Important new research by University of Michigan Health System scientists has discovered that bone marrow, previously thought to be resistant to the HIV virus, can contain latent forms of the infection. The finding helps explain why it’s hard to cure the disease.
In a leap toward making stem cell therapy widely available, researchers at the Ansary Stem Cell Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered that endothelial cells, the most basic building blocks of the vascular system, produce growth factors that can grow copious amounts of adult stem cells and their progeny over the course of weeks. Until now, adult stem cell cultures would die within four or five days despite best efforts to grow them.
Researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new assessment tool to measure the severity of symptoms that can complicate stem cell transplantation. The tool assesses symptoms resulting from chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), and was presented with supporting research at the 2010 Bone and Marrow Transplant Tandem Meeting.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a new method for predicting – with up to 99 percent accuracy – the fate of stem cells. Using advanced computer vision technology to detect subtle cell movements that are impossible to discern with the human eye, researchers can successfully forecast how a stem cell will split and what key characteristics the daughter cells will exhibit.
The first order of business for any fledgling plant embryo is to determine which end grows the shoot and which end puts down roots. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute expose the turf wars between two groups of antagonistic genetic master switches that set up a plant's polar axis with a root on one end and a shoot on the other.
Researchers successfully removed CCR5 — a cell receptor to which HIV-1 binds for infection but which the human body does not need — from human cells. Individuals who naturally lack the CCR5 receptor have been found to be essentially resistant to HIV.
Working with mice, Johns Hopkins scientists who tested drugs intended to halt growth of brain cancer stem cells – a small population of cells within tumors that perpetuate cancer growth – conclude that blocking these cells may be somewhat effective, but more than one targeted drug attack may be needed to get the job done.
The great promise of induced pluripotent stem cells is that the all-purpose cells seem capable of performing all the same tricks as embryonic stem cells, but without the controversy.
Two large federal grants recently awarded to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia will advance the frontiers of research into therapies that manipulate human cells to benefit patients. One grant focuses on developing hESCs to improve platelet supplies. Another program concentrates on iPSCs, a potential source of healthy replacement tissues.
A natural material, derived from crustacean shell and algae, supports the growth of human embryonic stem cells.
Investigators at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the Karolinska Institutet, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School and Université Libre de Bruxelles have demonstrated in mouse models that transplanted stems cells, when in direct contact with diseased neurons, send signals through specialized channels that rescue the neurons from death.
Joslin Diabetes Center scientists uncover clues toward treating age-related conditions via the blood.
The long struggle to move the most versatile stem cells from the laboratory to the clinic got another boost with an $8.8 million contract award to the Waisman Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers from the Sbarro Institute for Molecular Medicine and Cancer Research at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Human Health Foundation in Spoleto, Italy, have found that MECP2, a gene that modifies the chromatin in the cell, has an important role in stem cell aging.
In a significant step toward restoring healthy blood circulation to treat a variety of diseases, a team of scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College has developed a new technique and described a novel mechanism for turning human embryonic and pluripotent stem cells into plentiful, functional endothelial cells, which are critical to the formation of blood vessels. Endothelial cells form the interior "lining" of all blood vessels and are the main component of capillaries, the smallest and most abundant vessels. In the near future, the researchers believe, it will be possible to inject these cells into humans to heal damaged organs and tissues.
Cancer-initiating cells that launch glioblastoma multiforme, the most lethal type of brain tumor, also suppress an immune system attack on the disease, scientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report in a paper featured on the cover of the Jan. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
While much of the promise of stem cells springs from their ability to develop into any cell type in the body, the biological workings that control that maturation process are still largely unknown.
A new study published in PNAS shows that delivering stem cells on a polymer scaffold to treat large areas of missing bone leads to improved bone formation and better mechanical properties compared to treatment with scaffold alone.
Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have uncovered an important link between inflammation and breast cancer stem cells that suggests a new way to target cells that are resistant to current treatments.
The most widely used human embryonic stem cell lines lack genetic diversity, a finding that raises social justice questions that must be addressed to ensure that all sectors of society benefit from stem cell advances, according to a University of Michigan research team.
Tissue-specific genes, thought to be dormant or not marked for activation in embryonic stem cells, are indeed marked by transcription factors, with proper marking potentially crucial for the function of tissues derived from stem cells.
Results of a preliminary study by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins show that “mini” stem cell transplantation may safely reverse severe sickle cell disease in adults.
Blood vessel blockage, a common condition in old age or diabetes, leads to low blood flow and results in low oxygen, which can kill cells and tissues. Such blockages can require amputation resulting in loss of limbs. Now, using mice as their model, researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed therapies that increase blood flow, improve movement and decrease tissue death and the need for amputation.
A new study finds that compounds derived from the spices turmeric and pepper could help prevent breast cancer by limiting the growth of stem cells, the small number of cells that fuel a tumor’s growth.
The Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute is to provide stem cells to a five-member National Institutes of Health consortium of researchers for development of potential therapies to treat Huntington’s disease.
Researchers from the UCLA AIDS Institute and colleagues have for the first time demonstrated that human blood stem cells can be engineered into cells that can target and kill HIV-infected cells — a process that potentially could be used against a range of chronic viral diseases.
Defibrotide, a novel drug which modulates the response of blood vessels to injury, was markedly more effective than standard treatment in post-stem cell transplant patients with hepatic veno-occlusive disease, a life threatening toxicity of transplant caused by blockages in tiny blood vessels of the liver, according to a study led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists.
Bone marrow transplants still rely on exact matches between donor and patient. Now, scientists at the University of Perugia and the Weizmann Institute have improved on a method of transplanting bone marrow-based stem cells from a mismatched donor, making it safer for use when no exact match exists. The new method also restores the immune system faster.
A drug that has become a mainstay of multiple myeloma treatment may outperform alternative therapies in re-establishing the immune system of patients who have received stem cell transplants from unrelated, partially matched donors, according to early clinical trial results to be presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators at the American Society of Hematology’s (ASH) annual meeting on Sunday, Dec. 6 (Abstract 48, Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Room 243-245, 5:45 pm CT).
The body is a battle zone. Cells constantly compete with one another for space and dominance. Though the manner in which some cells win this competition is well known to be the survival of the fittest, how stem cells duke it out for space and survival is not as clear. A study on fruit flies published in the October 2 issue of Science by Johns Hopkins researchers describes how stem cells win this battle by literally sticking around.
Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins are among the most prescribed medicines in the U.S. Now a new study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center indicates that statins may protect stem cell transplant patients from one of the most serious complications of the life-saving cancer therapy: graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD. The findings are reported in the Nov. 4 first edition of the journal Blood.
Adult stem cells may help repair heart tissue damaged by heart attack according to the findings of a new study to be published in the December 8 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Results from the Phase I study show stem cells from donor bone marrow appear to help heart attack patients recover better by growing new blood vessels to bring more oxygen to the heart.
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that stem cells found in amniotic fluid meet an important test of potential to become specialized cell types, which suggests they may be useful for treating a wider array of diseases and conditions than scientists originally thought.
An encapsulation breakthrough may enable doctors to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to tumors over extended time periods, while preventing the side effects of chemo and other cancer treatments. The system led to an 87% reduction in volume and an 83% reduction in weight of a treated glioma tumor in mice after two weeks.
Researchers have transplanted genetically modified hematopoietic stem cells into mice so that their developing red blood cells produce a critical lysosomal enzyme – preventing or reducing organ and central nervous system damage from the often-fatal genetic disorder Hurler’s syndrome.
The same genes that are chemically altered during normal cell differentiation, as well as when normal cells become cancer cells, are also changed in stem cells that scientists derive from adult cells, according to new research from Johns Hopkins and Harvard.
The recent creation of live mice from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) not only represents a remarkable scientific achievement, but also raises important issues, according to bioethicists at The Johns Hopkins University's Berman Institute of Bioethics.
Physician-researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) received a nearly $16 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to fund the development of a stem cell-based treatment for age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss and blindness among the elderly.
A team of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute stem cell researchers led by Eduardo Marbán, M.D., Ph.D. has been awarded a four-year, $5.5 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to fund research leading to clinical trials of new treatments for heart attack patients.
Researchers led by Moores UCSD Cancer Center Director Dennis A. Carson, MD, professor of medicine, and Catriona Jamieson, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Cancer Stem Cell Research Program at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center have been awarded $20 million over four years to develop novel drugs against leukemia stem cells.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have shown that adult stem cells from bone marrow can prevent acute lung injury in a mouse model of the disease.
The Salk Institute has been awarded a $15.6 million grant by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) for translational research focusing on developing a novel stem-cell based therapy for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) – or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences is using $5.4 million of Recovery Act funds to accelerate basic studies of induced pluripotent stem cells.
Stem cell research holds great promise for the treatment of millions of Americans with debilitating and possibly fatal diseases. Current legislation and guidelines, however, continue to limit researchers’ endeavors in unlocking the potential breakthroughs that stem cell research can provide. To address this concern, today The Endocrine Society issued a Position Statement calling for an increase in NIH funding for stem cell research as well as expanding the scope of funding to include promising yet neglected areas of stem cell research.
Johns Hopkins scientists have been awarded a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to learn more about the nerve and muscle-wasting disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) using stem cells developed from ALS patients’ skin. The award, given over a two-year span, will be shared with three other laboratories, including one at Harvard University and two at Columbia University.
Several cell-based therapy approaches could provide new treatments for patients with Alport syndrome, reports an upcoming paper in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). "Our study opens up many considerations of how new therapies related to the use of stem cells can be devised for our kidney patients with chronic disease," comments Raghu Kalluri, MD, PhD (Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA).
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, are studying the effects of a bioengineered treatment used to target pancreatic cancer without damaging non-cancerous cells. Using a “Trojan Horse” methodology, the investigators developed a concept that could prolong and improve the quality of life for patients.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University hosted a roundtable discussion on stem cell research with New York Governor David A. Paterson today. Allen M. Spiegel, M.D., the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean of Einstein, and eight stem cell researchers discussed advances in medical therapies and treatments that Einstein scientists have been investigating since receiving more than $14 million in State funding for stem cell research.
Umbilical cord blood cells can successfully be reprogrammed to function like embryonic stem cells, setting the basis for the creation of a comprehensive bank of tissue-matched, cord blood-derived induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for off-the-shelf applications, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Center for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona, Spain.
New study reports on the platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment and its use in sports medicine; cautions more investigation needed.
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