Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have reversed Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in a mouse model of the disease with injections of neural stem cells. The mice used in this study mimicked the human disease, showing learning and memory defects and accumulating both beta-amyloid plaques and tau protein tangles within the brain, the two hallmark pathologies … Continue reading Neural stem cells reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have pinpointed a protein that is critical for maintaining a stem cell’s full potential to self-renew and to differentiate. Stem cells lacking the protein were impaired in their ability to divide and make identical copies of themselves, called self-renewal. These cells also lost their capacity to differentiate … Continue reading Protein required to maintain full potential of stem cells

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have found genetic differences that distinguish induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from embryonic stem cells. These differences diminish over time, but never disappear entirely. iPS cells are created when adult cells, such as those from the skin, are reprogrammed to look and behave like embryonic stem cells. … Continue reading Genetic differences found between adult cell and embryonic-derived stem cells

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have found that neurons derived from  embryonic stem cells were able to repair some damage in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. In people with MS, the immune system attacks the insulation – called myelin – that covers and protects neurons of the brain and spinal cord. The … Continue reading Embryonic stem cells repair nerve damage from mutiple sclerosis in mice

Researchers at UC, Santa Barbara, have mapped the role of a genetic signal that puts the breaks on the ability of stem cells to self renew. The finding could eventually shed light on self-renewal that has run amuck as in cancer, and can immediately be put to use in managing the balancing act between self-renewal … Continue reading Genetic Brake Key to Stem Cell Fate

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have designed a safer technique for reprogramming adult cells into a state that resembles embryonic stem cells. This method takes advantage of genetic molecules called microRNAs, which regulate the activity of genes. The original 2007 method for creating reprogrammed cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, relied … Continue reading Genetic molecule enables safer method for creating iPS cells

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found a protein that protects the brain from the kind of damage that can lead to Parkinson's disease. This protein, called Nurr1, has a long history in Parkinson's disease research. People who carry a mutation in the gene are … Continue reading Protein protects brain from damage, may prevent neurodegenerative diseases

Researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the Scripps Research Institute have found that a protein known to play an important role in maintaining mouse embryonic stem cells has a similarly crucial job in human embryonic stem cells. This protein, called Shp2, acts as a switch, telling the cells to either divide to … Continue reading Protein Flips Switch In Embryonic Stem Cell Growth

Researchers at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research have developed a new way of quickly maturing embryonic stem cells into neural cells. Other research groups have worked out lab conditions that encourage embryonic stem cells to mature into various types of nerve cells, but those methods were slow and resulted in early stage nerve cells … Continue reading Method Produces Nerve Cells More Quickly

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles have matured induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into what appear to be normal motor neurons. This work shows that iPS cells can mature into cells that appear similar to those derived from human embryonic stem cells – a finding that has important implications for people hoping to … Continue reading iPS Cells Mature into Functional Motor Neurons