Stem Cells

Barcelona, Spain — The spinal column is the central supporting structure of the skeleton in all vertebrates. Not only does it provide a place for muscles to attach, it also protects the spinal cord and nerve roots. Defects in its development are known to cause rare hereditary diseases. Researchers from the Ebisuya Group at EMBL Barcelona have […]

Durham, NC — The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, can directly infect a specialized type of kidney cell. The discovery helps explain why acute kidney injury is one of the main complications observed in patients with severe COVID-19, according to biomedical engineers and virologists at Duke University. The research appeared online April 20 in the […]

Singapore — In the fight against cancer, the development of efficacious drugs is only half the battle; equally important is how drugs may be delivered efficiently and safely to the diseased sites in the body. The challenge of drug delivery is especially pertinent for RNA therapeutics which target an important immuno-modulatory receptor, RIG-I. When activated […]

Los Angeles, CA — UCLA scientists and colleagues have created a first-of-its-kind roadmap that traces each step in the development of blood stem cells in the human embryo, providing scientists with a blueprint for producing fully functional blood stem cells in the lab. The research, published today (Apr.13) in the journal Nature, could help expand treatment options for […]

Houston, TX — Houston Methodist researchers have identified the genetic and molecular fingerprints of different cancer and immune cells in glioblastoma, the deadliest and most common type of brain cancer in adults. Their in-depth molecular analysis of over 200,000 single cells revealed a protein, called S100A4, that could be a potential therapeutic target for restoring […]

Sacramento, CA — A clinical trial at UC Davis Health and six other sites showed that a cellular therapy offers promise for patients with late-stage Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a rare genetic disorder causing muscle loss and physical impairments in young people. The therapy appears to be safe and effective in stopping the deterioration of […]

Oberschleißheim, Germany — Adult cells in our body can only give rise to the same cell type. For example, a skin cell cannot give rise to a muscle cell but to skin cells only. This limits the potential use of adult cells for therapy. During early development, however, the cells in the embryo have the […]

Würzburg, Germany — Patients who develop cervical cancer are often infected not only with the human papillomavirus (HPV) but also simultaneously with the bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis. The suspicion is, therefore, that the two pathogens work together in a kind of team to “reprogram” the cells they infect in such a way that they degenerate and […]

Champaign, IL — Embryonic stem cells and other pluripotent cells divide rapidly and have the capacity to become nearly any cell type in the body. Scientists have long sought to understand the signals that prompt stem cells to switch off pluripotency and adopt their final functional state. In a study published in the Proceedings of […]

Chicago, IL — Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago found promising results in their search for a treatment to stop nerve cell degeneration that happens in some types of disorders, such as hereditary spastic paraplegia and Parkinson’s disease, which can cause significant disability. The UIC research, published in the clinical neurology and translational neuroscience […]

Baltimore, MD — A Johns Hopkins Medicine scientist who spent 30 years figuring out how to put chemical labels into cells to track their movement in living tissues has found that certain self-renewing stem cells have built-in tracers — made out of sugars — that can do the job without added chemical “labels” when injected […]

Gauteng, South Africa — Stem cell therapy needs a lot of human cells, of a specific type. Shining a near-infrared laser on adult stem cells derived from human body fat, makes the stem cells replicate 54% faster. Following that up with a green laser, enables the stem cells to transform into different kinds of cells […]