readily-available material to replace diseased arteries during surgery.

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A new study published in Cell Reports by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and School of Medicine and Public Health could improve the efficiency of creating induced pluripont stem cells.

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Johns Hopkins scientists report that adult cells reprogrammed to become primitive stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), make tiny “cargo packets” able to deliver potentially restorative or repairing proteins, antibodies or other therapies to aged cells. They say the human iPSCs they studied produced much more of the packets, formally known as extracellular vesicles, than other kinds of adult stem cells commonly used for this purpose in research.

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Neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) affect millions of people worldwide and occur when parts of the nervous system lose function over time. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have discovered that a type of skin-related stem cell could be used to help regenerate myelin sheaths, a vital part of the nervous system linked to neurodegenerative disorders.

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The Immaculate Conception? Forget Sperm and Eggs, Hebrew University Researchers have Created Embryo Stem Cells from Skin Cells

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Scientists at the UCLA Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research have been awarded a $4.6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine – also known as CIRM – to support a phase I clinical trial of a novel treatment for advanced sarcomas and other cancers with a specific tumor marker called NY-ESO-1.

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UC San Francisco researchers have discovered a new type of stem cell in mouse muscles that is resistant to radiation and other forms of cellular stress. The findings have implications for improving recovery for cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and could even lead to treatments to protect future astronauts from the ravages of deep-space radiation.

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Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys have uncovered a molecular signaling pathway involving Stat3 and Fam3a proteins that regulates how muscle stem cells decide whether to self-renew or differentiate—an insight that could lead to muscle-boosting therapeutics for muscular dystrophies or age-related muscle decline. The study was published in Nature Communications.

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A gene that is necessary for prenatal growth has been shown to be essential in maintaining crucial stem cells in the adult brain and intestine, a Rutgers study has discovered.

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Bhatia’s team spent more than six years delving down to the cellular level to examine what they say are previously overlooked cells that form on the edges of pluripotent stem cell colonies. Having characterised these cells, the team also observed them form at the earliest stages of pluripotent cell reprogramming from adult cells. By understanding and isolating these cells on the edges using a tool called single-cell RNA sequencing gene expression analysis, the researchers discovered a subset of cells with characteristics that made them different from the cellular ecosystem surrounding them.

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The molecular "scissors" known as CRISPR-Cas9 has transformed genetic research in recent years. Now, an international team has unveiled a new CRISPR-based tool that acts more like a shredder, able to wipe out long stretches of DNA in human cells with programmable targeting. It's based on Type I CRISPR-Cas3, which has been shown to work in human cells for the first time.

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Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health treats the first patient treated for cancer with a human-induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cell therapy called FT500. Dan Kaufman collaborated with Fate Therapeutics to bring the iPSC-derived natural killer cell cancer immunotherapy to patients.

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Researchers have developed a method to grow and maintain olfactory stem cells. The work is a launch pad for developing stem cell transplantation therapies or pharmacologic activation of a patient’s own dormant cells, to restore the sense of smell where it has been damaged by injury or degeneration.

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A little goes a long way. Tiny blood vessels are essential for regenerative engineering and a team led by engineers from Michigan Tech has detailed innovative methods to ensure highly aligned, dense and mature microvasculature in engineered tissue that can be used for cardiac patches.

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While chronic myelogenous leukemia is in remission, ‘sleeper cell,’ quiescent leukemic stem cells persist in the bone marrow. Researchers find that niche-specific expression of chemokine CXCL12 by mesenchymal stromal cells controls quiescence of these treatment-resistant leukemic stem cells.

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A new drug takes out the "seeds" that cause ovarian cancer to come back after chemo

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Those with B-cell lymphomas that do not respond to standard therapies now have another treatment option in New Jersey, as CAR-T cell therapy is now being offered at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital New Brunswick, an RWJBarnabas Health facility, in conjunction with Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

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New research explores stem cells in the rotator cuff in hopes of understanding why fatty accumulation happens at the tear site, instead of proper muscle healing.

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Several Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center experts were invited to highlight research and best practices during the TCT/Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Meetings now underway in Houston, Texas.

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诱导性多能干细胞可谓是许多再生医学项目的主力军，这些细胞最初为分化细胞，其通过接触一组复杂的基因鸡尾酒而成为能被重编程为多能干细胞。根据Mayo研究人员报告，现在通过使用麻疹病毒载体，能够将这一具有4个重编程因子的多载体过程精简成一个“单周期”载体过程。据称，该过程安全、稳定、速度更快，且可用于临床转化。本研究结果发表于《基因治疗》(Gene Therapy)期刊。

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Research led by Johns Hopkins investigators has uncovered the roles of two types of cells found in the vessel walls of fat tissue and described how these cells may help speed bone repair.

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As células-tronco pluripotentes induzidas, o trabalho intenso de muitos projetos médicos regenerativos, começam como células diferenciadas que são reprogramadas para células-tronco pluripotentes por meio da exposição a uma série complexa de coquetéis genéticos. Pesquisadores da Mayo Clinic agora relatam que usando o vetor do vírus do sarampo eles reduziram o processo de multivetor de quatro fatores de reprogramação para um único processo de vetor de “um ciclo”.

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Cell replacement may play an increasing role in alleviating the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) in future. Writing in a special supplement to the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, experts describe how newly developed stem cell technologies could be used to treat the disease and discuss the great promise, as well as the significant challenges, of stem cell treatment.

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Induced pluripotent stem cells, the workhorse of many regenerative medicine projects, start out as differentiated cells that are reprogrammed to pluripotent stem cells by exposure to a complex set of genetic cocktails.

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Why are fat deposits more likely to occur after tears of the shoulder’s rotator cuff, compared to other types of muscle injuries? An increased propensity of stem cells within with rotator cuff muscles to develop into fat cells may explain the difference, reports a study in the February 6, 2019 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.

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Using a leading-edge technique, UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers defined the cell types in both newborn and adult human testes and identified biomarkers for spermatogonial stem cells, opening a path for new strategies to treat male infertility.

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The first U.S. patient to participate in a global study of a stem cell therapy injected directly into the brain to treat stroke disability was enrolled in the clinical trial this week at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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Using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons from Alzheimer’s patients, UC San Diego researchers say cholesteryl esters — the storage product for excess cholesterol within cells — act as regulators of the protein tau, providing a new druggable target for the disease.

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Scientists at the Unviersity of Kentucky have assembled the entire genome of the Mexican Axolotl, the key to unlocking the secrets of regeneration with potential for life-changing clinical applications down the road.

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A study by UCLA researchers is the first to demonstrate a technique for coaxing pluripotent stem cells — which can give rise to every cell type in the body and which can be grown indefinitely in the lab — into becoming mature T cells capable of killing tumor cells.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have tweaked the recipe for coaxing human stem cells into insulin-secreting beta cells and shown that the resulting cells are more responsive to fluctuating glucose levels in the blood.

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Using a novel patient-specific stem cell-based therapy, researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) prevented blindness in animal models of geographic atrophy, the advanced “dry” form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a leading cause of vision loss among people age 65 and older. The protocols established by the animal study, published January 16 in Science Translational Medicine (STM), set the stage for a first-in-human clinical trial testing the therapy in people with geographic atrophy, for which there is currently no treatment.

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Changes in blood vessels are the major cause of death and morbidity in diabetes. For the first time, sci-entists managed to grow perfect human blood vessels as organoids in a petri dish. This breakthrough engineering technology dramatically advances research of vascular dysfunction in diseases like diabetes, identifying a key pathway that prevents diabetic vasculopathy, as reported in the current issue of Nature.

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New study uses live imaging to understand a critical step in early embryonic development—how genes and molecules control forces to orchestrate the emergence of form in the developing embryo. The study findings could have important implications for how stem cells are used to create functional organs in the lab, and lead to a better understanding of the underlying causes of gastrointestinal birth defects.

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NIBIB-funded researchers have developed a 3D-printed scaffold coated in aggrecan, a native cartilage component, to improve the regeneration of cartilage tissue in joints. The scaffold was combined with a common microfracture procedure and tested in rabbits. The University of Maryland researchers found the combination of the implant and microfracture procedure to be ten times more effective than microfracture alone.

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In a randomized clinical trial, researchers compared the effect of a stem cell transplant using a non-myeloablative regimen (a lower-dose, short course of more tolerable immune specific chemotherapy and antibodies to suppress the immune system) versus continuing disease-modifying therapy in 110 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

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Scientists from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have demonstrated that muscle stem cells may give rise to rhabdomyosarcoma that occurs during DMD—and identified two genes linked to the tumor’s growth. The research, performed using a mouse model of severe DMD, helps scientists better understand how rhabdomyosarcoma develops in DMD—and indicates that ongoing efforts to develop treatments that stimulate muscle stem cells should consider potential cancer risk. The study was published today in Cell Reports.

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For the first time, researchers at University of California San Diego have used rapid 3D printing technologies to create a spinal cord, then successfully implanted that scaffolding, loaded with neural stem cells, into sites of severe spinal cord injury in rats.

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The collaborative research between the Kornberg School of Dentistry and the College of Engineering uses stem cells to regrow the pulp-dentin complex that makes up the center of a tooth.

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Scientists at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have discovered that squamous cell skin cancers do not require increased glucose to power their development and growth, contrary to a long-held belief about cancer metabolism. The findings could bring about a better understanding of many cancers' metabolic needs and lead to the development of more effective therapies for squamous cell skin cancer and other forms of epithelial cancer.

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A special edition of National Geographic on "The Future of Medicine" highlights the innovative stem-cell science of Cedars-Sinai, showing how investigators are seeking to use stem cells and Organ-Chips to tailor personalized treatments for individual patients. Downloadable video available.

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Hackensack Meridian Health Hackensack University Medical Center recently held the third annual Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) RN Fellowship Graduation Ceremony for nine registered nurses. The nurses are from 8PE and 8PW Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) units.

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In experiments in rats and human cells, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they have added to evidence that a cellular protein signal that drives both bone and fat formation in selected stem cells can be manipulated to favor bone building.

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UC San Diego researchers have found a stem cell enzyme copy edits more than 20 tumor types, providing new therapeutic target for preventing cancer cell resistance to chemotherapy and radiation.