Like many non-scientists I used to think that sonic hedgehog was a video game. Now I know better thanks to a fascinating study by researchers at Stanford and UC San Francisco. The researchers were trying to understand how developing cells of the embryo communicate with each other. So they put a fluorescent chemical tag onto … Continue reading Reach Out and Touch Someone: How cells communicate with each other

The stem cell news is a-buzz today with the story of a young girl who received a synthetic windpipe seeded with her own stem cells. She was born without a functioning windpipe and has lived her 2 1/2 years in intensive care.She's not the first to receive such a transplant, but she is the youngest … Continue reading A stem cell-seeded windpipe for a young girl: more to come from tissue engineering

We mentioned last week that the White House had once again hosted the finalists of a national science fair. Today Alex Howard has a piece on the O'Reilly Radar, in which he wrote:In a world where championship sports teams are idolized and superstar athletes are feted by the media, it was gratifying to see science, … Continue reading “Adult scientists are just kids who never grew up”

We mentioned last week that the White House had once again hosted the finalists of a national science fair. Today Alex Howard has a piece on the O'Reilly Radar, in which he wrote:In a world where championship sports teams are idolized and superstar athletes are feted by the media, it was gratifying to see science, … Continue reading “Adult scientists are just kids who never grew up"

The local high school sent its full cheerleading squad to cheer on the Huntington’s disease advocates at the beginning of the walk and, here, to congratulate them as they finished the circuit. Patients with Huntington’s Disease, their families and friends, and families and friends of patients who had already lost the battle with the deadly … Continue reading Huntington’s community rallies in Irvine, celebrates a scientific anniversary

Here are some stem cell stories that caught our eye this past week. Some are groundbreaking science, others are of personal interest to us, and still others are just fun. Stem cells isolated from blood of breast cancer patients. While most researchers accept the concept of cancer stem cells in blood cancers, some still question … Continue reading Stem cell Stories that caught our eye: type 2 diabetes therapy, potential HIV cure, and efforts to train the next generation

When the University of California, Irvine put the construction of its stem cell building out to bid the recession had hit. The bids were low enough they had funds to add an extra floor. This added a bonus for the taxpayers of California who had funded $27 million toward the building through CIRM. The stem … Continue reading Art event merges serious science, passion and whimsy at UC Irvine @uci

(Image from Smithsonian.com)I can almost hear the TV host shouting, “Is that your final answer?”Okay, maybe it’s no high-stakes game show but a new Smithsonian magazine/Pew Research Center survey that quizzes Americans on their science literacy and their thoughts about education in the U.S. awards us with some insights about our perceptions of the nation’s … Continue reading Are you a science whiz? This quiz suggests Americans are better than they think

This image shows proteins on the HIV virus binding receptors on the T cell (source: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Health) Doctors in Minnesota have performed a blood-forming stem cell transplant on a 12 year-old boy with both leukemia and HIV infection that could treat both the cancer and the infection … Continue reading Minnesota boy receives transplant that could treat both leukemia and HIV infection

Today Harvard's stem cell scientists announced finding a hormone that could lead to a therapy for type 2 diabetes (we blogged about that here). That's big news for the 26 million people in the U.S. with the disease.The question I've heard is how this relates to the stem cell agency's investment in a type 1 … Continue reading Diabetes demystified: the role of stem cells in finding treatments