Stem Cells News and Research

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Stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell.

Protein activated by inflammation converts glioblastoma multiforme cells to most aggressive form

A prominent protein activated by inflammation is the key instigator that converts glioblastoma multiforme cells to their most aggressive, untreatable form and promotes resistance to radiation therapy, an international team lead by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported online today in the journal Cancer Cell.

30 Aug 2013

Scientists develop complex human brain tissue in 3D culture system

Complex human brain tissue has been successfully developed in a three-dimensional culture system established in an Austrian laboratory. The method described in the current issue of NATURE allows pluripotent stem cells to develop into cerebral organoids - or "mini brains" - that consist of several discrete brain regions.

29 Aug 2013

Future of biomedical innovation depends on new trend for all players to work together for common goal

It's a long, expensive, risky road to turn a scientific breakthrough into a treatment that can help patients. Fewer organizations are trying to tackle the challenges alone, says a new paper from MIT researchers published August 28 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

29 Aug 2013

Scientists develop method to generate functioning brain cells that produce myelin

Stem cell technology has long offered the hope of regenerating tissue to repair broken or damaged neural tissue. Findings from a team of UC Davis investigators have brought this dream a step closer by developing a method to generate functioning brain cells that produce myelin - a fatty, insulating sheath essential to normal neural conduction.

29 Aug 2013

WPI researchers receive NIH grant to develop cell therapies for healing cardiac muscle

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a five-year, $1.94 million grant to a biomedical research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) working at the forefront of cell therapies for healing cardiac muscle damaged by heart attack or chronic disease.

29 Aug 2013

Study shows genetic test to classify gastric cancers and match them to therapies offer best outcomes

Stomach cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide, actually falls into three broad subtypes that respond differently to currently available therapies, according to researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore.

28 Aug 2013

'Helper cells' improve survival rate of transplanted stem cells, finds study

Like volunteers handing out cups of energy drinks to marathon runners, specially engineered "helper cells" transplanted along with stem cells can dole out growth factors to increase the stem cells' endurance, at least briefly, Johns Hopkins researchers report.

28 Aug 2013

Novel Parkinson’S Target Uncovered

Researchers from Johns Hopkins and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) highlighted a novel mechanism underlying Parkinson's disease while simultaneously putting to rest a previously held theory regarding progression of the disorder. They also identified a compound that alleviates the disease's symptoms in mice.

27 Aug 2013

Sigma Life Science releases genome editing tool for screening and exploratory studies

Sigma-Aldrich Corporation today announced that Sigma Life Science, its innovative biological products and services business, released Sigma CRISPRs, an inexpensive mammalian genome editing tool suitable for screening and exploratory studies.

27 Aug 2013

Intracerebral injection of BSC may reduce post-stroke cognitive dysfunction

27 Aug 2013

Microscopic material in cells offers robust treatment for stroke

In the latest in a series of experiments testing the use of stem cells to treat neurological disease, researchers at Henry Ford Hospital have shown for the first time that microscopic material in the cells offers a "robust" treatment for crippling stroke.

27 Aug 2013

TSRI scientists find way to use new DNA-editing technology for DNA sequencing

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found a way to apply a powerful new DNA-editing technology more broadly than ever before.

27 Aug 2013

BSCs may offer new approach for reducing post-stroke cognitive dysfunction

Cognitive deficits following ischemic stroke are common and debilitating, even in the relatively few patients who are treated expeditiously so that clots are removed or dissolved rapidly and cerebral blood flow restored. A new study in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience demonstrates that intracerebral injection of bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells reduces cognitive deficits produced by temporary occlusion of cerebral blood vessels in a rat model of stroke, suggesting that BSCs may offer a new approach for reducing post-stroke cognitive dysfunction.

26 Aug 2013

Mayo Clinic opens its own stem cell laboratory in summer 2014

Mayo Clinic in Arizona, with one of the most active bone marrow transplant programs in United States, will open its own stem cell laboratory in summer 2014. The laboratory will be initially dedicated to storing and processing stem cells used for bone marrow transplants at Mayo Clinic Hospital and Phoenix Children's Hospital.

26 Aug 2013

Scientists discover mechanisms of GATA3 gene that govern blood stem cell self-renewal process

Stem cell scientists at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre have discovered the gene GATA3 has a role in how blood stem cells renew themselves, a finding that advances the quest to expand these cells in the lab for clinical use in bone marrow transplantation, a procedure that saves thousands of lives every year.

26 Aug 2013

BES procedure may prevent cell apoptosis in stem cell-based transplantation therapy

Researchers at the Beihang University School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, led by Dr. Yubo Fan, have discovered that Biphasic Electrical stimulation (BES), a non-chemical procedure, may be used as a strategy for preventing cell apoptosis in stem cell-based transplantation therapy.

26 Aug 2013

Researchers identify compound that eases symptoms of Parkinson's disease

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have brought new clarity to the picture of what goes awry in the brain during Parkinson's disease and identified a compound that eases the disease's symptoms in mice.

26 Aug 2013

Stem cell therapy improves radiation-induced cognitive impairment

Patients receiving cranial irradiation treatment for brain cancer may find the treatment life-saving, but often suffer progressive and debilitating cognitive detriments, including spatial learning and memory deficits. The cognitive deficits are a contributing factor to the often significant adverse impacts on the surviving patients' quality of life after radiation therapy. In an effort to improve post-irradiation cognitive impairment, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues at Neuralstem, Inc. (Rockville, MD), have transplanted fetal stem cells into laboratory animals with radiation-induced cognitive impairments and found that this led to a number of cognitive improvements.

23 Aug 2013

Research findings lay foundation for regenerating damaged heart muscle

In the aftermath of a heart attack, cells within the region most affected shut down. They stop beating. And they become entombed in scar tissue. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have demonstrated that this damage need not be permanent-by finding a way to transform the class of cells that form human scar tissue into those that closely resemble beating heart cells.

23 Aug 2013

Scientists grow cells that line blood vessels from human iPSCs

In a scientific first, Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists have successfully grown the cells that line the blood vessels-called vascular endothelial cells-from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), revealing new details about how these cells function.

23 Aug 2013