Using new stem cell technology, scientists at the Salk Institute have shown that neurons generated from the skin cells of people with schizophrenia behave strangely in early developmental stages, providing a hint as to ways to detect and potentially treat the disease early.
Healthy stem cells work to restore or repair the body’s tissues, but cancer stem cells have a more nefarious mission: to spawn malignant tumors. Cancer stem cells were discovered a decade ago, but their origins and identity remain largely unknown.
Researchers at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center have published results from a study Cell Reports that discovers a new mechanism that distinguishes normal blood stem cells from blood cancers.
Adults suffering from diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood-related disorders may benefit from life-saving treatment commonly used in pediatric patients. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a new technique that causes cord blood (CB) stems cells to generate in greater numbers making them more useful in adult transplantation.
Investigators at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute – whose previous research showed that cardiac stem cell therapy reduces scarring and regenerates healthy tissue after a heart attack in humans – have identified components of those stem cells responsible for the beneficial effects.
By carefully controlling the levels of two proteins, researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered how to keep mammary stem cells—those that can form breast tissue—alive and functioning in the lab. The new ability to propagate mammary stem cells is allowing them to study both breast development and the formation of breast cancers.
Scientists have developed a model that mimics the complex structure of the cornea to enable the transplant of healthy corneal stem cells. The research is being presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Orlando Fla.
University of Adelaide researchers have discovered that stem cells taken from teeth can grow to resemble brain cells, suggesting they could one day be used in the brain as a therapy for stroke.
Columbia Engineers have successfully grown—for the first time—fully functional human cartilage in vitro from human stem cells derived from bone marrow tissue. Their study, which demonstrates new ways to better mimic the enormous complexity of tissue development, regeneration, and disease, is published in the April 28 Early Online edition of PNAS.
Researchers discover that newt hearts can regenerate, a finding that may pave the way to new therapies for people with damaged heart tissue.
A research team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas says their new mouse model helps scientists better understand the progression of pancreatic cancer and may provide new avenues for the development of therapies.
New research suggests that attempts to isolate an elusive adult stem cell from blood to understand and potentially improve cardiovascular health – a task considered possible but very difficult – might not be necessary.
Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered an unexpected phenomenon in the organs that produce sperm in fruit flies: When a certain kind of stem cell is killed off experimentally, another group of non-stem cells can come out of retirement to replace them.
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.
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.
Findings provide a direct proof for a new therapy and provide hope for the people with this disease
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
The Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), in collaboration with the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital’s Quebec Leukemia Cell Bank, recently achieved a significant breakthrough thanks to the laboratory growth of leukemic stem cells, which will speed up the development of new cancer drugs.
Research from the University of Adelaide has confirmed that a gene linked to intellectual disability is critical to the earliest stages of the development of human brains.
Preliminary studies point to adherent stromal cells derived from human placenta appear promising as a readily available cell source to aid tendon healing and regeneration.
Some of the nation's top regenerative medicine scientists gather to discuss the latest research in 3D printing, military medicine, wound care, tissue engineering, stem cells and more.
For the first time, researchers have shown that an essential biological process known as protein synthesis can be studied in adult stem cells – something scientists have long struggled to accomplish.
Stem cell transplant was viable and effective in halting or reversing degenerative disc disease of the spine, a meta-analysis of animal studies showed, in a development expected to open up research in humans. Recent developments in stem cell research have made it possible to assess its effect on intervertebral disc (IVD) height, Mayo Clinic researchers reported in a scientific poster today at the 30th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.
On Anosmia Awareness Day, the Monell Center announces “A Sense of Hope: The Monell Anosmia Project,” a three-year $1.5M fundraising campaign to support a research and advocacy program focused on anosmia, the loss of the sense of smell.
Researchers created new nerve cells in the brains and spinal cords of living mammals without the need for stem cell transplants to replenish lost cells.
New insights into how cancer cells arise and develop into tumors have come from researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Some of them are exploring the process by studying stem cells.
The Immune Tolerance Network’s (ITN) HALT-MS study, 24 patients with relapsing, remitting multiple sclerosis received high-dose immunosuppression followed by a transplant of their own stem cells. Data published today quantified and characterized T cell populations following this aggressive regimen.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that a well-known protein has a new function: It acts in a biological circuit to determine whether an immature neural cell remains in a stem-like state or proceeds to become a functional neuron.
Cancer researchers led by stem cell scientist Dr. John Dick have discovered a pre-leukemic stem cell that may be the first step in initiating disease and also the culprit that evades therapy and triggers relapse in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a protein critical to hematopoietic stem cell function and blood formation. The finding has potential as a new target for treating leukemia because cancer stem cells rely upon the same protein to regulate and sustain their growth.
Mount Sinai researchers generated their engineered cardiac tissue from human embryonic stem cells with the resulting muscle having remarkable similarities to native heart muscle, including the ability to beat and contract like the human heart. This research breakthrough study was highlighted as the cover story of the February 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal.
A Kansas State University research team contributed "Umbilical Cord Matrix Stem Cells for Cytotherapy of Breast Cancer" for the book "Stem Cell Therapeutics for Cancer," which was published in December 2013. It was edited by Harvard Medical School.
• Five UCLA stem cell scientists receive CIRM Basic Biology V awards for four projects to achieve important milestones toward diverse stem cell therapies. • Novel system to study production of powerful immune cells. • Creating a stem cell environment to regenerate healthy articular cartilage for future treatment of osteoarthritis. • New technologies to determine causes of a deadly childhood disease: spinal muscular atrophy. • Neural cell generation to regain sense of touch after spinal injury.
Researchers have come up with a method to convert adult cells into epithelial stem cells, the first time anyone has achieved this in either humans or mice. The epithelial stem cells, when implanted into immunocompromised mice, regenerated the different cell types of human skin and hair follicles, and even produced structurally recognizable hair shaft, raising the possibility that they may eventually enable hair regeneration in people.
In normal development, all cells turn off genes they don’t need, often by attaching a chemical methyl group to the DNA, a process called methylation. Historically, scientists believed methyl groups could only stick to a particular DNA sequence: a cytosine followed by a guanine, called CpG. But in recent years, they have been found on other sequences, and so-called non-CpG methylation has been found in stem cells, and in neurons in the brain.
Investigators at Johns Hopkins report they have developed human induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) capable of repairing damaged retinal vascular tissue in mice. The stem cells, derived from human umbilical cord-blood and coaxed into an embryonic-like state, were grown without the conventional use of viruses, which can mutate genes and initiate cancers, according to the scientists. Their safer method of growing the cells has drawn increased support among scientists, they say, and paves the way for a stem cell bank of cord-blood derived iPSCs to advance regenerative medicine research.
Scientists have known for years that stem cells in male and female sexual organs are regulated differently by their respective hormones. In a surprising discovery, researchers at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) and Baylor College of Medicine have found that stem cells in the blood-forming system — which is similar in both sexes — also are regulated differently by hormones, with estrogen proving to be an especially prolific promoter of stem cell self-renewal.
Breast cancer stem cells exist in two different states and each state plays a role in how cancer spreads, according to an international collaboration of researchers. Their finding sheds new light on the process that makes cancer a deadly disease.
Decade-long study reported by an international team that includes University of Delaware researchers shows that stem-cell memory T-cells (Tscm) play an increasingly significant role in sustaining HIV infection in patients that have remained on therapy.
In a paper published in this week’s Online Early Edition of PNAS, researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine identify a key gene receptor and signaling pathway essential maintaining hESCs in an undifferentiated state.
A study, published online today in Nature, used stem cells to correct a defective “ring chromosome” with a normal chromosome. Such therapy has the promise to correct chromosome abnormalities that give rise to birth defects and disabilities.
With the help of biomimetic matrices, a research team led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego has discovered exactly how calcium phosphate can coax stem cells to become bone-building cells. This work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Jan. 6, 2014.
Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute and Department of Neurosurgery identified immune system targets on cancer stem cells – cells from which malignant brain tumors are believed to originate and regenerate – and created an experimental vaccine to attack them.
Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered an effective strategy that could prevent the human immune system from rejecting the grafts derived from human embryonic stem cells, a major problem now limiting the development of human stem cell therapies. Their discovery may also provide scientists with a better understanding of how tumors evade the human immune system when they spread throughout the body.
In an early indication of lay opinions on research with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a new study by bioethicists at Johns Hopkins University indicates that despite some ethical concerns, patients give the research “broad endorsement”.
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