At the intersection of stem cell research and the world of Harry Potter you'll find new work by CIRM grantees at Stanford University School of Medicine that can speed the rate of bone healing by three times. It's not quite Skele-gro, but it's close, at least in mice.The research is based on a protein called … Continue reading Protein Aids Bone Healing

Stem cells in fat hold intrigue for scientists because most of us have excess to spare, and the cells seem to be quite versatile. Now a team at Stanford has found a way to transform them into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells without using potentially dangerous viruses to carry the reprogramming genes into the cells.This … Continue reading Virus-free Technique Yields Pluripotent Stem Cells

Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have created excitement and head scratching ever since they were first created a little over two years ago. The excitement arises from their creation through reprogramming adult cells by manipulating their gene function, which does not require a human embryo and could potentially give a patient personalized replacement cells. But … Continue reading Visual Function Rescued in Rats Using Cells derived from iPS Cells

A group at the University of California, Los Angeles AIDS Institute has manipulated human blood-forming stem cells to fight HIV infected cells. The technique could conceivably be used to help the body fight any number of viral infections, the authors say.The researchers started with blood-forming stem cells normally found in the bone marrow. These cells … Continue reading Engineered human stem cells destroy HIV infected cells

The 400th paper published with CIRM funding also marks the five-year anniversary of the first CIRM board meeting (the actual date was December 17, 2004). The paper, by researchers at the Gladstone Institute and the University of California, San Francisco, illustrates how far the field has come in the five years since the organization’s inception, … Continue reading 400th CIRM-funded paper clarifies link between gene variant and Alzheimer’s

Embryonic stem cells stand poised to grow into various tissues, but are held in check by chemical switches that keep the necessary genes turned off. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that genes responsible for limb regeneration – in this case the snipped tail of a zebrafish – are held in a … Continue reading Lever found for switch to re-grow your tail—if you’re a fish

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found that a gene long-known to regulate the lifespan of tiny roundworms also plays a role in regulating neural stem cells in mice. Variations of the gene family, called FoxO, help roundworms live to an unusually ripe old age in the lab, and mutations in the … Continue reading Longevity gene regulates neural stem cells in mice

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found molecular pathways that human muscle stem cells rely on to repair damaged muscle. These pathways are active in younger people but less active in older people, explaining why muscles repair more slowly with age. The group found that younger volunteers had double the number of regenerative … Continue reading Old muscle stem cells experimentally returned to youth

Researchers at UC, San Francisco identified a molecule that regulates differentiation of embryonic stem cells. In some cases, small molecules of the genetic material RNA have the ability to turn genes on and off rather than carrying out the normal RNA function of coding for proteins. These small RNAs, called micro RNA or miRNA, are … Continue reading Genetic Factors Found to Regulate Embryonic Stem Cell Maturation

Researchers at UC, San Francisco found that proteins involved in the generation of neurons early in development also help neural stem cells produce neurons after birth. Furthermore, the researchers identified a self-repair mechanism in the brain that relies on these neural stem cells. Understanding how endogenous neural stem cells repair and remodel a mature brain … Continue reading Neural Stem Cell Repair Mechanism in the Brain Revealed