Embryonic
BIO welcomes advances in stem cell researchBiotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President and CEO Jim Greenwood issued the following statement regarding the news that researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute created 20 disease-specific stem cell lines thru the new induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS) technique:
Stem cell therapy may prove valuable in paralysisAn amazing recovery noticed in an Australian Perry Cross who is quadriplegic, after regular injections of embryonic stem cells. Perry Cross was a rugby player and he got the paralysis of all his limbs in 1994 when he was 19 years old. Since then he was on ventilator to breath.
Heart stem cells grow into heart musclesDutch researchers at University Medical Center Utrecht and the Hubrecht Institute have succeeded in growing large numbers of stem cells from adult human hearts into new heart muscle cells. A breakthrough in stem cell research.
Cancer stem cells created with genes techniqueWith a bit of genetic trickery, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have turned normal skin cells into cancer stem cells, a step that will make these naturally rare cells easier to study.
Therapeutic cloning may treat Parkinson's diseaseResearch led by investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) has shown that therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), can be used to treat Parkinson's disease in mice.
Stem cell funding for Parkinson's DiseaseThe Parkinson's Disease Society (PD) has announced funding of £170k to the University of Bristol for research into how to make stem cells produce dopamine and live longer after they have been transplanted into animals.
Stem cells may aid stroke recoveryNeural cells derived from human embryonic stem cells helped repair stroke-related damage in the brains of rats and led to improvements in their physical abilities, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Pancreatic stem cells may cure diabetesJust as many scientists had given up the search, researchers have discovered that the pancreas does indeed harbor stem cells with the capacity to generate new insulin-producing beta cells. If the finding made in adult mice holds for humans, the newfound progenitor cells will represent "an obvious target for therapeutic regeneration of beta cells in diabetes," the researchers report in the Jan. 25 issue of Cell, a publication of Cell Press.
Stem cells may improve muscles in muscular dystrophyUsing embryonic stem cells from mice, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have prompted the growth of healthy - and more importantly, functioning - muscle cells in mice afflicted with a human model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The study represents the first time transplanted embryonic stem cells have been shown to restore function to defective muscles in a model of muscular dystrophy.
Lhx2 creator gene for brain tissue repairUniversity of California, Irvine researchers have identified a gene that is specifically responsible for generating the cerebral cortex, a finding that could lead to stem cell therapies to treat brain injuries and diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer's.
Sickle cell anemia treated with stem cellsMIT researchers have successfully treated mice with sickle-cell anemia in a process that begins by directly reprogramming the mice's own cells to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of eggs.
Living embryonic heart cells prevent cardiac arrhythmiasWhen researchers at Cornell, the University of Bonn and the University of Pittsburgh transplanted living embryonic heart cells into cardiac tissue of mice that had suffered heart attacks, the mice became resistant to cardiac arrhythmias, thereby avoiding one of the most dangerous and fatal consequences of heart attacks.