The start of a new year is the perfect opportunity to turn a new leaf. I myself have embraced 2018 with open arms and decided to join my fellow millennials who live and die by the acronym YOLO.

How am I doing this? Well, so far, I got a new haircut, I started doing squats at the gym, and I’m changing up how we blog on the Stem Cellar!

On Fridays, we always share the stem cell stories that “caught our eye” that week. Usually we pick three stories and write short blogs about each of them. Over time, these mini-blogs have slowly grown in size to the point where sometimes we (and I’m sure our readers) wonder why we’re trying to pass off three blogs as one.

Our time-honored tradition of telling the week’s most exciting stem cell stories on Friday will endure, but we’re going to change up our style and give you a more succinct, and comprehensive roundup of stem cell news that you be on your radar.

To prove that I’m not all talk, I’m starting off our new Roundup today. Actually, you’re reading it right now. But don’t worry, the next one we do won’t have this rambling intro 😉.

So here you go, this week’s eye-catching stem cell stories in brief:

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Gene therapy helps mice with type 1 diabetes – EurekAlert!

A study in Cell Stem Cell found that gene therapy can be used to restore normal blood sugar levels in mice with type 1 diabetes. The scientists used a virus to deliver two genes, PDX1 and MAFA, into non-insulin producing pancreatic cells. The expression of these two proteins, reprogrammed the cells into insulin-producing beta cells that stabilized the blood sugar levels of the mice for 4 months. While the curative effects of the gene therapy weren’t permanent, the scientists noted that the reprogrammed beta cells didn’t trigger an immune response, indicating that the cells acted like normal beta cells. The researchers will next test this treatment in primates and if it works and is safe, they will move onto clinical trials in diabetic patients.

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Alcohol increases cancer risk in mice by damaging stem cell DNA – GenBio

*Fair warning for beer or wine lovers: you might not want to read story.

Cambridge scientists published a study in Nature that suggests a byproduct of alcohol called acetaldehyde is toxic to stem cells. They gave watered-down alcohol to mice lacking an essential enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the liver. They found that the DNA in the blood-forming stem cells of the mice lacking this enzyme were four times more damaged than the DNA of normal mice. Excessive DNA damage creates instability in the genetic material of cells, which, over time, can lead to cancer. While many things can cause cancer, individuals who aren’t able to process alcohol effectively should take this study into consideration.

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Stem cell therapy success for sclerodoma patients – The Niche

For those of you unfamiliar with sclerodoma, it’s an autoimmune disease that can affect the skin, blood vessels, muscle tissue and organs in the body. Rather than recreate the wheel, here’s an overview of this study by UC Davis Professor Paul Knoepfler in his blog called The Niche:

Paul Knoepfler

“A new NIH-funded study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) gives some hope for the use of a combination of a specific type of myeloablation [a form of chemotherapy] and a transplant of hematopoietic stem cells. This approach yields improved long-term outcomes for patients with a severe form of scleroderma called systemic sclerosis. While survival rates for systemic sclerosis have improved it remains a very challenging condition with a significant mortality rate.”

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Phase III stem cell trial for osteoarthritis starts in Japan – EurekAlert!

Scientists in Japan have developed a stem cell-based therapy they hope will help patients with osteoarthritis – a degenerative joint disease that causes the breakdown of cartilage. The therapy consists of donor mesenchymal stem cells from a commercial stem cell bank. The team is now testing this therapy in a Phase III clinical trial to assess the therapy’s safety and effectiveness. As a side note, CIRM recently funded a clinical trial for osteoarthritis run by a company called CALIBR. You can read more about it here.

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Cool Stem Cell Photo of the Week

I’ll leave you with this rad photo of hairy skin made from mouse pluripotent stem cells. You can read about the study that produced these hairy skin organoids here.