Bone Marrow News and Research

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Bone Marrow is the soft, sponge-like tissue in the center of most bones. It produces white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

New approach to treating autoimmune disease offered by Weizmann scientists

In autoimmune diseases, the immune system turns against the body's own tissues and organs, wreaking havoc and destruction for no apparent reason. Partly because the origins of these diseases are so obscure, no effective treatment exists, and the suffering they inflict is enormous.

2 Jun 2008

Sen. Kennedy to introduce bill to revise national cancer act

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who recently was diagnosed with brain cancer, previously had begun work on legislation that would revise the 1971 National Cancer Act, and supporters hope that the "fact that Kennedy has fallen victim to this disease will generate public support and lend new urgency to the need to update the bill," the AP/Chicago Tribune reports.

30 May 2008

Avoiding spleen removal for Cooley's anemia sufferers

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College may have discovered the precise role of a gene in one of the world's most common blood disorders, beta-thalassemia, commonly known as Cooley's anemia. Along with sickle-cell anemia, Cooley's anemia is the most commonly inherited disease in the world, affecting many people of Mediterranean descent, and 20 out of every 100,000 African-Americans. The World Health Organization estimates that between 50,000-100,000 children are born with the disease each year.

27 May 2008

Bone repair using patient's stem cells comes closer

Hitherto it has been difficult to induce adult human stem cells to produce bone, e.g. in order to repair bone tissue. Researchers at the University of Twente have shown that if the enzyme PKA is previously activated in the stem cells in the lab, following implantation this results in substantial bone formation.

26 May 2008

Adult human stem cells shown not to pose a cancer risk when implanted into different organs

A new study by UC Davis researchers provides evidence that methods using human bone marrow-derived stem cells to deliver gene therapy to cure diseases of the blood, bone marrow and certain types of cancer do not cause the development of tumors or leukemia.

6 May 2008

Stanford researchers synthesize new agents to flush HIV out of hiding

Any hunter will tell you that when your quarry goes into hiding, you have to flush it out to get a good shot at it. Such is the case with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

1 May 2008

Researchers create heart and blood cells from reprogrammed skin cells

Stem cell researchers at UCLA were able to grow functioning cardiac cells using mouse skin cells that had been reprogrammed into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells.

30 Apr 2008

Yale scientists explain metastasis

Metastasis, the spread of cancer throughout the body, can be explained by the fusion of a cancer cell with a white blood cell in the original tumor, according to Yale School of Medicine researchers, who say that this single event can set the stage for cancer's migration to other parts of the body.

29 Apr 2008

Tissue-specific blood stem cell line established from embryonic stem cells

A research team at the Umea Center for Molecular Medicine (UCMM) in Sweden, led by Professor Leif Carlsson, has managed to specifically establish and isolate the tissue-specific stem cell that produces blood cells (blood stem cell) by using genetically modified embryonic stem cells.

28 Apr 2008

Menstrual blood - an abundant sources of stem cells

Researchers seeking new and more abundant sources of stem cells for use in regenerative medicine have identified a potentially unlimited, noncontroversial, easily collectable, and inexpensive source - menstrual blood.

23 Apr 2008

A stem cell type supposed to be crucial for angiogenesis and cancer growth does not exist?

It is widely believed that tumor angiogenesis and cancer growth critically depend on circulating endothelial precursor cells, mobilized from the bone marrow. The recent study from researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and Stanford University, US, now suggests that a stem cell type supposed to be crucial for blood vessel formation and cancer growth does not actually exist.

22 Apr 2008

Chronic inflammation triggers cell fusions that could protect neurons

Chronic inflammation triggers bone marrow-derived blood cells to travel to the brain and fuse with a certain type of neuron up to 100 times more frequently than previously believed, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.

20 Apr 2008

Scientists create monoclonal antibody libraries against avian influenza

An international group of American and Turkish research scientists, led by Sea Lane Biotechnologies, has created the first comprehensive monoclonal antibody libraries against avian influenza (H5N1) using samples from survivors of the 2005/2006 "bird flu" outbreak in Turkey.

15 Apr 2008

Researchers study Rituximab's action on cancer stem cells

Preliminary data from one of the first clinical trials to test a stem cell-targeting drug in cancer patients shows that while the drug did not prolong survival, its suppressing effect on patients' stem cells was impressive enough to send investigators looking for a better drug to try.

13 Apr 2008

Scientists uncover the potential to control adult stem cells

Research presented at the UK National Stem Cell Network Annual Science Meeting in Edinburgh represents a step towards the use of Adult Stem Cells (ASCs) to repair damaged tissue.

11 Apr 2008

Developing cancer treatments directed at critical developmental pathway

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues discovered that the Notch signaling pathway, which determines the development of many cell types, and is also implicated in some cancers, is not universally essential for the maintenance of stem cells.

11 Apr 2008

Discovery of gene involved in blood stem cell replication, movement

Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have identified a gene that is responsible for the division and movement of marrow-derived, blood-forming stem cells, a finding that could have major implications for the future of bone marrow and blood cell transplantation.

10 Apr 2008

New understanding of cancer stem cells

By revealing the inner workings of a common cell-to-cell signaling system, University of Michigan biologists have uncovered new clues about mysterious and contentious creatures called cancer stem cells.

10 Apr 2008

Researchers identify gene involved in blood stem cell replication, movement

10 Apr 2008

Better understanding of how T-cell leukemias and other disorders arise

Contrary to the currently accepted model of T-cell development, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that juvenile cells on their way to becoming mature immune cells can develop into either T cells or other blood-cell types versus only being committed to the T-cell path.

10 Apr 2008