…indness, spinal cord and other severe injuries, and new cells for damaged organs. The Sanger Institute research is focused on two main forms: 1. embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from embryos, 2. reprogrammed cells, also known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are reprogrammed from ordinary skin or blood cells. iPS cells were first discovered in 2006. The iPS cells seeme…
…lymphocytic leukemia and infected their T cells with the virus. When they infused the blood back into the patients, the engineered T cells successfully eradicated cancer cells, multiplied to more than 1,000 times in number and survived for months. They even produced dormant “memory” T cells that might spring back to life if the cancer was to return. On average, the team calculat…
…20;transcription factors”. The researchers used a virus to infect skin cells with three transcription factors known to be at high levels in neural precursor cells. After three weeks about one in 10 of the cells became neural precursor cells. Lead researcher Prof. Marius Wernig said: “We are thrilled about the prospects for potential medical use of these cells. “We’ve shown…
…rejected by the body. Cloning bypasses this problem. The technique used – somatic cell nuclear transfer – has been well-known since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned, in 1996. The technique used for human cloning, somatic cell nuclear transfer, has been well-known since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned Skin cells were taken from an adult and the…
May 15 2013 | Posted in
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Read More » …er, the ones they had regenerated less quickly than ordinary mouse stem cells. However, injecting stem cells into 17 day-old mice saw a huge increase in their lifespans – from an average of just 21-28 days to more than 66 days, three times longer than usual. The modified mice given stem cell shots grew almost as large as their healthy counterparts and grew new blood vessels in their brains a…
Researchers have discovered the cells in tumors that seem to be responsible for their re-growth. Three separate studies on mice appear to have confirmed the view that the growth of tumors is driven by so-called cancer stem cells. The researchers claim to have resolved one of the biggest controversies in cancer research and say their work marks a “paradigm shift” in the field. The stud…
…IV from an infected patient. Much HIV research focuses on vaccines or drugs that slow the virus’s progress – but this new technique could offer hope of a “cure”. The study, published April 12 in the journal PLoS Pathogens, demonstrates for the first time that engineering stem cells to form immune cells that target HIV is effective in suppressing the virus in living tissues. “We believe…
Vast numbers of cells that can attack cancer and HIV have been grown in the lab, and could potentially be used to fight disease. The cells naturally occur in small numbers, but it is hoped injecting huge quantities back into a patient could turbo-charge the immune system. The Japanese research is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Experts said the results had exciting potential, but any the…
Israeli scientists say they have managed to turn patients’ own skin cells into healthy heart muscle in the lab. Ultimately they hope this stem cell therapy could be used to treat heart failure patients. As the transplanted cells are from the individual patient this could avoid the problem of tissue rejection, they told the European Heart Journal. Early tests in animals proved promising but…
…plant of gene-modified stem cells.” The researchers said the three patients had all lived longer than the average survival time of 12 months for the cancer. They said one patient was still alive 34 months after treatment. …
Israeli scientists warn that sitting down for too long may give you a big bottom. Not just eating junk food put your bottom at risk – sitting all day in the office is just as likely to broaden your rear. The warning comes from a scientist who usually researches bed sores which can affect those bedridden or in a wheelchair due to paralysis. Israeli scientists warn that sitting down for too long m…
Stem cells made from skin have become “grandparents” after generations of life were created in experiments by scientists in Japan. The cells were used to create eggs, which were fertilized to produce baby mice. These later had their own babies. If the technique could be adapted for people, it could help infertile couples have children and even allow women to overcome the menopause. Bu…
…ted further and possibly used to improve IVF treatment and for women undergoing cancer treatment. A woman has the most oocytes as a foetus, about 7 million, dropping to about one million by birth, and 300,000 by puberty. By menopause, she has none left. Since the 50’s, scientists thought that ovarian stem cells capable of producing new eggs were only active during in the womb as a baby develops. D…
…l parts of the immune system become subverted to the virus’ cause. Macrophages and dendritic cells, which have important roles in orchestrating the immune response, seem to be more resistant. In 2011, researchers identified the protein SAMHD1 as being a critical part of this resistance. Now scientists believe they know how it works. The scientists have shown that SAMHD1 breaks down the build…
…sed on cells taken from bone marrow and improvements have been slight. The Imperial team believes that stem cells from the heart will be much more successful. These cells are extremely rare, with just 300 per million normal heart cells, meaning the lack the power needed to repair the damage wrought by a heart attack. But the scientists have found a way of extracting them from a patient’s own heart…
Sep 24 2012 | Posted in
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…be given with drugs to suppress the immune system. British researchers have shown that a tumor-killing virus can sneak around the body by "hitchhiking" on the back of blood cells A study in 10 people at the University of Leeds and The Institute of Cancer Research, at the Royal Marsden Hospital, showed that the virus could escape the immune system by hiding in the blood. All the patients…
…the university’s school of biological sciences, who led the research, said the discovery could eventually offer a permanent solution for tackling obesity – but it would take up to five or 10 years to translate the findings into humans. “This study has shown that the neural circuitry that controls appetite is not fixed in number and could possibly be manipulated numerically to ta…
Apr 6 2013 | Posted in
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A discovery about how cells die could lead to ways to protect fertility in women having cancer treatment, researchers suggest. Australian scientists found two specific proteins caused the death of early egg cells in the ovaries. Blocking them meant cells survived the effects of radiotherapy, according to the study published in the journal Molecular Cell. The researchers from the Walter and Eliza…
Sep 22 2012 | Posted in
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…nto electrical signals which the brain will understand. This happens deep inside the inner ear where vibrations move tiny hairs and this movement creates an electrical signal. However, in about one in 10 people with profound hearing loss, nerve cells which should pick up the signal are damaged. It is like dropping the baton after the first leg of a relay race. The aim of researchers at the Univers…
Scientists in the US have created a free swimming artificial jellyfish using silicone as a base on which to grow heart muscle cells that were harvested from rats. They used an electric current to shock the Medusoid into swimming with synchronized contractions that mimic those of real jellyfish. The advance, by researchers at Caltech and Harvard University, is reported in the journal Nature Biotec…
…critical role in wound healing and the production of collagen, the main component of connective tissue such as tendons. But chemotherapy causes DNA damage that causes the fibroblasts to produce up to 30 times more of a protein called WNT16B than they should. The protein fuels cancer cells to grow and invade surrounding tissue – and to resist chemotherapy. It was already known that the prote…
…rt’s ability to pump – the left ventricle ejection fraction: the percentage of blood pumped out of the left ventricle. Prof. Anthony Mathur, who is coordinating a stem cell trial involving 3,000 heart attack patients, said that even if the study found an increase in ejection fraction then it would be the source of much debate. He argued that as it was a proof-of-concept study, with a s…
…at the Lund University division of Organic Chemistry recently published their latest research findings in the scientific online journal PLoS ONE. “Prostatic tumors are thought to consist only of about 0.1 per cent cancer stem cells, but if you are not successful in eradicating that tumor cell population, there is a risk of subsequent uncontrolled growth of the tumor. The cancer stem cells are ofte…
…Before he took his life, few people knew that the well-known automotive entrepreneur wrestled with bipolar disorder. “Currently the best treatments for bipolar disorder are only effective for 30 percent to 50 percent of patients,” said Melvin McInnis, M.D., the Thomas B and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professor of Bipolar Disorder and Depression at the University of Michigan Medical School and…
Vitamin B3 could be the new weapon in the fight against resistant bugs such as MRSA, a new research has suggested. US experts found B3, also known as nicotinamide, boosts the ability of immune cells to kill Staphylococcus bacteria. B3 increases the numbers and efficacy of neutrophils, white blood cells that can kill and eat harmful bugs. The study, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could…
