Feature Channels: Stem Cells

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Participants are being enrolled in the first clinical trial that tests the use of retinal progenitor cells to treat retinitis pigmentosa, reported project director Dr. Henry Klassen of UCI’s Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. The product of stem cell research at UCI, these retinal progenitors are similar to stem cells in terms of potential regenerative properties, but they’re specific to the retina.

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Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have identified stem cells in the liver that give rise to functional liver cells. The work solves a long-standing mystery about the origin of new cells in the liver, which must constantly be replenished as cells die off, even in a healthy organ.

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A new study by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reveals a protein’s critical – and previously unknown -- role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing and extremely difficult-to-treat blood cancer. The study was published July 23 in Cell Stem Cell.

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Researchers in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation at CHLA have shown greatly improved outcomes in using stem cell transplantation to treat patients with a serious but very rare form of chronic blood cancer called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML).

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For the first time, researchers have employed a gene-editing technique involving low-dose irradiation to repair patient cells, according to a study published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine. This method, developed by researchers in the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, is 10 times more effective than techniques currently in use.

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A research team funded by the National Institutes of Health has generated a novel system for growing cardiac tissue from undifferentiated stem cells on a culture plate. This heart on a chip is a miniature physiologic system that could be used to model early heart development and screen drugs prescribed during pregnancy. Researchers from the University of California (UC) Berkeley; the Gladstone Institutes, in San Francisco; and UC San Francisco, reported their work in the July 14, 2015, online issue of Nature Communications.

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A gene called Jarid2, may play a wider role than previously thought in co-ordinating the way that stem cells change in a developing embryo to form the specialised cells that make up our bodies.

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Salk scientists have created mutation-free lines of stem cells from human patients with mitochondrial diseases.

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Stem cells are key for the continual renewal of tissues in our bodies. As such, manipulating stem cells also holds much promise for biomedicine if their regenerative capacity can be harnessed. Researchers are making headway in this area by studying stem cells in their natural environment in fruitflies.

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As bone marrow and lung stem cells are quite similar, the Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Yair Reisner investigated whether transplant methods used for bone marrow might also work for treating lung diseases such cystic fibrosis and asthma. When mice with lung damage were given the new stem cell treatment, their lungs healed and breathing improved.

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Other topics include repairing injured nerves, busted heart attack treatment, decorative brain molecules, and more...

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Other topics include memories and protein, physics and gas mileage, agriculture and food safety, vaccine for Dengue, retinoblastoma proteins in cancer progression, and more.

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Researchers at the University of Adelaide have discovered a new method for culturing stem cells which sees the highly therapeutic cells grow faster and stronger.

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By growing two types of stem cells in a “3-D culture” and measuring their ability to produce retinal cells, a team lead by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers has found one cell type to be better at producing retinal cells. The research not only reveals which stem cell type might be better for treating retinal degeneration, but it also demonstrates a standardized method for quantifying the effectiveness of different stem cells for such therapies.

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When it comes to communicating with each other, some cells may be more "old school" than was previously thought.

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UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists collaborating with University of Michigan researchers have found a previously unidentified mechanism that helps explain why stem cells undergo self-renewing divisions but their offspring do not.

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Other topics include resurgence of whales off southern California, treating chronic kidney disease, and a breakthrough in a heart-specific type of stem cell.

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Future therapies for failing hearts are likely to include stem-like cells and associated growth factors that regenerate heart muscle. Scientists have just taken an important step towards that future by identifying a stem-like “progenitor” cell that produces only heart muscle cells.

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A protein long believed to only guard the nucleus also regulates gene expression and stem cell development

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Despite the intense activity and high hopes that surround the use of stem cells to reverse heart disease, scientists still face multiple roadblocks before the treatment will be ready for clinical prime time. Researchers are now finding ways to maximize the healing potential of stem cells by helping them overcome the inhospitable conditions of a damaged heart – bringing the promise of stem cell therapy for heart disease one step closer to reality.

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For healing the heart after a heart attack, stem cell therapies show promise but are slow to implement. Researchers develop a new treatment called microsphere therapy that can be kept on-hand and administered more readily than stem cells.

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Brain tumor stem cells can resist treatment and regrow tumors, but scientists have identified a vulnerability in these cells that could lead to a new approach in battling deadly brain tumors.

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Older patients who received stem cells from younger, unrelated donors with higher numbers of so-called killer T cells (CD8 cells) had significantly reduced risk of disease relapse and improved survival compared to those who received stem-cells from donors with low numbers of CD8 cells, including older matched siblings.

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The use of cell therapy after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children can reduce the amount of therapeutic interventions needed to treat the patient, as well as the amount of time the child spends in neurointensive care, according to research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School.

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Using human embryonic stem cells, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute created a model that allows them to track cellular behavior during the earliest stages of human development in real-time. The model reveals, for the first time, how autonomic neurons and blood vessels come together to form the neurovascular unit.

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Stem cell scientists at McMaster can now directly convert adult human blood cells to both central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) neurons as well as neurons in the peripheral nervous system (rest of the body) that are responsible for pain, temperature and itch perception. This means that how a person’s nervous system cells react and respond to stimuli, can be determined from his blood.

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In a first, the Weizmann Institute’s Dr. Karina Yaniv and a team of scientists have determined how the lymphatic system develops in the embryo … and grown lymphatic cells in the lab. Using zebrafish, they showed that the cells originate in a vein niche that harbors angioblasts. Besides solving this century-old puzzle, their work can shed light on disease.

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Salk scientists find a single molecule that controls the fate of mature sensory neurons

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New research by University at Buffalo scientists finds that genomic regulation may come down to a single growth factor receptor protein.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: WWII and PTSD, stem cells, cancer, racial segregation, supplements and glaucoma, medical research, cybersecurity, vision research, and physics.

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Salk Institute scientists discover new type of stem cell that could potentially generate mature, functional tissues

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Writing in the May 4 online issue of the journal Scientific Reports, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine used a powerful statistical tool called “design of experiments” or DOE to determine the optimal cell culture formula to grow and produce hPSCs.

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Researchers have developed a new method of purifying stem cells that is faster, more efficient and less expensive than current methods for treating diseases of the retina. The research is being presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Denver, Colo. The new stem cell purification process involves growing stem cells on a special chip containing a computer system. Each stem cell is monitored closely, and the lower quality cells are removed as soon as they are identified.

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Salk scientists’ finding could aid regenerative and cancer therapies

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Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have discovered that mitochondria, the major energy source for most cells, also play an important role in stem cell development — a purpose notably distinct from the tiny organelle’s traditional job as the cell’s main source of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) energy needed for routine cell metabolism.

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Stem cells naturally cling to feeder cells as they grow in petri dishes. Scientists have thought for years that this attachment occurs because feeder cells serve as a support system, providing stems cells with essential nutrients.

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"It's very simple: tumors from mice that were initially fed silibinin had fewer cancer stem cells, were smaller, had lower metabolisms and showed decreased growth of new blood vessels," says University of Colorado Cancer Center researcher.

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Led by Case Western Reserve researchers, a multi-institutional team identified two topical drugs (miconazole and clobetasol) capable of stimulating regeneration of damaged brain cells and reversing paralysis in animal models of MS. The results appear online Monday, April 20, in the journal Nature.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: robotics, nicotine and alcohol, stem cells, vision, cancer, pregnancy, racial disparities in smoking risk, and herbal therapy for cardiac hypertrophy

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine have transformed skin cells from patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), into brain cells affected by the progressive, fatal disease and deposited those human-made cells into the first public ALS cell library, enabling scientists to better study the disease.

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An injection of stem cells into the eye may soon slow or reverse the effects of early-stage age-related macular degeneration, according to new research from scientists at Cedars-Sinai. Currently, there is no treatment that slows the progression of the disease, which is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 65.

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Research led by the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute has identified a gene critical to controlling the body's ability to create blood cells and immune cells from blood-forming stem cells—known as hematopoietic stem cells.

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Cancerous tumors have the ability to evade targeted therapies by activating alternative pathways. Tumors also contain cancer stem cells, believed responsible for metastasis and drug resistance. Now scientists in the Cancer Research Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have identified a drug target that addresses both of these challenges.

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Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a team led by Mount Sinai researchers has gained new insight into genetic changes that may turn a well known anti-cancer signaling gene into a driver of risk for bone cancers.

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Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer and the number one cause of cancer-related mortality. It is estimated that more than 158,000 people will die from lung cancer in the United States this year. Many scientists believe that targeting a type of cell called a cancer stem cell may be necessary to completely cure lung cancer. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers discovered a novel mechanism that plays an important role in the maintenance of lung cancer stem cells. This finding may lead to new potential therapeutic targets.

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Inside the microscopic world of the mouse hair follicle, Yale Cancer Center researchers have discovered big clues about how stem cells regenerate and die. These findings, reported in the journal Nature, could lead to a better understanding of how the stem cell pool is maintained or altered in tissues throughout the body.

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A team of Whitehead Institute scientists has discovered that during division, stem cells distinguish between old and young mitochondria and allocate them disproportionately between daughter cells.

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Cells of the intestine, liver and pancreas are difficult to produce from stem cells. Writing in Cell Stem Cell April 2, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that chromosomes in laboratory stem cells open slowly over time, in the same sequence that occurs during embryonic development. It isn’t until certain chromosomal regions have acquired the “open” state that they are able to respond and become liver or pancreatic cells.

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A particular molecular pathway permits stem cells in pediatric bone cancers to grow rapidly and aggressively, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center.

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Lung diseases like emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis are common among people with malfunctioning telomeres, the “caps” or ends of chromosomes. Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins say they have discovered what goes wrong and why.