Last week’s news headlines were dominated by one big story, the use of a stem cell transplant to effectively cure a person of HIV. But there were other stories that, while not quite as striking, did also highlight how the field is advancing.

A new way to boost brain cells (in mice!)

It’s hard to fix something if you don’t really know what’s wrong in the first place. It would be like trying to determine why a car is not working just by looking at the hood and not looking inside at the engine. The human brain is far more complex than a car so trying to determine what’s going wrong is infinitely more challenging. But a new study could help give us a new option.

Researchers in Luxembourg and Germany have developed a new computer model for what’s happening inside the brain, identifying what cells are not operating properly, and fixing them.

Antonio del Sol, one of the lead authors of the study – published in the journal Cell – says their new model allows them to identify which stem cells are active and ready to divide, or dormant. 

“Our results constitute an important step towards the implementation of stem cell-based therapies, for instance for neurodegenerative diseases. We were able to show that, with computational models, it is possible to identify the essential features that are characteristic of a specific state of stem cells.”

The work, done in mice, identified a protein that helped keep brain stem cells inactive in older animals. By blocking this protein they were able to help “wake up” those stem cells so they could divide and proliferate and help regenerate the aging brain.

And if it works in mice it must work in people right? Well, that’s what they hope to see next.

Deeper understanding of fetal development

According to the Mayo Clinic between 10 and 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage (though they admit the real number may be even higher) and our lack of understanding of fetal development makes it hard to understand why. A new study reveals a previously unknown step in this development that could help provide some answers and, hopefully, lead to ways to prevent miscarriages.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden used genetic sequencing to follow the development stages of mice embryos. By sorting those different sequences into a kind of blueprint for what’s happening at every stage of development they were able to identify a previously unknown phase. It’s the time between when the embryo attaches to the uterus and when it begins to turn these embryonic stem cells into identifiable parts of the body.

Lead researcher Qiaolin Deng says this finding provides vital new evidence.

“Being able to follow the differentiation process of every cell is the Holy Grail of developmental biology. Knowledge of the events and factors that govern the development of the early embryo is indispensable for understanding miscarriages and congenital disease. Around three in every 100 babies are born with fetal malformation caused by faulty cellular differentiation.”

The study is published in the journal Cell Reports.

Could a new drug discovery reduce damage from a heart attack?

Every 40 seconds someone in the US has a heart attack. For many it is fatal but even for those who survive it can lead to long-term damage to the heart that ultimately leads to heart failure. Now British researchers think they may have found a way to reduce that likelihood.

Using stem cells to create human heart muscle tissue in the lab, they identified a protein that is activated after a heart attack or when exposed to stress chemicals. They then identified a drug that can block that protein and, when tested in mice that had experienced a heart attack, they found it could reduce damage to the heart muscle by around 60 percent.

Prof Michael Schneider, the lead researcher on the study, published in Cell Stem Cell, said this could be a game changer.

“There are no existing therapies that directly address the problem of muscle cell death and this would be a revolution in the treatment of heart attacks. One reason why many heart drugs have failed in clinical trials may be that they have not been tested in human cells before the clinic. Using both human cells and animals allows us to be more confident about the molecules we take forward.”