Cell Culture News and Research

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Cell culture is the process of isolating cells from an organism and growing them in a scientifically controlled environment

Cell fusion studies at Johns Hopkins could lead to improved treatments for muscular dystrophy

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have established a high-efficiency cell-cell fusion system, providing a new model to study how fusion works. The scientists showed that fusion between two cells is not equal and mutual as some assumed, but, rather, is initiated and driven by one of the fusion partners. The discovery, they say, could lead to improved treatments for muscular dystrophy, since muscle regeneration relies on cell fusion to make muscle fibers that contain hundreds or even thousands of nuclei.

8 Mar 2013

Minerva scientists convert established human stem cells to the elusive naïve state

Minerva Biotechnologies, a leading cancer and stem cell development company today announced a major breakthrough in human stem cell research.

8 Mar 2013

Study reveals increased dietary salt intake may lead to autoimmune disorders

Increased dietary salt intake can induce a group of aggressive immune cells that are involved in triggering and sustaining autoimmune diseases.

7 Mar 2013

Researchers discover that tympanic border cells can enable hearing

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a group of progenitor cells in the inner ear that can become the sensory hair cells and adjacent supporting cells that enable hearing.

27 Feb 2013

Researchers use 3D printing and injectable gels to create bioengineered ears

Physicians at Weill Cornell Medical College and biomedical engineers at Cornell University have succeeded in building a facsimile of a living human ear that looks and acts like a natural ear. Researchers believe their bioengineering method will finally succeed in the long quest by scientists and physicians to provide normal looking "new" ears to thousands of children born with a congenital ear deformity.

22 Feb 2013

CB2 receptors might serve as potential therapeutic targets for cerebral ischemia

A new study published in the March issue of The American Journal of Pathology suggests that cortical type 2 cannabinoid (CB2) receptors might serve as potential therapeutic targets for cerebral ischemia.

22 Feb 2013

Signaling pathway might determine genetic susceptibility for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

Fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading preventable cause of developmental disorders in developed countries. And fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), a range of alcohol-related birth defects that includes fetal alcohol syndrome, is thought to affect as many as 1 in 100 children born in the United States.

21 Feb 2013

Immunotherapy could be answer to treating novel coronavirus

Investigation into the mechanism of action of the novelcoronavirus HCoV-EMC, which recently emerged in the Middle East, has revealed that although human bronchial epithelia are very susceptible to infection with the virus, interferon I and III were both able to significantly reduce its replication in cell culture.

20 Feb 2013

Study may help design better DAA drug cocktails to treat HCV

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects about 4 million in the United States and is the primary cause of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. Current therapy against HCV is suboptimal. Daclatasvir, a direct acting antiviral (DAA) agent in development for the treatment of HCV, targets one of the HCV proteins (i.e., NS5A) and causes the fastest viral decline (within 12 hours of treatment) ever seen with anti-HCV drugs.

20 Feb 2013

Researchers identify new way to influence the vital serotonin signaling system

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the University of Houston has found a new way to influence the vital serotonin signaling system - possibly leading to more effective medications with fewer side effects.

14 Feb 2013

Southampton scientists create new method to generate bone cells

Scientists at the University of Southampton have created a new method to generate bone cells which could lead to revolutionary bone repair therapies for people with bone fractures or those who need hip replacement surgery due to osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

12 Feb 2013

Scientists identify enigmatic aggregates linked to neurodegenerative diseases

The proteins that have now been identified shouldn't actually exist. Nevertheless, they build the core of cellular aggregates whose identity has been enigmatic until now. These aggregates are typically associated with hereditary neurodegenerative diseases including variants of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), also known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They are likely to be damaging and might be a target for therapy.

11 Feb 2013

UPC develops new system for electroporation of cell cultures

Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia have developed a technique that improves and cuts the cost of a technique called electroporation, which involves opening pores in cell membranes using an electric field to introduce substances like drugs and DNA. Current methods are aggressive and expensive whereas the new system manages to apply low voltage electroporation with a small printed circuit board, which costs less than a Euro per unit and does not damage cells.

11 Feb 2013

Previously poorly investigated signalling pathway crucial for proliferation of prostate cancer cells

A previously poorly investigated signalling pathway is crucial for the growth and proliferation of prostate cancer cells. An international research team discovered this when studying the enzyme "soluble adenylyl cyclase" that produces the second messenger molecule cAMP.

5 Feb 2013

Life Technologies full year 2012 revenue increases 2% to $3.8 billion

Life Technologies Corporation today announced results for its fourth quarter for the year ended Dec. 31, 2012.

4 Feb 2013

Targeting key HIV protein could stop HIV infection from progressing to AIDS

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine may have found an "Achilles heel" in a key HIV protein. In findings published online today in Chemistry and Biology, they showed that targeting this vulnerable spot could stop the virus from replicating, potentially thwarting HIV infection from progressing to full-blown AIDS.

25 Jan 2013

Biomedical engineers identify natural switch that controls breast cancer metastasis

With a desire to inhibit metastasis, Cornell biomedical engineers have found the natural switch between the body's inflammatory response and how malignant breast cancer cells use the bloodstream to spread.

24 Jan 2013

UB scientists propose first genomic explanation for schizophrenia

New University at Buffalo research demonstrates how defects in an important neurological pathway in early development may be responsible for the onset of schizophrenia later in life.

23 Jan 2013

Very low levels of BPS can disrupt natural estrogen hormone actions

A few years ago, manufacturers of water bottles, food containers, and baby products had a big problem. A key ingredient of the plastics they used to make their merchandise, an organic compound called bisphenol A, had been linked by scientists to diabetes, asthma and cancer and altered prostate and neurological development.

23 Jan 2013

New compounds can target RNase H enzyme in HIV

Scientists who study HIV are facing a troubling consequence of their own success. They created drugs that can now give infected patients almost normal life expectancy. However, those same drugs will eventually cause the constantly mutating virus to evolve into a form that eludes current treatments.

18 Jan 2013