Stem Cells Correct Defect In Child’s Fatal Skin Disease

ScienceDaily for June 23, 2008 reported on the use of stem cells to cure a skin disease.

Researchers and clinicians have paved the way toward a cure for a young boy’s genetic and fatal skin disease, recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB), by using a cord blood and bone marrow transplant. Nate Liao, 25 months old from Clarksburg, N.J., underwent the experimental therapy in October 2007, as the result of a research and clinical collaboration between researchers at Columbia University Medical Center in New York and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and physicians at the University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview.

Adult Stem Cell Findings Offer New Hope For Parkinson's Cure

ScienceDaily for June 6, 2008 reported on stem cells and Parkinson disease.

New research provides evidence that a cure for Parkinson's disease could lie just inside the nose of patients themselves.

Pioneering Induction Of Bone Formation Using Embryonic Stem Cells

ScienceDaily for May 17, 2008 reported that

Researchers at the University of Twente break new ground by successfully creating bone tissue “in vivo”, using embryonic stem cells. They imitated bone formation in embryos and children, which uses cartilage as a template. This new approach appears to be a promising way of repairing bone defects.

Stem Cell Researchers Create Heart And Blood Cells From Reprogrammed Skin Cells

NewsDaily for April 30, 2008 reported on further advances in stem cells.

The finding is the first to show that induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which don't involve the use of embryos or eggs, can be differentiated into the three types of cardiovascular cells needed to repair the heart and blood vessels.

Dinosaurs Likely Lacked Tissue To Generate Heat

ScienceDaily for April 27, 2008 reported on the lack of heat-generating tissue in birds and dinosaurs.

A team of researchers at New York Medical College has discovered why birds, unlike mammals, lack a tissue that is specialized to generate heat. A new paper contains the surprising implication that the same lack of heat-generating tissue may have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Heart Derived Stem Cells Develop Into Heart Muscle

ScienceDaily for April 23, 2008 reported that

Dutch 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. Until now, it was necessary to use embryonic stem cells to make this happen.

Sperm From Skin Becoming a Reality?

Science@NOW for April 15, 2008 reported on stem-cell progress towards the artificial creation of human sperm and eggs.

In as little as 5 years, scientists may be able to grow eggs and sperm from ordinary body cells, an international consortium of scientists and ethicists announced in a consensus statement yesterday. The technological advance could be a boon for infertile couples as well as for research on reproduction, providing policymakers don't ban the tools, the group says.

German lawmakers ease limits on stem cell research

NewsDaily for April 11, 2008 reported on German legislation about stem cell research.

Under the bill approved by the Bundestag lower house of parliament, researchers will be allowed to import stem cells created before May 1, 2007, rather than only use cells existing before 2002, as current law prescribed.

Converted Cells Show Promise for Parkinson's

An article in ScienceNOW for April 7, 2008 reported that

A team led by Marius Wernig, a postdoc in the lab of stem cell researcher Rudolf Jaenisch at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge generated iPS cells from mouse tail cells by adding four genes. The researchers then differentiated the cells into neural progenitor cells using the same techniques that guide the differentiation of embryonic stem cells. When the cells were injected into the brains of fetal mice, they developed into several types of brain cells and formed connections in a half-dozen brain regions.

The NewsDaily article is here.

Fetal Cells Used To Treat Parkinson's Disease May Not Function Long Term, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily for April 7, 2008 reported that

The finding suggest that Parkinson’s disease is an ongoing process that can affect cells grafted into the brain in the same way the disease affects host dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain, according to Kordower, who is the lead author of the study and a neuroscientist at Rush University Medical Center.

Stem Cell Breakthrough Offers Diabetes Hope

ScienceDaily for April 4, 2008 reported on stem cells and diabetes.

The University of Manchester team, working with colleagues at the University of Sheffield, were able to genetically manipulate the stem cells so that they produced an important protein known as a 'transcription factor'.

British scientists make human-cow embryos

An article in NewsDaily for April 2, 2008 reported on human-cow embryos.

They said they had hollowed out the egg cells of cattle and inserted human DNA to create a growing embryo. The hope would be to take it apart to get embryonic stem cells.

Stem Cells From Hair Follicles May Help 'Grow' New Blood Vessels

An article in ScienceDaily for March 29, 2008 reported on stem cells obtained from human hair.

For a rich source of stem cells to be engineered into new blood vessels or skin
tissue, clinicians may one day look no further than the hair on their patients'
heads, according to new research published earlier this month by University at
Buffalo engineers.

Therapeutic Cloning Shows Promise for Parkinson's Disease

ScienceNOW for March 24, 2008 reported that

The new study is the first to show that cells from a diseased animal can be used to treat the very same animal. A team led by neuroscientist Lorenz Studer of the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York City gave mice brain lesions to create a Parkinson-like disorder in which function of the neurotransmitter dopamine was destroyed on one side of their brains. The researchers then performed SCNT, transferring the nucleus of a sick mouse's skin cell into a mouse oocyte from which the nucleus had been removed. These modified cells were grown into early embryos, or blastocysts, which were clones of the afflicted mice. Using the approach, the scientists were able to cultivate 187 embryonic stem cell lines from 24 mice. Many of these cells were cultivated into dopamine-producing neurons. The scientists then grafted these neurons into the brains of the original donors.

The ScienceDaily article is here. The NewsDaily article is here.

In Election Year, Stem Cell Question Grows Still Gnarlier

Discover for March 3, 2008 reported on politics and stem cells.

With all due respect to our would-be scientist-in-chief, research in this fast-moving field is likely to smudge, if not erase, the bright line he tried to draw. Take the recent finding announced in January by Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts-based biotech company. ACT scientists modified a diagnostic procedure used in fertility clinics to create the first embryonic stem cell lines without destroying the embryos in the process. “The [stem cell] lines we generated are the real thing. We still don’t know if [the cells created by Thomson and Yamanaka] are going to do all the same things as normal embryo-derived stem cells,” says ACT Chief Scientific Officer Robert Lanza.

Loss Of Stem Cells Correlates With Premature Aging In Animal Study

ScienceDaily for June 8, 2007 reported that

Researchers at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute of the University of Pennsylvania have found that deleting a gene important in embryo development leads to premature aging and loss of stem cell reservoirs in adult mice. This gene, ATR, is essential for the body’s response to damaged DNA, and mutations in proteins in the DNA damage response underlie certain types of cancer and other disorders in humans.

Study may lead to artificial nerves

NewsDaily for December 6, 2007 reported that

Japanese scientists have developed a technique that allows transplanted bone marrow cells containing adult stem cells to help regenerate damaged nerves.

New stem cell trials expected in Scotland

Scientists in Scotland, according to an article in NewsDaily for February 19, 2008, are planning "stem cell therapy trials designed to mend shattered bones and damaged cartilage."

The scientists said their research could have a major impact on treating conditions such as osteoarthritis, as well as treating trauma victims whose bones have been shattered beyond repair.

Stem cells heal massive skull injury

An article in NewsDaily for December 3, 2007 reported that

Using mesenchymal precursor cells isolated from stem cells, the Johns Hopkins University researchers steered them into bone regeneration by using "scaffolds" -- tiny, three-dimensional platforms made from biomaterials.

Scientists Reprogram Human Skin Cells Into Embryonic Stem Cells

Science Live for February 11, 2008 reported that

The researchers genetically altered human skin cells using four regulator genes, according to findings published online in the Feb. 11 edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences.