A new molecule, the first of its kind, allows for the multiplication of stem cells in a unit of cord blood. Umbilical cord stem cells are used for transplants aimed at curing a number of blood-related diseases, including leukemia, myeloma and lymphoma. For many patients this therapy comprises a treatment of last resort.
NYU Langone Medical Center scientists have found a way to boost dramatically the efficiency of the process for turning adult cells into so-called pluripotent stem cells by combining three well-known compounds, including vitamin C.
The fast and safe technique developed at the Salk Institute circumvents problems that have hindered regenerative medicine.
Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute infused antibody-studded iron nanoparticles into the bloodstream to treat heart attack damage. The combined nanoparticle enabled precise localization of the body’s own stem cells to the injured heart muscle. The study addresses a central challenge in stem cell therapeutics: how to achieve targeted interactions between stem cells and injured cells.
In a new study published today, Sept. 8, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has added a new wrinkle to the cell differentiation equation, showing that the stiffness of the surfaces on which stem cells are grown can exert a profound influence on cell fate.
A new study finds that cyclic bursts of a STAT3 inhibitor can replenish muscle stem cells and promote their differentiation into muscle fibers. The findings are an important step toward developing and maintaining new muscle to treat muscle diseases.
Rare stem cells in testis that produce a biomarker protein called PAX7 help give rise to new sperm cells — and may hold a key to restoring fertility, research by scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can acquire serious genetic and epigenetic abnormalities that lower the cells’ quality and limit their therapeutic usefulness. Now Whitehead Institute researchers have identified a cocktail of reprogramming factors that produces very high quality iPSCs.
Researchers have found a way to take a pediatric patient’s skin cells, reprogram the skin cells to function as heart valvular cells, and then use the cells as part of a tissue-engineered pulmonary valve
A Mayo Clinic researcher and his collaborators have developed an online analytic tool that will speed up and enhance the process of re-engineering cells for biomedical investigation. CellNet is a free-use Internet platform that uses network biology methods to aid stem cell engineering. Details of CellNet and its application to stem cell engineering are described in two back-to-back papers in the journal Cell.
Stem cell biologists have reprogrammed skin cells from patients with a rare genetic disorder, called familial dysautonomia, into neural crest cells that mimic and display many biological features of the disease. The research expedites the creation of these precursor cells from any patient with a neural crest-related disorder, allowing scientists to study each patient’s disorder at the cellular level.
A genetic variation linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression wreaks havoc on connections among neurons in the developing brain, a team of researchers reports. The study, led by Guo-li Ming, M.D., Ph.D., and Hongjun Song, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and described online Aug. 17 in the journal Nature, used stem cells generated from people with and without mental illness to observe the effects of a rare and pernicious genetic variation on young brain cells. The results add to evidence that several major mental illnesses have common roots in faulty “wiring” during early brain development.
In a paper published online this week in Nature, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine elaborate upon a crucial signaling pathway and the role of key proteins, which may help clear the way to generate HSCs from human pluripotent precursors, similar to advances with other kinds of tissue stem cells.
Weizmann Institute scientists developed a new technique for epigenetic profiling, enabling them to identify the exact DNA sequences, as well as various regulatory proteins, involved in regulating the process of blood stem cell fate. In a first, they also charted histone dynamics during blood development. The work holds promise for future development of diagnostic tools, regenerative medicine, and more.
During pregnancy, certain hormones trigger specialized mammary stem cells to create milk-producing cells essential to lactation. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have found that mammary stem cells associated with the pregnant mammary gland are related to stem cells found in breast cancer.
Building upon previous research, scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veteran’s Affairs San Diego Healthcare System report that neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and grafted into rats after a spinal cord injury produced cells with tens of thousands of axons extending virtually the entire length of the animals’ central nervous system.
Adult organisms ranging from fruit flies to humans harbor adult stem cells, some of which renew themselves through cell division while others differentiate into the specialized cells needed to replace worn-out or damaged organs and tissues. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that control the balance between self-renewal and differentiation in adult stem cells is an important foundation for developing therapies to regenerate diseased, injured or aged tissue.
The immune system ages and weakens with time, making the elderly prone to life-threatening infection and other maladies, and a UC San Francisco research team now has discovered a reason why.
Babies who are born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) can be successfully treated with a transplant of blood-forming stem cells, according to experts led by Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Richard J. O’Reilly, MD.
Advertising claims for cosmetic procedures using stem cells are running far ahead of the scientific evidence for safety and effectiveness, according to a review in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).
Hopkins Nursing Magazine Summer 2014 issue features the innovative HIV and Master's Entry into Nursing curricula, faculty publications, efforts on patient safety, community building, and plenty of color.
A new stem-cell discovery might one day lead to a more streamlined process for obtaining stem cells, which in turn could be used in the development of replacement tissue for failing body parts, according to UC San Francisco scientists.
Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research has been hampered by the inability to transfer research and tools from mouse ESC studies to their human counterparts, in part because human ESCs are “primed” and slightly less plastic than the mouse cells. Now researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Founding Member Rudolf Jaenisch have discovered how to manipulate and maintain human ESCs into a “naïve” or base pluripotent state similar to that of mouse ESCs without the use of any reprogramming factors.
Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have created the first iPSCs that offer a human model of insulin resistance, a key driver of type 2 diabetes.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed a technique that will speed up the production of stem-cell derived tissues. The technique will help the researchers in their efforts to use patients’ skin cells to regenerate retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)—a tissue in the back of the eye that is affected in several blinding eye diseases. It will also help the scientists search for drugs for personalized treatments.
The ability to reliably and safely make in the laboratory all of the different types of cells in human blood is one key step closer to reality.
New results ease previous concerns that gene-editing techniques—used to develop therapies for genetic diseases—could add unwanted mutations to stem cells.
A spinal mass was found in a woman with complete spinal cord injury 8 years after she had undergone implantation of olfactory mucosal cells to hopefully regain sensory and motor function. Authors caution that physicians should be vigilant in follow-up of patients who undergo stem cell interventions.
Johns Hopkins researchers have begun to connect the dots between a schizophrenia-linked genetic variation and its effect on the developing brain. As they report July 3 in the journal Cell Stem Cell, their experiments show that the loss of a particular gene alters the skeletons of developing brain cells, which in turn disrupts the orderly layers those cells would normally form.
Salk researchers compared a dozen stem cell lines and discovered a newer method beats out the more established protocol when it comes to creating cells that most resemble those in a human embryo.
A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Salk Institute for Biological Studies has shown for the first time that stem cells created using different methods produce differing cells. The findings, published in the July 2, 2014 online issue of Nature, provide new insights into the basic biology of stem cells and could ultimately lead to improved stem cell therapies.
Scientists working to make gene therapy a reality have solved a major hurdle: how to bypass a blood stem cell’s natural defenses and efficiently insert disease-fighting genes into the cell’s genome.
Among patients with a severe, life-threatening type of sclerosis, treatment with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), compared to intravenous infusion of the chemotherapeutic drug cyclophosphamide, was associated with an increased treatment-related risk of death in the first year, but better long-term survival, according to a study in the June 25 issue of JAMA.
The Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) has identified a biomarker that enables researchers to accurately characterize the properties and function of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the body.
Stem cell therapy for cardiovascular disease isn’t a medical pipe dream – it’s a reality today, although patients need to better understand the complex science behind these experimental treatments, according to the chief of Cardiology for the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.
Using a type of human stem cell, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have created a three-dimensional complement of human retinal tissue in the laboratory, which notably includes functioning photoreceptor cells capable of responding to light, the first step in the process of converting it into visual images.
Early Findings May Help to Reduce Risk of Age-Related Blood Cancers
When stem cells are used to regenerate bone tissue, many wind up migrating away from the repair site, which disrupts the healing process. But a University of Rochester research team makes use of a technique that keeps the stem cells in place, resulting in faster and better tissue regeneration.
Case Western Reserve researchers have discovered landmarks within pluripotent stem cells that guide how they develop to serve different purposes within the body. This breakthrough offers promise that scientists eventually will be able to direct stem cells in ways that prevent disease or repair damage from injury or illness. The study and its results appear in the June 5 edition of the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Researchers from the University of Chicago have pioneered a new method to simplify the study of protein networks. Through the use of synthetic proteins, they revealed a key interaction that regulates the ability of embryonic stem cells to change into other cell types.
Researchers use stem cells therapy to “recondition” abnormally functioning donor lungs that were deemed unusable for transplantion. Study could have implications for increasing the supply of suitable donor lungs. The article is published in AJP - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology and is highlighted as part of the APSselect program.
It was long assumed that the joining of egg and sperm launched a dramatic change in how and which genes were expressed. Instead, new research shows that totipotency is a step-wise process, manifesting as early as in precursors to sperm, called adult germline stem cells (AGSCs), which reside in the testes. The research was published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Mice severely disabled by a condition similar to multiple sclerosis (MS) were able to walk less than two weeks following treatment with human neural stem cells. The finding, which uncovers potential new avenues for treating MS, will be published online on May 15, 2014, in the journal Stem Cell Reports.
Mice crippled by an autoimmune disease similar to multiple sclerosis regained the ability to walk and run after a research team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, University of Utah and University of California, Irvine implanted human stem cells into their injured spinal cords.
Using new stem cell technology, scientists at the Salk Institute have shown that neurons generated from the skin cells of people with schizophrenia behave strangely in early developmental stages, providing a hint as to ways to detect and potentially treat the disease early.
Healthy stem cells work to restore or repair the body’s tissues, but cancer stem cells have a more nefarious mission: to spawn malignant tumors. Cancer stem cells were discovered a decade ago, but their origins and identity remain largely unknown.
Researchers at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center have published results from a study Cell Reports that discovers a new mechanism that distinguishes normal blood stem cells from blood cancers.
Adults suffering from diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and other blood-related disorders may benefit from life-saving treatment commonly used in pediatric patients. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have identified a new technique that causes cord blood (CB) stems cells to generate in greater numbers making them more useful in adult transplantation.
Investigators at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute – whose previous research showed that cardiac stem cell therapy reduces scarring and regenerates healthy tissue after a heart attack in humans – have identified components of those stem cells responsible for the beneficial effects.
By carefully controlling the levels of two proteins, researchers at the Salk Institute have discovered how to keep mammary stem cells—those that can form breast tissue—alive and functioning in the lab. The new ability to propagate mammary stem cells is allowing them to study both breast development and the formation of breast cancers.
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