Disease Modeling News and Research

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Scientists at Salk Institute develop novel platform to study kidney diseases

Diseases affecting the kidneys represent a major and unsolved health issue worldwide. The kidneys rarely recover function once they are damaged by disease, highlighting the urgent need for better knowledge of kidney development and physiology.

19 Nov 2013

Researchers generate three-dimensional kidney structures from human stem cells

18 Nov 2013

Study could enhance process of reprogramming adult cells into embryonic-like stem cells

Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that physical cues can replace certain chemicals when nudging mature cells back to a pluripotent stage, capable of becoming any cell type in the body.

23 Oct 2013

Research: Zebrafish exhibits same developmental issues as humans

Duke researchers have connected very rare and precise duplications and deletions in the human genome to their complex disease consequences by duplicating them in zebrafish.

18 Oct 2013

Scientists uncover new approach to develop induced pluripotent stem cells for in vivo disease modeling

In a paper in Cell Stem Cell, a team led by researchers in the Boston Children's Hospital's Stem Cell Transplantation Program reports a new approach for turning induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) into hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells for in vivo disease modeling.

4 Oct 2013

Researchers find way to differentiate iPSCs into mature human neurons in the brain

Difficult-to-study diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and autism now can be probed more safely and effectively thanks to an innovative new method for obtaining mature brain cells called neurons from reprogrammed skin cells. According to Gong Chen, the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences and professor of biology at Penn State University and the leader of the research team, "the most exciting part of this research is that it offers the promise of direct disease modeling, allowing for the creation, in a Petri dish, of mature human neurons that behave a lot like neurons that grow naturally in the human brain."

10 Jun 2013

Researchers identify genetic mutations that appear to underlie rare syndrome

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Duke University have identified genetic mutations that appear to underlie a rare but devastating syndrome combining reproductive failure with cerebellar ataxia - a lack of muscle coordination - and dementia.

9 May 2013

Research reveals method to produce retinal cells from regenerative human stem cells

Research led by a biology professor in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has uncovered a method to produce retinal cells from regenerative human stem cells without the use of animal products, proteins or other foreign substances, which historically have limited the application of stem cells to treat disease and other human developmental disorders.

20 Mar 2013

NYSCF conference to discuss latest advances in stem cell research

Leaders in translational stem cell research from across the country and around the world will present findings on how advances in stem cell science lead to better treatments and cures to disease and injury at The New York Stem Cell Foundation's Seventh Annual Translational Stem Cell Research Conference, held at The Rockefeller University in Manhattan on October 10-11.

11 Oct 2012

Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor IHME's health measurement expert

For the first time, a prestigious technical innovation honor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will go to an expert in health measurement: Abraham Flaxman, an Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington (UW).

22 Aug 2012

Fate Therapeutics, BD Biosciences introduce first collaborative iPSC-related product

Fate Therapeutics, Inc. in collaboration with BD Biosciences, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), today announced the introduction of the first induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-related product resulting from the collaboration between the two companies.

From BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) 11 Jun 2012

Innovative tool for tracking movement of infectious diseases

It may seem like a game of tag, but it's an innovative tool for teaching the fundamentals of epidemiology, the science of how infectious diseases move through a population.

7 Apr 2012

New link between polyamine regulation and ESC biology

A*STAR scientists have for the first time, identified that precise regulation of polyamine levels is critical for embryonic stem cell (ESC) self-renewal - the ability of ESCs to divide indefinitely - and directed differentiation.

2 Mar 2012

International researchers to assess role of pre-clinical animal models in drug discovery

The New York Academy of Sciences and the Global Medical Excellence Cluster (GMEC), in collaboration with Imperial College London and King's College London, will host a two-day scientific conference, "Animal Models and Their Value in Predicting Drug Efficacy and Toxicity," that will provide a forum to critically examine the role of pre-clinical animal models in drug discovery.

7 Sep 2011

SYSU, ASU collaborate to develop early and predictive diagnostics for colorectal cancer

Arizona State University (ASU) and China's Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU) have formalized a research collaboration aimed at developing early and predictive diagnostics to improve patient outcomes for colorectal cancer.

7 Sep 2011

Human embryonic stem cell, iPS-derived progeny are similar and developmentally immature

Stem cell researchers at UCLA have discovered that three types of cells derived from human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are similar to each other, but are much more developmentally immature than previously thought when compared to those same cell types taken directly from human tissue.

18 Aug 2011

Rosa, Profil Institute partner to offer simulation technology for diabetes and obesity clinical trials

Profil Institute for Clinical Research, Inc., a company leading the industry in early phase clinical trials for diabetes and obesity, and Rosa & Co. LLC, a drug development advisory firm with expertise in drug-disease modeling and simulation, jointly announced today a strategic alliance to offer Profil Institute customers use of Rosa's modeling technology to simulate disease physiology, drug action, patient variability, and trial outcomes for their early phase clinical development programs.

8 Jun 2011

Liver cells made in the lab using skin cells: Study

In a medical breakthrough, researchers have been able to convert skin cells into liver cells. This could one day eliminate the need for organ transplants, they say.

12 May 2011

Functional tests are necessary to understand human disease despite genetic sequencing

Despite what you might have heard, genetic sequencing alone is not enough to understand human disease. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have shown that functional tests are absolutely necessary to understand the biological relevance of the results of sequencing studies as they relate to disease, using a suite of diseases known as the ciliopathies which can cause patients to have many different traits.

24 Jan 2011

New synthetic population can help computational modelers to study infectious diseases

To help computational modelers who study the spread of infectious diseases, including flu, researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health at RTI International in North Carolina created a synthetic population mirroring U.S. demographics. Now they've added another layer of realism: where the virtual citizens live.

25 Oct 2010