A clinical trial using stem cells to treat people with recent spinal cord injuries has cleared two key safety hurdles, and been given approval to expand the therapy to a larger group of patients with a much higher dose of cells.
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP), the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and the University of Michigan will embark on a $15.4 million effort to develop new systems for quickly screening libraries of drugs for potential effectiveness against schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has announced.
Scientists have created a model of a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).
A research team at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has generated functional human and mouse tissue-engineered liver from adult stem and progenitor cells. Tissue-engineered Liver (TELi) was found to contain normal structural components such as hepatocytes, bile ducts and blood vessels.
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have identified RNA-based biomarkers that distinguish between normal, aging hematopoietic stem cells and leukemia stem cells associated with secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML), a particularly problematic disease that typically afflicts older patients who have often already experienced a bout with cancer.
A new biomaterial can be used to study how and when stem cells sense the mechanics of their surrounding environment. With further development, this biomaterial could be used to control when immature stem cells differentiate into more specialized cells for regenerative and tissue-engineering-based therapies.
SCIENTISTS have demonstrated for the first time the 'perfect storm' of conditions that cells need to start forming cancer, helping to explain why some organs are more susceptible to developing the disease, according to a new study published in Cell today (Thursday).
A group of proteins best known for helping to activate all mammalian genes has been found to play a particularly commanding role in the natural development of specialized stem cells into healthy blood cells, a process known as hematopoiesis.
Experiments reveal the crucial contribution of stem cells to the origins of cancer in different organs.
In a very severe, genetic form of microcephaly, stem cells in the brain fail to divide, according to a new Columbia University Medical Center study that may provide important clues to understanding how the Zika virus affects the developing brain.
Permanent brain damage from a stroke may be reversible thanks to a developing therapeutic technique. The novel approach combines transplanted human stem cells with a special protein that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration already approved for clinical studies in new stroke patients.
To date, it has been assumed that the differentiation of stem cells depends on the environment they are embedded in. A research group at the University of Basel now describes for the first time a mechanism by which hippocampal neural stem cells regulate their own cell fate via the protein Drosha. The journal Cell Stem Cell has published their results.
Kim O’Connor, a professor in Tulane University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a three-year $599,638 grant from the National Science Foundation to study ways to improve the survival of mesenchymal stem cells once they are implanted in patients.
Deborah Deas, M.D., M.P.H, Dean and CEO for Clinical Affairs at the University of California, Riverside, has been appointed to the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the state’s stem cell agency.
Scientists in Germany have developed a new approach that may prevent leukemia and lymphoma patients from developing graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) after therapeutic bone marrow transplants. The researchers describe the successful application of their strategy in mice in “Exogenous TNFR2 activation protects from acute GvHD via host T reg cell expansion,” which will be published online August 15 ahead of issue in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Researchers at the Stowers Institute have identified a key molecule that directs stem cells in the planarian flatworm to make copies of themselves.
It’s the first study to examine Zika infection in human neural stem cells from second-trimester fetuses, USC researchers say.
Study maps out abnormal signaling pathways in prostate cancer cells and provides computational approaches to identify individualized targets for therapy
In a study spanning molecular genetics, stem cells and the sciences of both brain and behavior, researchers at University of California San Diego, with colleagues at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and elsewhere, have created a neurodevelopmental model of a rare genetic disorder that may provide new insights into the underlying neurobiology of the human social brain.
Most molecular biologists look at how to switch on and regulate single genes. Scientists at the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre (CSC) have gone further, and have explored how to reawaken an entire set of inactive genes, a chromosome, that is present in every female human cell.
Researchers have engineered living bone tissue to repair bone loss in the jaw, a structure that is typically difficult to restore. They grafted customized implants into pig jaws that resulted in integration and function of the engineered graft into the recipient’s own tissue.
Advance will make complex gene studies quicker and easier
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have made a major advance in understanding how the cells of an organism, which all contain the same genetic information, come to be so diverse. A study published today in Molecular Cell shows that a protein called OCT4 narrows down the range of cell types that stem cells can become. The findings could impact efforts to produce specific types of cells for future therapies to treat a broad range of diseases.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have developed a system that uses transformed human stem cells to speed up screening of existing drugs that might work against rare brain and other cancers.
Cal State LA has been awarded a grant to educate tomorrow’s leaders in the interdisciplinary field of paper microfluidics. The $375,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation aims to engage more than 1,500 undergraduate students annually in the research of paper microfluidics to contribute to solving real-world scientific problems.
An infusion of stem cells could help restore proper drainage for fluid-clogged eyes at risk for glaucoma. That's the upshot of a study led by a Veterans Affairs and University of Iowa team.
In a series of experiments at the University at Buffalo, the embryonic stem cell gene Nanog kicked into action dormant cellular processes that are key to preventing weak bones, clogged arteries and other telltale signs of growing old.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Scripps Clinic have received a grant of nearly $2.4 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to support safety and quality tests of a potential stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease.
Prof. Fiona Doetsch's research team at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has discovered that the choroid plexus, a largely ignored structure in the brain that produces the cerebrospinal fluid, is an important regulator of adult neural stem cells. The study recently published in "Cell Stem Cell" also shows that signals secreted by the choroid plexus dynamically change during aging which affects aged stem cell behavior.
Researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery have launched a study to determine if a treatment using stem cells could help people with painful knee arthritis. To evaluate safety and efficacy, investigators are currently recruiting patients with osteoarthritis, which comes from wear and tear on a joint.
Biologists have found that a protein that plays a key role in the lives of stem cells can bolster the growth of damaged muscle tissue, a step that could potentially contribute to treatments for muscle degeneration caused by old age and diseases such as muscular dystrophy.
Cedars-Sinai scientists are seeking to build an improved stem-cell model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to accelerate progress toward a cure for the devastating neurological disorder. Their findings demonstrate that current models can be enhanced by the aging of motor neurons to show how ALS damages cells later in life.
With a goal of treating worn, arthritic hips without extensive surgery to replace them, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have programmed stem cells to grow new cartilage on a 3-D template shaped like the ball of a hip joint. What’s more, using gene therapy, they have activated the new cartilage to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off a return of arthritis.
Whitehead Institute scientists have created a checklist that defines the “naive” state of cultured human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Such cells provide a better model of early human embryogenesis than conventional ESCs in later stages of development.
International stem cell scientists, co-led in Canada by Dr. John Dick and in the Netherlands by Dr. Gerald de Haan, have discovered the switch to harness the power of cord blood and potentially increase the supply of stem cells for cancer patients needing transplantation therapy to fight their disease.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that using repeated doses of an immunotherapy drug can restore a complete remission for some relapsed stem cell transplant recipients.
Scientists have discovered a new method of creating human stem cells which could solve the big problem of the large-scale production needed to fully realise the potential of these remarkable cells for understanding and treating disease.
Folates can stimulate stem cell proliferation independently of their role as vitamins, according to a collaborative study from the University of Georgia and Tufts University, which used an in vitro culture and animal model system in their findings.
A phase II clinical trial in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, suggests that transplanting human stem cells into the spinal cord may be done safely. The research is published in the June 29, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. While the study was not designed to determine whether the treatment was effective, researchers noted that it did not slow down the progression of the disease.
Researchers have discovered that therapeutic stem cells exit the bloodstream in a different manner than was previously thought. This process, dubbed angiopellosis by the researchers, has implications for improving our understanding of not only intravenous stem cell therapies, but also metastatic cancers.
Researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, led by Jonathan Garlick, have established for the first time that skin cells from diabetic foot ulcers can be reprogrammed to acquire properties of embryonic-like cells.
The enzyme sirtuin 6, or SIRT6, serves many key biological functions in regulating genome stability, DNA repair, metabolism and longevity, but how its multiple enzyme activities relate to its various functions is poorly understood. A team of Cornell University researchers has devised a method for isolating one specific enzyme activity to determine its contribution and lead to better overall understanding of SIRT6.
The new stem cell-containing bio ink allows 3D printing of living tissue, known as bio-printing.
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have uncovered how changes in metabolism of human embryonic stem cells help coax them to mature into specific cell types — and may improve their function in engineered organs or tissues.
Go here for the latest research, experts and features on Zika in the Zika Virus News Source
Today, The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center, the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai announced the establishment of a research consortium focused on accelerating the discovery and development of novel cancer therapeutics and diagnostics for the benefit of patients.
Multicenter, phase II trial suggests autologous transplant should be standard of care for HIV patients with relapsed/treatment-resistant lymphoma.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins report that a type of lab-grown human nerve cells can partner with heart muscle cells to stimulate contractions. Because the heart-thumping nerve cells were derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, the researchers believe the cells — known as sympathetic nerve cells — will allow them to grow nerve cells that replicate particular patients’ diseases of the nervous system.
A new technique developed at Columbia Engineering by Biomedical Engineering Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic repairs large bone defects in the head and face by using lab-grown living bone, tailored to the patient and the defect being treated. This is the first time researchers have grown living bone grown to precisely replicate the original anatomical structure, using autologous stem cells derived from a small sample of the recipient’s fat. (Science Translational Medicine 6/15)
Although brains—even adult brains—are far more malleable than we used to think, they are eventually subject to age-related illnesses, like dementia, and loss of cognitive function. Someday, though, we may actually be able to replace brain cells and restore memory.
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