Feature Channels: Stem Cells

• share
• favorite_border

As part of the Memorial Sloan Kettering – Hackensack Meridian Health Partnership, the two organizations have formed an Immunology Research Collaboration. Through this joint initiative, researchers can apply for funding to support innovative investigations to explore the power of the immune system and ways it may be harnessed to fight cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Xiaojun “Lance” Lian, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Penn State, has received a $500,000, five-year Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Mount Sinai have discovered that human acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells are dependent on a transcription factor known as RUNX1, potentially providing a new therapeutic target to achieve lasting remissions or even cures for a disease in which medical advances have been limited.

• share
• favorite_border

Using skin cells from human volunteers, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have created fully functional mini livers, which they then transplanted into rats. In this proof-of-concept experiment, the lab-made organs survived for four days inside their animal hosts.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

For a while now, some plastic surgeons have been using stem cells to treat aging, sun-damaged skin. But while they’ve been getting good results, it’s been unclear exactly how these treatments – using adult stem cells harvested from the patient’s own body – work to rejuvenate “photoaged” facial skin.

• share
• favorite_border

In this study, researchers investigated if specific targeting of CD133+ glioblastoma with cutting-edge immunotherapy drugs could eradicate the most aggressive subpopulation of cells in the tumour. They also looked at the safety of CD133-targeting therapies on normal, non-cancerous human stem cells including hematopoietic stem cells which create blood cells and progenitor cells which can form one or more kinds of cells.

• share
• favorite_border

A recent study from the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore has shown that rejuvenated fibroblasts can recover their ability to self-contract. This encouraging discovery holds great potential for applications in regenerative medicine and stem cell engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

Many patients with heart disease face limited treatment options. Fortunately, stem cell biology has enabled researchers to produce large numbers of cardiomyocytes, which may be used in advanced drug screens and cell-based therapies. However, current image analysis techniques don’t allow researchers to analyze heterogeneous, multidirectional, striated myofibrils typical of immature cells. In the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers showcase an algorithm that combines gradient methods with fast Fourier transforms to quantify myofibril structures in heart cells with considerable accuracy.

• share
• favorite_border

EpiBone’s Craniomaxillofacial, or EB-CMF, product is a living, anatomically correct bone graft made from a patient’s own fat-derived stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Oxidative stress can be pathological. Now researchers report that the other end of the redox spectrum, reductive stress, is also pathological. Reductive stress causes pathological heart enlargement and diastolic dysfunction in a mouse model.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Loma Linda University Health have demonstrated the promise of applying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to predict the efficacy of using human neural stem cells to treat a brain injury—a first-ever “biomarker” for regenerative medicine that could help personalize stem cell treatments for neurological disorders and improve efficacy. The study was published in Cell Reports.

• share
• favorite_border

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA has developed a first-of-its-kind roadmap of how human skeletal muscle develops, including the formation of muscle stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third month, businesses in the United States are marketing unlicensed and unproven stem-cell-based "therapies" and exosome products that claim to prevent or treat the disease. In Cell Stem Cell on May 5, bioethicist Leigh Turner describes how these companies are "seizing the pandemic as an opportunity to profit from hope and desperation."

• share
• favorite_border

A new study shows how stem cells – which can contribute to creating many parts of the body, not just one organ or body part – are able to postpone their own death in order to respond to an injury that needs their attention. The study was done in planarians, which are tiny worms used as model organisms to study regeneration because of their ability to recover from any injury using stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

People with the genetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) are prone to developing tumors on nervous system tissue. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that the development and growth of such tumors are driven by nearby noncancerous neurons and immune cells. The findings point to potential new therapeutic targets for people with NF1.

• share
• favorite_border

The National Academy of Sciences today elected four UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists in the fields of biophysics, cell biology, molecular biology, and stem cell biology into its membership, one of the highest honors for American scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The COVID-19 pandemic demands action on many fronts, from prevention to testing to treatment. Not content to focus its research efforts on just one, the laboratory of George Church in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University is tackling the problem from seven different angles.

• share
• favorite_border

Three researchers at the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA have received awards to pursue treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state’s stem cell agency.

• share
• favorite_border

Pesquisadores da Mayo Clinic descobriram mecanismos de cura ativados por células-tronco após um ataque cardíaco. As células-tronco restauraram o músculo cardíaco devolvendo-o ao seu estado anterior ao ataque cardíaco, fornecendo um esquema sobre como as células-tronco podem funcionar.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have used induced pluripotent stem cells produced from the skin of a patient with a rare, genetic form of insulin-dependent diabetes, transformed the stem cells into insulin-producing cells, used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to correct a defect that caused a form of diabetes, and implanted the cells into mice to reverse diabetes in the animals.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of scientists led by Camillo Ricordi, M.D., director of the Diabetes Research Institute and Cell Transplant Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, has been granted immediate FDA authorization for a 24-patient clinical trial to test the safety and exploratory efficacy of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells to block the life-threatening lung inflammation that accompanies severe cases of COVID-19.

• share
• favorite_border

A study published online April 20, 2020, in Nature Immunology, led by researchers at Cincinnati Children's reports a possible new approach for treating myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), which often can lead to leukemia.

• share
• favorite_border

The first COVID-19 patient in Texas has been enrolled in a stem cell therapy clinical trial for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

• share
• favorite_border

Is the future of personalized medicine out of this world? Cedars-Sinai is trying to find out by launching special stem cells into space to see if they multiply better there. The Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute is partnering with Space Tango of Lexington, Kentucky, to send induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to the International Space Station. The first flight for the project, funded by a $1.5 million award from NASA, could occur as early as next year.

• share
• favorite_border

When adult brain cells are injured, they revert to an embryonic state, say researchers at UC San Diego School of Medicine. In their newly adopted immature state, the cells become capable of re-growing new connections that, under the right conditions, can help to restore lost function.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have discovered a technique for directly reprogramming skin cells into light-sensing rod photoreceptors used for vision, sidestepping the need for stem cells. The lab-made rods enabled blind mice to detect light after the cells were transplanted into the animals’ eyes.

• share
• favorite_border

Henry J. Klassen, MD, PhD, professor and director of the Stem Cell and Retinal Generation Program at the UCI School of Medicine, Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, and founder of jCyte, Inc., was awarded a $6.6 million dollar grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) for a clinical trial targeting retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

• share
• favorite_border

Convalescent plasma treatments could be a potential treatment method for COVID-19 cases

• share
• favorite_border

Mount Sinai Health System is the first in the country to use an innovative allogeneic stem cell therapy in COVID-19 patients and will play a central role in developing and conducting a rigorous clinical trial for patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, the breathing illness that afflicts people who have severe cases of COVID-19.

• share
• favorite_border

UC San Diego and Space Tango received a NASA award to develop the first dedicated stem cell research laboratory within the International Space Station.

• share
• favorite_border

The Coriell Institute for Medical Research has been awarded a $9.2 million grant through an open competition from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). This five-year award keeps Coriell in place as the steward of the NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository, a world-renowned collection of high quality cell lines and DNA samples representing genetic diseases, distinct human populations around the world, and more.

• share
• favorite_border

Los investigadores de Mayo Clinic descubrieron cuáles son los mecanismos de recuperación que las células madre activan después de un ataque cardíaco. Las células madre restablecieron el músculo cardíaco al estado que tenía antes del ataque al corazón, lo cual, a su vez, facilitó un diagrama del posible funcionamiento de estas células.

• share
• favorite_border

The regulators of apoptosis watch over cell replication and the decision to enter the cell cycle. Researchers now show a direct link between the protein MCL1 — a member of the BCL2 protein family known as the gatekeepers of apoptosis — and the cell-cycle checkpoint protein P18.

• share
• favorite_border

Nicotinamide can inhibit aggressive cell transformations during wound healing and may be key to the development of therapies to treat fibrotic eye diseases

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that the age of certain immune cells used in immunotherapy plays a role in how effective it is. These cells — natural killer (NK) cells — appear to be more effective the earlier they are in development, opening the door to the possibility of an immunotherapy that would not utilize cells from the patient or a matched donor. Instead, they could be developed from existing supplies of what are called human pluripotent stem cells.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of University of California, Irvine researchers have published the first comprehensive overview of the major changes that occur in mammalian skin cells as they prepare to heal wounds. Results from the study provide a blueprint for future investigation into pathological conditions associated with poor wound healing, such as in diabetic patients.

• share
• favorite_border

New study finds gene therapy improved cardiac, muscle and liver function in Danon disease mouse models.

• share
• favorite_border

The newly awarded $8.6 million funding keeps Coriell in place as the trusted steward of this collection and includes the addition of new innovative products to expand the collection. The NIA Aging Cell Repository was established at Coriell in 1974 and Coriell has continuously managed this unique resource ever since.

• share
• favorite_border

Bioengineers have created a 3D-printed scaffold designed to regenerate complex tissues composed of multiple layers of cells with different biological and mechanical properties.

• share
• favorite_border

At a presentation at UAB, NIH director Francis Collins outlined the top 10 area of excitement and promise in science.

• share
• favorite_border

Mayo Clinic researchers have uncovered stem cell-activated mechanisms of healing after a heart attack. Stem cells restored cardiac muscle back to its condition before the heart attack, in turn providing a blueprint of how stem cells may work.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of Cornell researchers led by Ben Cosgrove, assistant professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, used a new cellular profiling technology to probe and catalog the activity of almost every kind of cell involved in muscle repair. They compiled their findings into a “cell atlas” of muscle regeneration that is one of the largest datasets of its kind.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say they have successfully turned back the biological hands of time, coaxing adult human cells in the laboratory to revert to a primitive state, and unlocking their potential to replace and repair damage to blood vessels in the retina caused by diabetes. The findings from this experimental study, they say, advance regenerative medicine techniques aimed at reversing the course of diabetic retinopathy and other blinding eye diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

Stem cells involved in replenishing human tissues and blood depend on an enzyme known as telomerase to continue working throughout our lives. When telomerase malfunctions, it can lead to both cancer and premature aging conditions. Roughly 90% of cancer cells require inappropriate telomerase activity to survive.  In a groundbreaking new study, an interdisciplinary team of Michigan State University researchers has observed telomerase activity at a single-molecule level with unprecedented precision ­­­­– expanding our understanding of the vital enzyme and progressing toward better cancer treatments.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

A new study shows that lung stem cell secretions – specifically exosomes and secretomes – delivered via nebulizer, can help repair lung injuries due to multiple types of pulmonary fibrosis in mice and rats.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have discovered a combination of two commonly available drugs could boost the body’s ability to heal bone fractures – accelerating bone formation and healing.