New line of pigs do not reject transplants, will allow for future research on stem cell therapies
COLUMBIA, Mo. – One of the biggest challenges for medical researchers studying the effectiveness of stem cell therapies is that transplants or grafts of cells are often rejected by the hosts. This rejection can render experiments useless, making research into potentially life-saving treatments a long and difficult process. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that a new line of genetically modified pigs will host transplanted cells without the risk of rejection. (more…)
UMD study of premature aging may help explain effects of normal aging
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Children with progeria, a rare disorder that causes premature aging, die in their teens of ailments that are common in octogenarians: heart failure and stroke. Kan Cao, a University of Maryland assistant professor of cell biology and molecular genetics, urgently wants to help find a cure. Cao and her colleagues have taken a big step in that direction, showing that a toxic protein destroys muscle cells inside the patients’ arteries. The researchers suspect the damaged arteries are more prone to failure. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — The sponginess of the environment where human embryonic stem cells are growing affects the type of specialized cells they eventually become, a University of Michigan study shows.(more…)
Poets and physicians know that a scarred heart cannot beat the way it used to, but the science of reprogramming cells offers hope—for the physical heart, at least.
A team of University of Michigan biomedical engineers has turned cells common in scar tissue into colonies of beating heart cells. Their findings could advance the path toward regenerating tissue that’s been damaged in a heart attack. (more…)
A protein known as Sp2 is key to the proper creation of neurons from stem cells, according to researchers at North Carolina State University. Understanding how this protein works could enable scientists to “program” stem cells for regeneration, which has implications for neural therapies.
Troy Ghashghaei and Jon Horowitz, both faculty in NC State’s Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences and researchers in the Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research, wanted to know more about the function of Sp2, a cell cycle regulator that helps control how cells divide. Previous research from Horowitz had shown that too much Sp2 in skin-producing stem cells resulted in tumors in experimental mice. Excessive amounts of Sp2 prevented the stem cells from creating normal cell “offspring,” or skin cells. Instead, the stem cells just kept producing more stem cells, which led to tumor formation. (more…)
Researchers at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute and colleagues who successfully transplanted specialized retinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into the eyes of two legally blind patients report that the transplants appear safe and that both patients have experienced modest improvement in their vision.
The preliminary findings, published online Jan. 23 in the journal The Lancet, represent a milestone in the therapeutic use of stem cells and may pave the way for a new therapy to treat eye diseases, the researchers said. Because this is the first time physicians have applied the power of regenerative medicine to eye disease, the clinical trials are being watched closely by scientists, stem-cell therapy advocates and the public. (more…)
Human pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body, rely heavily on glycolysis, or sugar fermentation, to drive their metabolic activities.
In contrast, mature cells in children and adults depend more on cell mitochondria to convert sugar and oxygen into carbon dioxide and water during a high energy–producing process called oxidative phosphorylation. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The difficult task of sorting and counting prized stem cells and their cancer-causing cousins has long frustrated scientists looking for new ways to help people who have progressive diseases.
But in a development likely to delight math teachers, University of Floridaresearchers have devised a series of mathematical steps that accomplishes what the most powerful microscopes, high-throughput screening systems and protein assays have failed to do — assess how rapidly stem cells and their malignant, stemlike alter egos increase their numbers. (more…)
