Pluripotency News and Research

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De-bookmarking could be key to better reprogramming of fibroblasts into iPS cells

In reading, a bookmark tells where you stopped. Cells use bookmarks too, specific proteins that help the cell remember what collection of genes needs to be turned on again after the brief halt of gene expression during cell division.

20 Sep 2016

Study reveals how pluripotency differs among mice, monkeys, and humans

Not too shabby, humans. New research shows that certain primate stem cells have pluripotency superior to some types derived from mice.

26 Aug 2016

Scientists make major advance in understanding how stem cells become specialized

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have made a major advance in understanding how the cells of an organism, which all contain the same genetic information, come to be so diverse.

5 Aug 2016

Scientists uncover how changes in metabolism of embryonic stem cells can help engineer new blood vessels

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have uncovered how changes in metabolism of human embryonic stem cells help coax them to mature into specific cell types — and may improve their function in engineered organs or tissues.

24 Jun 2016

Study shows similarity between embryonic and reprogrammed stem cells

Stem cells are specialized undifferentiated cells that can divide and have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth.

13 Jun 2016

About 30% of iPSCs not safe for clinical use, report multi-institutional researchers

As the promise of using regenerative stem cell therapies draws closer, a consortium of biomedical scientists reports about 30 percent of induced pluripotent stem cells they analyzed from 10 research institutions were genetically unstable and not safe for clinical use.

10 Jun 2016

Oct4 gene may play significant role in preventing underlying cause of heart attacks, strokes

A gene that scientific dogma insists is inactive in adults actually plays a vital role in preventing the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined.

18 May 2016

Study suggests ways of minimizing DNA folding errors

Induced pluripotent stem cells hold promise for regenerative medicine because they can, in theory, turn into any type of tissue and because they are made from a patient's own adult cells, guaranteeing compatibility. However, the technique that turns adult cells into these iPS cells is not foolproof; after reverting to their pluripotent state, these cells don't always correctly differentiate back into adult cells.

11 May 2016

Pluripotent stem cells could serve as valuable model for understanding Andersen's syndrome

Successful reprogramming of muscle cells derived from biopsies of patients with Andersen's syndrome (AS) led to the formation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that can serve as a valuable model for understanding the cause of this rare disorder and discovering novel therapies.

3 Feb 2016

Discovery may lead to potential new therapeutic approach to eradicate blood cancers

An international team of scientists, headed by researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, report that decreases in a specific group of proteins trigger changes in the cancer microenvironment that accelerate growth and development of therapy-resistant cancer stem cells (CSCs).

1 Dec 2015

Changes in cellular metabolites regulate earliest stages of embryonic stem cell development

Changes in cellular metabolites have been shown to regulate embryonic stem cell development at the earliest stages of life. Metabolites are simple compounds generated during life-sustaining chemical activities in cells.

17 Nov 2015

Researchers identify factors that spark formation of pluripotent cells

Researchers at EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Trust- Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge have identified factors that spark the formation of pluripotent cells.

10 Nov 2015

Key protein controls stem cell properties that could make them useful in regenerative medicine

A key protein controls stem cell properties that could make them more useful in regenerative medicine, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and published online today in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

31 Oct 2015

RUCDR Infinite Biologics awarded $6 million grant from NINDS

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has awarded a five-year grant worth up to $6,034,323 to RUCDR Infinite Biologics, a unit of Rutgers' Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey. RUCDR, which is located on Rutgers' Busch Campus in Piscataway, is the world's largest university-based biorepository.

20 Oct 2015

US and German researchers team up to advance quality control of human stem cells

Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in California, USA, and two German institutes, the Center for Integrated Psychiatry Kiel (ZIP) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME, have announced a partnership to advance the quality control of human stem cells.

16 Oct 2015

Super-resolution microscopes reveal the link between genome packaging and cell pluripotency

In 1953 Watson and Crick first published the discovery of the double helix structure of the DNA. They were able to visualize the DNA structure by means of X-Ray diffraction. Techniques, such as electron microscopy, allowed scientists to identify nucleosomes, the first and most basic level of chromosome organisation

13 Mar 2015

New single-cell genetic profiling techniques help uncover variation in pluripotent stem cells

Stem cells offer great potential in biomedical engineering due to their pluripotency, which is the ability to multiply indefinitely and also to differentiate and develop into any kind of the hundreds of different cells and bodily tissues. But the precise complexity of how stem cell development is regulated throughout states of cellular change has been difficult to pinpoint until now.

5 Dec 2014

Human stem cells made from adult donor cells remember their origin, say McMaster scientists

Scientists at McMaster University have discovered that human stem cells made from adult donor cells "remember" where they came from and that's what they prefer to become again.

3 Dec 2014

UCSD researchers describe surprising role of protein in embryonic development

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) give rise to all blood and immune cells throughout the life of vertebrate organisms, from zebrafish to humans. But details of their genesis remain elusive, hindering efforts to develop induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) replacements that might address a host of blood disorders.

7 Nov 2014

NIH presents 2014 New Innovator Award to Penn Medicine researcher

Roberto Bonasio, PhD, an assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and a core member of the Penn Epigenetics Program is one of the recipients of a 2014 New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

16 Oct 2014