Feature Channels: Stem Cells

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UCLA stem cell researchers have found for the first time a surprising and unexpected plasticity in the embryonic endothelium, the place where blood stem cells are made in early development. Scientists found that the lack of one transcription factor, a type of gene that controls cell fate by regulating other genes, allows the precursors that normally generate blood stem and progenitor cells in blood forming tissues to become something very unexpected - beating cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells.

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In the first human study of its kind, researchers found that using stem cells to re-grow craniofacial tissues—mainly bone—proved quicker, more effective and less invasive than traditional bone regeneration treatments.

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Stem cells can actually replace dead heart tissue after a heart attack very early in life — but those same cells lose that regenerative ability in adults, according to researchers at Cornell University and the University of Bonn. The study, using mice as subjects, found that undifferentiated precursor cells grow new heart cells in a two-day-old mouse, but not in adult mice, settling a decades-old controversy about whether stem cells can play a role in the recovery of the adult mammalian heart following infarction — where heart tissue dies due to artery blockage.

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Non-canonical Wnt-signaling maintains a quiescent pool of blood-forming stem cells in mouse bone marrow.

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Johns Hopkins tissue engineers have used tiny, artificial fiber scaffolds thousands of times smaller than a human hair to help coax stem cells into developing into cartilage, the shock-absorbing lining of elbows and knees that often wears thin from injury or age.

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Using adult stem cells, Johns Hopkins researchers and a consortium of colleagues nationwide say they have generated the type of human neuron specifically damaged by Parkinson’s disease (PD) and used various drugs to stop the damage.

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Stem cells that come from a specific part of the developing brain help fuel the growth of brain tumors caused by an inherited condition, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report.

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In the July 6 issue of Cell Stem Cell, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine describe how human epidermal progenitor cells and stem cells control transcription factors to avoid premature differentiation, preserving their ability to produce new skin cells throughout life.

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Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Maryland report promising results from using adult stem cells from bone marrow in mice to help create tissue cells of other organs, such as the heart, brain and pancreas - a scientific step they hope may lead to potential new ways to replace cells lost in diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. The research in collaboration with the University of Paris Descartes is published online in the June 29, 2012 edition of Comptes Rendus Biologies, a publication of the French Academy of Sciences.

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that abnormal bone marrow stem cells drive the development of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).

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A recent study led by Andrew Puca, Ph.D. under the supervision and direction of Antonio Giordano, M.D., Ph.D. set out to illustrate novel mechanical transduction properties of Hematopoietic Stem Cells in relation to defining the expression of humoral factors by facilitating paracrine/autocrine signalling via microgravity.

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Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging have corrected the genetic mutation responsible for Huntington’s Disease (HD) using a human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) that came from a patient suffering from the incurable, inherited neurodegenerative disorder. Scientists took the diseased iPSCs, made the genetic correction, generated neural stem cells and then transplanted the mutation-free cells into a mouse model of HD where they are generating normal neurons in the area of the brain affected by HD.

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hns Hopkins researchers, working with an international consortium, say they have generated stem cells from skin cells from a person with a severe, early-onset form of Huntington’s disease (HD), and turned them into neurons that degenerate just like those affected by the fatal inherited disorder.

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Huntington's Disease Research - New “disease in a dish” model offers step forward in understanding fatal inherited disorder and ways to test therapies for it - Cedars-Sinai scientists have joined with expert colleagues around the globe in using stem cells to develop a laboratory model for Huntington’s disease, allowing researchers for the first time to test directly on human cells potential treatments for this fatal, inherited disorder.

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The blood-brain barrier may be poised to give up some of its secrets as researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created in the laboratory dish the cells that make up the brain’s protective barrier. The Wisconsin researchers describe transforming stem cells into endothelial cells with blood-brain barrier qualities.

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A single protein molecule may hold the key to turning cardiac stem cells into blood vessels or muscle tissue, a finding that may lead to better ways to treat heart attack patients.

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Cedars-Sinai’s Regenerative Medicine Institute has pioneered research on how motor-neuron cell-death occurs in patients with spinal muscular atrophy, offering an important clue in identifying potential medicines to treat this leading genetic cause of death in infants and toddlers.

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Six new human embryonic stem cell lines derived at the University of Michigan have just been placed on the NIH registry, making the cells available for federally-funded research.

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With their potential to treat a wide range of diseases and uncover fundamental processes that lead to those diseases, embryonic stem (ES) cells hold great promise for biomedical science. A number of hurdles, both scientific and non-scientific, however, have precluded scientists from reaching the holy grail of using these special cells to treat heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other diseases.

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Georgia Tech startup SpherIngenics is using microbead technology to produce capsules for cell-based therapies that protect cells from death and migration from the treatment site. Filling the protective microbeads with stem cells could enhance cartilage repair and craniofacial defect regeneration.

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Studying mice and humans, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their collaborators in Paris have identified two proteins that are required to maintain a supply of stem cells in the developing kidney. The work is a small step toward the future goal of growing kidney stem cells in the lab.

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UCLA stem cell scientists purified a subset of stem cells found in fat tissue and made from them bone that was formed faster and was of higher quality than bone grown using traditional methods, a finding that may one day eliminate the need for painful bone grafts that use material taken from the patient during invasive procedures.

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Breast-cancer researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that two related receptors in a robust signaling pathway must work together as a team to maintain normal activity in mammary stem cells.

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Adipose stem cells (ASCs)—stem cells derived from fat—are a promising source of cells for use in plastic surgery and regenerative medicine, according to a special review in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

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Cardiomyocytes, the workhorse cells that make up the beating heart, can now be made cheaply and abundantly in the laboratory.

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A team of scientists at McMaster University has discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments. To test more than a dozen different compounds, McMaster researchers pioneered a fully automated robotic system to identify several drugs, including thioridazine.

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Stem cells are essential building blocks for all organisms, from plants to humans. They can divide and renew themselves throughout life, differentiating into the specialized tissues needed during development, as well as cells necessary to repair adult tissue. Therefore, they can be considered immortal, in that they recreate themselves and regenerate tissues throughout a person’s lifetime, but that doesn’t mean they don’t age. They do, gradually losing their ability to effectively maintain tissues and organs.

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A substance in human mesenchymal stem cells that promotes growth appears to spur restoration of nerves and their function in rodent models of multiple sclerosis (MS), researchers at Case Western Reserve University have found.

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Scientists at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) led by Vladimir Serikov, MD, PhD, and Frans Kuypers, PhD, report in the current Epub issue of Stem Cells Translational Medicine that placental stem cells with important therapeutic properties can be harvested in large quantities from the fetal side of human term placentas (called the chorion). The chorion is a part of the afterbirth and is normally discarded after delivery, but it contains stem cells of fetal origin that appear to be pluripotent -- i.e., they can differentiate into different types of human cells, such as lung, liver, or brain cells. Since these functional placental stem cells can be isolated from either fresh or frozen term human placentas, this implies that if each individual’s placenta is stored at birth instead of thrown away, these cells can be harvested in the future if therapeutic need arises. This potential represents a major breakthrough in the stem cell field.

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One of the first long-term studies of stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury shows significant functional and other improvements in three out of ten patients, reports a study in the May issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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A study conducted by Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientists identifies how skeletal muscle stem cells respond to muscle injury and may be stimulated to improve muscle repair in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a severe inherited disease of muscle that causes weakness, disability and, ultimately, heart and respiratory failure.

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New research findings show that embryonic stem cells unable to fully compact the DNA inside them cannot complete their primary task: differentiation into specific cell types that give rise to the various types of tissues and structures in the body.

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For the first time, scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have transplanted brain cancer patients’ own gene-modified blood stem cells in order to protect their bone marrow against the toxic side effects of chemotherapy. Initial results of the ongoing, small clinical trial of three patients with glioblastoma showed that two patients survived longer than predicted if they had not been given the transplants, and a third patient remains alive with no disease progression almost three years after treatment.

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In an effort to identify the underlying causes of neurological disorders that impair motor functions such as walking and breathing, UCLA researchers have developed a novel system to measure the communication between stem cell-derived motor neurons and muscle cells in a Petri dish.

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Cells resist hormone inhibition and chemotherapy; video captures production of other cell types.

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Embryonic stem cells are primed to kill themselves if damage to their DNA makes them a threat to the developing embryo. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers reveal how they do it.

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A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the National Human Genome Research Institute has evaluated the whole genomic sequence of stem cells derived from human bone marrow cells—so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells—and found that relatively few genetic changes occur during stem cell conversion by an improved method. The findings, reported in the March issue of Cell Stem Cell, the official journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), will be presented at the annual ISSCR meeting in June.

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Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease line made from a never-frozen donated embryo.

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Stem cell researchers at UCLA have identified new components of the genetic pathway that controls the adhesive properties and proliferation of neural stem cells and the formation of neurons in early development.

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Sibling growth factors cooperate to maintain a pool of neuron-generating stem cells in the brain, according to a study published in the journal Stem Cells by researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) .

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have identified a molecular pathway that controls the retention and release of the brain’s stem cells. The discovery offers new insights into normal and abnormal neurologic development and could eventually lead to regenerative therapies for neurologic disease and injury. The findings, from a collaborative effort of the laboratories of Drs. Anna Lasorella and Antonio Iavarone, were published today in the online edition of Nature Cell Biology.

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Expanding on previous research providing proof-of-principal that human stem cells can be genetically engineered into HIV-fighting cells, a team of researchers have now demonstrated that these cells can actually attack HIV-infected cells in a living organism.

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Clinical trial at the Orlando Health Heart Institute evaluates the use of stem cells from the pelvic bone marrow to improve heart function. Patients’ own stem cells may preserve heart muscle function after a heart attack.

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Research at UCLA has developed a road map that could help guide researchers, stem cell product manufacturers, treating physicians and patients through the complex maze of imagining, creating and developing stem cell products and using them to treat disease.

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Researchers have generated a new type of human stem cell that can develop into numerous types of specialized cells, including functioning pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. The new cells are called endodermal progenitor cells.

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Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered how exposure to arsenic can turn normal stem cells into cancer stem cells and spur tumor growth. Inorganic arsenic, which affects the drinking water of millions of people worldwide, has been previously shown to be a human carcinogen. A growing body of evidence suggests that cancer is a stem-cell based disease. Normal stem cells are essential to normal tissue regeneration, and to the stability of organisms and processes. But cancer stem cells are thought to be the driving force for the formation, growth, and spread of tumors.

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New research from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Rambam Medical Center could someday lead to treatments that transform cancer from a lethal disease to a chronic, manageable one, similar to AIDS.

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Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have identified a new population of intestinal stem cells that may hold clues to the origin of colorectal cancer. This new stem cell population, reported March 30 in the journal Cell, appears to be relatively quiescent (inactive) – in contrast to the recent discovery of intestinal stem cells that multiply rapidly – and is marked by a protein, Lrig1, that may act as a “brake” on cell growth and proliferation.

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A research network led by a Mayo Clinic physician found that stem cells derived from heart failure patients’ own bone marrow and injected into their hearts improved the function of the left ventricle, the heart’s pumping chamber. Researchers also found that certain types of the stem cells were associated with the largest improvement and warrant further study.

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The new Stem Cell Transplant Program at the University of Virginia Health System recently performed its first two stem cell transplants, using non-embryonic stem cells from umbilical cord blood. The program offers both bone marrow and stem cell transplants, with a focus on cord blood, to treat leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and other blood diseases.