Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Research, USCSometimes what seems like an interesting project, a fun thing to try out, turns out to be a great idea, one that has the power to completely transform the way others see what you do and where you do it. That’s what is happening at the … Continue reading Beautiful by design: turning a stem cell research workplace into a work of art
Author: cirmweb
Perfecting the use of stem cells as drug delivery mules shows promise in brain tumors
Stem cells loaded with cancer-killing herpes virus (red) attacking a brain tumor cell (green). Courtesy HSCIThe innate tendency of stem cells to seek out inflammation—combined with the fact that our bodies see tumors as inflammation—has led many teams to try to harness stem cells as delivery vehicles for cancer therapies. CIRM funds a team at … Continue reading Perfecting the use of stem cells as drug delivery mules shows promise in brain tumors
Scientists Successfully Test Stem Cell Therapy in Monkeys; Generate New Bone
Last week, researchers came that much closer to one day regrowing human bone lost to disease or injury. In the latest issue of the journal Cell Reports, scientists from the National Institutes of Health announced that they have transformed skin cells from rhesus macaque monkeys into new bone—marking the first time such a procedure has … Continue reading Scientists Successfully Test Stem Cell Therapy in Monkeys; Generate New Bone
New Lease on Legs: Stem Cell Treatment Gives Mice with MS-Like Condition Ability to Walk
For a long time, the team of scientists was in shock: in just two weeks they had transformed mice that could not walk—into mice that could. In the latest issue of Stem Cell Reports, available online today, scientists from the University of Utah and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, have reversed the … Continue reading New Lease on Legs: Stem Cell Treatment Gives Mice with MS-Like Condition Ability to Walk
Guest blogger Alan Trounson — April’s stem cell research highlights
Each month CIRM President Alan Trounson gives his perspective on recently published papers he thinks will be valuable in moving the field of stem cell research forward. This month’s report, along with an archive of past reports, is available on the CIRM website. This month’s report includes an important review of studies using bone marrow … Continue reading Guest blogger Alan Trounson — April’s stem cell research highlights
Behind the Bench: One Student’s Mission to Fight Ataxia
Jackie Ward is a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and former CIRM trainee. At UCSD uses stem cells as a model to study rare neurodegenerative diseases in the lab of Albert La Spada. My work as a PhD student focuses on a rare form of inherited neurodegeneration called spinocerebellar ataxia. … Continue reading Behind the Bench: One Student’s Mission to Fight Ataxia
Modeling Heart Disease: This Time on a Chip
Scientists at Harvard University have developed a new way to model congenital heart disease. Though researchers have previously generated heart cells derived from patients in a petri dish, this time scientists did so with groundbreaking ‘organ-on-a-chip’ technology—proving that this new type of technology can replicate a genetic disorder in the lab. The research, which was … Continue reading Modeling Heart Disease: This Time on a Chip
Stem cell stories that caught our eye: young blood, cord blood, and blood cancers
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. Pinning down young blood’s rejuvenating power. A trio of studies in the past week provided more evidence that giving older mice the blood of younger … Continue reading Stem cell stories that caught our eye: young blood, cord blood, and blood cancers
A date in time: a chronological history of stem cells
Stem cell research has advanced so rapidly in the last few years that it’s easy to forget that the field as a whole is still a relatively new one, dating back just a few decades; so the progress that’s being made is all the more remarkable for that.To illustrate how recent this area of research … Continue reading A date in time: a chronological history of stem cells
Pulling the Strings that Reprogram Cells
It was 2012, and the worldwide scientific community was laser focused on two scientists—separated by decades of research but together comprising two halves of a groundbreaking discovery: that mature, adult cells can be ‘reprogrammed’ back into a stem cell, or ‘pluripotent’ state. The scientists, John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, were awarded the Nobel Prize … Continue reading Pulling the Strings that Reprogram Cells
The Stem Cellar 